No, this isn’t some cheap attempt at temporarily upping my viewer stats.

Summer is whacking Cairo now. Usually we wait until mid June, early July for days in the 40C range, but this year the onslaught began early May. One Summer ritual which remains constant though is the influx of Gulfies (Saudis and Emeraties) from their baking countries. Imagine, coming to Cairo mid Summer to escape the heat!

To satisfy the invasion of walking Dinars and Riyals, advertising and entertainment lucratively turns due East. Tastes are a little different to what Egyptian’s deem attractive and are immediately identifiable. Even belly dancing has its own style in the Gulf (lots of Heavy- Metal-type-long-hair circular-head-banging — sans greasy hair!).

I’ll keep sharing as long as I can. (Ooooh, don’t say I don’t spoil you!).

PS Cherry Tart - cos I’m making another as I type.

Well, it seemed like a bit of a joke at the time, but with 12 hours of thunderstorms and a raging headache I can safely say that it is very, very real: rain in Egypt. In fairness, I have seen heavy rain here before, but not for as long as this and not with seemingly neverending thunderstorms.

Oh, yesterday’s romantic notions of sweet smelling air.. Perhaps the air was, but nestled under my bed covers, trying to protect my ears from the abuse that is a car alarm set off in the middle of the night, air, sweet or otherwise, was not at the forefront of my thoughts. Peels of thunder so strong that alarm after alarm was set off, was a further insult to my attempt to sleep.

Then the damage we woke up to this morning. Not much in the overall scale of things, but yuck!

(Indoor floor should be shiny and grey speckled, rug should be dry and outdoors should be, well, the colour it is under the dirt!)

If there is any doubt left that rainwater here is anything other than clear, check this out:

But, how green are those trees!!

For about a minute there was a funny noise that I couldn’t place. I couldn’t see anything. A minute later I saw this:

and then after jumping around like an over excited kid for another minute, there was this:

Rain in Egypt is amazing. The smell in the air is incredible. The raindrops are fat and heavy and after they subside the air is crystal clear. The downside is that all the dirt that is rained out of the air, lands on whoever/whatever it first comes into contact with.

In my case, I now need a shower, of the bathroom variety.

Perhaps I should amend the previous post: we now have thunder and lightning.

No signs of rain yet though.

This is not intended to make anybody jealous, but today, Tuesday 16 October is the first day of Autumn in Cairo. How can I say that? Well, apart from the relatively cool temperature of 20C (relatively for Cairo that is, Scotland can just dream) looking out of one window all I could see was grey sky. Looking out another, I saw the tide of greyness eat the sun.

Of course, it will probably be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, how strange everything looks without brilliant sunlight.

Despite the clouds, there is not much chance of rain, but it would be nice to wash the months of dirt and dust off the trees, just to see them sparkle before the build up begins again.

And to smell the air washed clean of its dirt/dust/pollution mix.

Back in the oven. I’m not kidding. Two weeks of sun shining on our extensive stone floor has left it emitting heat. If it was snowy outside, I’d be happy to arrive to underfloor heating, but when it’s 37C outside, it’s really not such a welcome feature.

I’ve been a bit shocked to see just how green the grass in the gardens around here is. It is exactly the same green as the grass in an area of France that had rain every day for about two months with not much sun outside the rainy spells. This is one of Egypt’s hottest summers for years. Someone come and make desert gardens fashionable. Please.

A man came running past us last night on the busy corniche as we neared the felucca moorings. “Oh look!”, said one of our guests, “He’s wanting to get our trade before the others do!”, which, upon spotting a group of Americans (regulation trainers), including some girls in skirts that would be way, way too short even in Newcastle on a Saturday night, getting out of a convoy of taxis, was quickly followed by, “Oh, it seems he spotted them way before us!”

It was our guests’ last evening and Mr S had some colleagues visiting the office from overseas who he needed to entertain. Given the Nile’s tranquil waters being respite from a busy office and a great setting for the last dip of the sun of someone’s stay, we decided a felucca trip would be the best outing.

The running man must have seriously upset someone, probably before we were anywhere near, because an almighty fight broke out. We slithered past and descended the steps to the river edge, just to make sure it didn’t end up involving us. The work colleagues were arriving separately, so managed not to be there for the start, but had to pick their way through men wielding chairs and belts and screaming unintelligible insults amongst older turbaned men trying, bravely, to brake it up.

