Poor old Beejo has been feeling pretty neglected. Stuck in the corner, tyres beginning to deflate and big soft handle bars looking expectantly at me with puppy dog eyes every time I enter the room. Unfortunately, due to a strange, persistent and painful knee problem (that only occurs when I’m cycling uphill), Beejo’s sorry state is somewhat justified.

Today, while chatting with friends, I got a call from my physio.
“Hello.” he said.
“Hello.” I replied.
“You have an appointment now.”
“No, my appointment is not for another hour.” I said confidently. Unfortunately too confidently, as I was wrong.
“If you can come over immediately, there will be enough time because my next client is always late.”
“I’m on my way.”

Cue a major rush, not least because if I didn’t find my shorts, I would have been treated in my underwear - not something I relished. Shorts located I rushed out, got in the elevator and headed down. All this in about 30 secs. It was at exactly that moment that I realised Beejo could be a saviour at this point, so I headed back up.

Purring along the streets, Beejo was happy to be out, enjoying one of the nicest days of the year so far.

It wasn’t until we passed the first policeman (of about twenty on the route) that I remembered that I wasn’t wearing the best ensemble for cycling. A female cycling is an uncommon-enough sight in Egypt, even the Hood, but blonde hair blowing in the wind kind of helps attract a little more attention. Then there was the matter of footwear: flip flops. The only people who wear them out in Egypt are people who can’t afford proper shoes: strange on a foreigner. Coincidentally the only people who cycle anywhere are delivery boys, and it was a pretty odd picture. Add to that a striking green t-shirt with a massive V-neck and I suddenly found myself sitting pretty erect, fingertips barely touching the handle bars and pedaling as fast as possible.

“Oo’a! Oo’a! Oo’a! El agnabeya!” (Watch out, watch out, there’s a foreigner coming behind you!) yelled one man walking down the street to another in front of me.

As luck would have it, part of the road en route is being dug up, so in addition to the policemen, there were about ten workmen, never mind the 15 bowabs sitting relaxing mid-afternoon.

Cries of “Ya mozza!” (hey chick) and “Eh el halewa di!” (what is this beauty - rather literal, can’t remember what people say in countries where workmen have been banned from making comments) were accompanied by a cacophony of wolf-whistles.

Had I not been in such a rush, I would have minded, however, it was kind of my fault anyway (well, I was ‘teasing’ them..*). Anyway, on the flip side, at least I brightened up some people’s day, even if it was only to give them something to laugh at!

*That cliched argument of ’she was dressed like a tart so she deserved it’ hasn’t been disputed here yet.

Last week I went on my first outing of 2008 with Beejo. Beejo is in great shape, but is suffering from a lack of expeditions due to his rider experiencing strange knee problems.

We set off with Mr S and within three minutes the argument-inducing complaints had begun: my knee hurts, the sun’s too hot, you go on ahead. Mr S was determined to ride the beginning with me. Ironically, it was the hardest part (due to knee not liking hills). Eventually, after the hills had finished, Mr S (read: Superfitcyclist) sped off in search of steeper gradients, while I looked for a bit of hill-circumnavigation.

The light was wonderful, the air was clean (well, clean-sih, kind of like central London in rush-hour, rather than Cairo’s norm) and I found a small valley that looked interesting. This had been the scene of a spectacular problem before, but I decided to be brave and venture in.

It’s a little difficult to fully imagine what the hills are like unless you’ve been on them, but basically they are compacted soft stones and sand. This means they are rather crumbly and with steep sides, one wrong foot placement can prove hazardous.

I spotted a path on the hillside and Beejo and I rode in. The narrow, rocky path proved too challenging (not for Beejo, he was doing rather well in fact) so I moved from mountain biking to mountain bike pushing to mountain bike carrying to pushing and back to carrying. All interspersed with a moderation of huffing and puffing.

Pushing and carrying continued with a bit of slipping and sliding for good measure. In the end, the steepness and crumbly sides won and Beejo had to be left waiting while I sprinted (well, it was at the beginning of January - resolutions and all that) to the summit.

This is the view from the summit of my dusty hill. The valley does flood when it rains - apparently, as there are clear traces of water in the sand - but I’ve never seen it. If you click on the picture you can just make out Moqattam (district of Cairo) in the background.

Click on the image to see details - it is large.

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.

Ok, so I`m feeling a bit smug. I have a belly full of beautiful barbequed beef with a fine burgundy, beans fresh from the garden, local cheeses and freshly made tart with plums straight from the tree. Yummy.

On the not-so-smug-side I had a hacking smoker`s cough this morning after yesterday`s 15 km hike followed by a 20km cycle, 12km of which was up a (gradual) hill. Seems clean air was a bit too much for my polluted lungs.

But hey, no sleazy looks or comments for over 24 hours, most of which was not spent indoors!

