In a bid to keep up with Mr S, I’ve started spinning classes. They seem to have worked - to a certain extent. Either that or Mr S has realised I respond well to positive comments and has started telling me that I’m doing better, just to make me do better!

Friday morning (first day of our weekend here) saw us rise and shine a little later than planned and head off to the desert for a little trip with Beejo and Mr S’s sooperdooper-sooperlight-brought-over-from-France equivalent. Mr S was out to take it easy - that’s why he was cycling with me (or me with him) - after cycling to the Red Sea coast last weekend).

After an hour or so, we rounded a corner near the end of the wadi (valley/canyon) and saw a bike with no rider. A second later a woman popped up from the ground. Not seeming overly concerned, she called to us and we went over to her.

Now seeing a woman lying on the ground near a bike would be strange anywhere, but 8km into the desert was a little alarming. Emergency rescue options were circling in my head: immobilising her could prove difficult, our first aid kit was at home and we didn’t have much to offer her in the way of shade. On top of that, getting mobile phone coverage would require climbing out of the gorge, dangerous in itself. There were other cars in the canyon, but how far away they were and how long it would take to get to them over rocky ground I couldn’t quite figure out.

As we approached, she started walking back to her bike.

“Ok,” I thought, “Walking wounded, much easier to deal with here.”

“Hi!,” she said, “I’ve got a flat. Could you help? I stopped to take pictures and I think some kids let the air out.”

I hadn’t remembered seeing any Egyptian Hoodies running around the place, but then you never can tell. Mr S took the wheel off and inspected it. For about a nanosecond.

“Here. There are two large stones stuck in.” Tone of his voice: not impressed.

Now, here we are stuck at the end of a canyon with a woman who clearly didn’t bother checking her tyre properly before lying down and doing nothing and Mr S gets lumped with fixing it.

And Mr S is cycling. And cycling is sacred for Mr S (even if it’s slowly).

It wasn’t the best time to pretend to be a defenseless, helpless woman, stuck all alone in the dangerous desert (pout, pout, flutter eyelashes, cute smile).

It was even worse to then imply that what he (Supercyclist) was doing, wasn’t very good, and that she could do it better.

Not smart.

However, Supercyclist did fix her punctures.

I think I would have been tempted to not point out the second one….

Image is from near the end of the canyon after climbing up the sides.