Safely on board we breathed a sigh of relief as we left the mooring.

Drinks started flowing, food was brought out, laughter filled the air and the gigantic red ball of sun set behind the palm trees.

Darkness soon fell and the lights of the restaurants and river side clubs sparkled on the water.

Our ‘Kaptaan’ regaled us with stories of his days teaching windsurfing on the Nile to Egypt’s elite and the sail fluttered in the breeze.

Mr S pointed to a section of the bank that was brightly lit and said, nonchalantly, “That’s where they clay pigeon shoot from.”

It was around that moment that all six of us realised that not only were the floodlights on for a reason, but we were at the edge of the light and heading towards them.

“Tell him to move!” Mr S shouted urgently at me. “No! No! Move!” he wildly gesticulated and shouted the the Kaptaan.

“It’s ok!” said the Kaptaan laughing, “it’s the Maadi Club!”

The next moment we heard the crack of a gunshot.

“Please just move away from here, we’re afraid” I said to the Kaptaan.

“Don’t worry,” he replied, as he continued skippering straight towards the shooting range, “They shoot in the air.”

By this time we had all slipped down low in our seats and were leaning sideways in an attempt to duck as the bullets flew somewhere over our heads, sure the shooting would stop, as bathed in about 20 floodlights, nobody could fail to see us heading along the range. I think it was around this time too that Mr S fully realised the difficulty of explaining to the higher powers that staff members had been involved in a shooting incident while visiting the Cairo office.

“Move! Get out the way! Mooooove!” we all yelled as our Kaptaan smiled and took us further into the danger zone.

“That’s it!” shouted Mr S, “NO TIP!”

It was then that a miracle took place: Kaptaan suddenly had full control of the felucca and promptly returned us to safe waters.

At the risk of this blog being renamed Egyptian Lingerie, I have to share a few more delights. First up we have an interesting specimen. Lingerie goes through fashions here like everywhere else, picking up on lifestyle trends. A great number of women have become veiled here in the past six years. Along with that often goes wearing baggy, long robes, in Egypt called galabeyas. There are many variations on the theme, some short, worn with baggy trousers, some with fluted sleeves and almost all with sequins or embroidery and it seems to be catching on in the bedroom:

Orange was the colour to be seen in last year in day wear and seems bedroom-wear is following suit this year. One of the delights of the sexy little number on the left is the extra sheer section in the top. B-e-a-u-tiful. This getup is so synthetic that walking in it may cause sparks, of the flammable variety.

Lime green has, to my eyes, had an odd following over the past few years. Some way or another it always makes an appearance. Gaudy by day, gaudy by night it’s here this year. The number below is belly dance-esque. The black scarf in the mannequin’s hand is used to tie around the hips. I think the suggestion of this marketing device is that you can be sexy like a belly dancer in this négligé.

This too is a take on a belly dance theme, although a step more removed. I can’t imagine what the designer was thinking. It reminds me a little of those plastic shiny wigs that were around in the 80’s in a vague mullet style. No idea why.

As always, the best is for last. I think this should be called OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Sisyphus didn’t push a rock up a hill. He was cleaning in Cairo. I cleaned the floors the day before yesterday at about noon and this morning my feet were dusty again as soon as I stepped out of bed. And that is without opening the windows in a day and a half, specifically to avoid the dust.

In what seemed nothing short of a miracle after the past couple of days, I arrived in The Mogama’a, reached Window Number Four with no problem and my passport was sitting waiting to be collected.

Walking on air at the thought of beating the system and not having to return to the building for a whole, entire year, I was struck by a fleeting notion that I was too happy and that this was too good to be true. I thought I’d better check that the stamp was there. Rumaging in my bag, I pulled out my newly reclaimed little book and yes, sure enough the stamp was there. I closed the passport. Then I thought I’d better check that it is valid for seven entries, as that was what I’d asked for. Cue the defeated smile. In too much of a rush to leave yesterday, I didn’t bother turning over the form to read the Arabic and check the two read the same. My mistake then that I entered the number seven onto the line marked “How many times?”. It should have read either “How much time?” or “How many months?”.

Yep, I have a year’s multiple entry visa that expires in July with the multiple entries expiring in January.