Those passports Eloïse and I picked up the other day weren’t just for the sake of having current documentation, of course.
Sarah has been busy planning our latest trip. We leave tomorrow afternoon for three weeks in Egypt.
This journey will see us spend a number of nights camping in the desert, another few nights on a boat as it makes its way down the Nile, and, of course, a few more nights in more traditional hotel accommodation.
There’s a great deal to see and only three weeks in which to see it in. There’s no way we can hope to see all of a country as big as Egypt in that time, so we’ve been forced to make a few hard choices. Nevertheless, we’re going to see plenty and it’s going to be very exciting; and warm, which is nothing to be taken for granted, I can tell you. We’ve had the mother of all winters here this year and it hasn’t ended yet.
The timing of the trip is good, coming right at the end of a period of sickness for the whole family. I came down with the bug after the rest of the family, so I’ve been struggling these last couple of days and keeping my fingers crossed that I’d be fit for Wednesday’s flight. When I awoke this morning, I could have shat through the eye of a needle without touching the sides, as my grandmother used to say. The prospect of facing the post-meal queue for the toilet on the aeroplane tomorrow was enough to fill me with anticipatory murderous rage.
Happily, though, the gastric storm seems to have blown over and the severely pebbledashed toilets have been scraped clean. Even better, the hospital has given me the all-clear for travel after inspecting the incisions made during last month’s operation. Everything has healed amazingly well and the prosthesis they inserted is doing its job.
My weight is also at a post-April 2009 low again. I’ve repaired the damage done by Xmas in the US and ironed out the blip incurred by not being able to exercise in the post-operative recovery period, but progress has been slow and somewhat frustrating. Nonetheless, I’ll be entering Egypt tipping the scales at a very pleasing 77 kg and hoping, not altogether realistically, to maintain that while we’re there. We’ll see how effectively I can limit the damage.
It’s going to be three weeks of manifold impressions in a society that we’re unlikely to mistake for the home country. Internet access will be sporadic (and obviously non-existent while we’re traversing the desert), but I’ll blog if the opportunity arises.