Mr S (back to Supercyclist again) and I are going to France and Switzerland in August. A breath of fresh air after Cairo and my lungs are jubilant at their upcoming convalescence. We are going to stay with the parents of Mr S in the countryside somewhere near Lyon and go cycling. Should all be fun and games - surely cycling on French asphalt is easier than Egyptian desert? Visions of pedalling underneath old green trees, past white cows grazing on luscious grass, stopping for a picnic next to a babbling Lyonnaise brook with singing birds overhead soothe my dehydrated psyche. Kind of like a Sound of Music moment but without the kids and in another country.

Am beginning to get concerned about the weather situation. I feel two options are in the air: either Cairo-esque heat or Scotland-esque rain. Neither peddling through lashing rain nor sweating my behind off have a place in my vision of lush tranquility. Fear not, however, I do have a Plan B. Lyon and Switzerland both have what I love. Insteadi (read The-All-Time-Biggest-Ever-Lover-of-Chocolate) shall, in this obesity-conscious era, spend two weeks in heaven gorging on chocolate.

If Mr S doesn’t like the idea of his girlfriend getting fat, then he’ll just have to agree to get a fluffy wuffy and puppy to keep me busy when I get back.

I have a feeling I might see him kneeling beside his bed, hands clasped deep in prayer every night before bed just to make sure the weather is good.

Have spent all week writing for work and am out of words. Here’s a pic from yesterday’s cycle ride. Pyramids not visible because of haze (otherwise known as smog).

Beejo didn’t get its outing yesterday, as I was a bit wrecked from dancing all night at a super cool white party. Today we were back on track. At nine this morning we were back at the wadi. The plan was to go along the bottom and then take a track up to the plateau after a few km into the wadi. It was so hot, I thought I was about to collapse. Mr S (which stands for Super as in Supercyclist) told me it’s all in the mind and we should go a bit faster because there was a stray dog trotting along behind me. Had I had some energy that could be diverted away from focusing on not fainting, I would have probably said something I regretted.

After sorting out the over-heating problems (took off my cute pink bandana, no time for being cute in the desert it seems) Beejo was able to pick up some speed and I think Mr S thought my new attitude was cuter than the pink bandana had been. Still, it wasn’t getting any cooler.

We had to push the bikes up the hill to the plateau because it was too steep - for me anyway (see pic, we came from the bottom to the top) - to cycle up. Back up the top the breeze picked up and so did the speed. I managed my first, albeit unintentional, jump since I was a kid. Way too much fun. In fact, Supercyclist was a little concerned that I was going a bit too fast! Too fast?!! There’s no such thing..until I fall off. As for now, Beejo is happy, and so am I.

Definitely think that evening cycling is better though: temperature was 35C when we got back to the car.

Yesterday was the big outing: Beejo and I in the desert. It nearly didn’t happen. Disaster struck as Beejo was about to be put into the car and Mr S suddenly noticed it had a flat. I guess quality control wasn’t an issue for the tyres either - they looked fine, so they must be… Luckily we happened to have a friend’s bike upstairs, so we borrowed one of its wheels and off we set.

We arrived about 6.30 so weather had cooled substantially from the afternoon’s relatively cool-for-recently 34.

After the initial hill, things evened out somewhat and all we had to do was follow Mr S. Mr S, being the super cyclist and generally fit guy that he is, was on a bike that urgently needs a gear transplant and still had to keep his speed down in order for Beejo and I to keep up.

The desert at this part, just outside Cairo, consists of soft, orangey, crumbly rock. Beejo discovered that over time this rock has become sandy in places - providing tough cycling for the novice who strays a little off path.

Nevertheless, a great wee adventure, which ended with a view of sunset over Cairo for almost the entire return journey, made all the more enjoyable by being downhill!

After a little R&R and a bit of a clean to remove desert dust, Beejo will be ready for our next outing, hopefully this afternoon.

A disadvantage of working from home can be the lack of contact with people. However, as I discovered this morning, a new advantage, admittedly second to not having to deal with office politics, is Beejo riding for breaks. Instead of walking over to the photocopier, I can just jump on and cycle around the living room. Fantastic. Can even practice little bunny hops over the sliding door rail onto the balcony.

Anyway, here’s the Beejo. It did need some pretty intense adjustments last night by Mr S, the expert mountain biker. Seems it didn’t make it through quality control. Oh, hang on. Quality control? What’s that?

Maintenance complete, Black Beejo is now purring happily and excited about its first desert outing.

We have a fairly large and long balcony. At one end are French windows opening from the living area at at the other end a door from the guest bathroom. I figured out this evening that I can cycle in a big circle through the house and balcony. Cycling in the house! This is the ultimate in breaking childhood rules (apart, perhaps, from playing football indoors) - and boy is it fun!