It started off with atayef. Little folded pancakes stuffed with nuts or a nuts and raisin mix, soaked in honey and deep fried. Crispy, crunchy sweet little pancakes that only appear during Ramadan. For a brief moment after the bite, before teeth hit the honey soaked nuts, sweet honey oozes from the pancake. Heaven.

Last night came atayef bil ishta.

Sweet, sweet seventh heaven.

A little folded pancake of Egyptian-style Turkish delight stuffed with cream and liberally doused in icing sugar. Soft, creamy, gooey and ever so sweet…

Thank goodness they only appear once a year.

The month of Ramadan is coming to an end for another Hijri year - Saturday is expected to be the first day for Eid.

The month is the busiest time of the year for the marketing man. Not only is there the daily feast, but the tradition of buying new clothes for Eid. As if that wasn’t enough, weddings do not happen during the month, so caterers’ pockets can expect to get that bit heavier afterwards. Then there are the white goods to buy as couples move into their first home post-nuptials… a busy time. And most definitely, an expensive time.

For some reason Pepsi did not see the need to change packaging for the month, so no more offerings from the soft drinks department. Coca Cola’s touch is some fine gold scrolls and the starry, halal (crescent) moon, the symbol of the month (and the religion).

I met a taxi driver today who was already worrying about what will happen next year. Ramadan in 2008 is due to start in early September, when the weather is still in the 40s…

I guess the AC marketing man will be busy.

Living in different parts of the world always highlights the importance of certain foods, drinks, systems and customs of our own culture that we paid virtually no attention to before we left. Sometimes we don’t even notice them until we pay a visit back home.

For me, arrival in Scotland provokes a craving for fish and chips. I rarely ate fish and chips when I lived there, but the minute the plane touches down, or the train passes the border, I start salivating for the salty, greasy, brown-saucy (Burg-stylee), soggy and crispy packet.*

And of course, Irn Bru.

There are some items that have become increasingly more available since I came here the first time: Heinz Ketchup, soy sauce, Lindt are but a few of the more commonly found imported products in supermarkets these days, catering to more cosmopolitan Egyptian taste buds.

But there are some things that are virtually impossible to find and when you do, bulk buying is essential. Of course, that’s what everyone else thinks, so if you don’t get in there fast, there can be a long wait until the next consignment arrives. In turn, that makes the stocking up all the more important.

One of these goodies is, wait for it…Tampax. Not just Tampax, but any brand of tampon. Egyptian women do not like them, so demand is sparse. The thinking goes, that if an unmarried girl/woman uses them, she will ‘devirginise’ herself, thus making her future husband, and his family, depending on social level, suspect she isn’t as ‘good’ as she says she is (which in certain cases could have tragic consequences). As there is not a culture of girls doing serious sport, if any, once puberty is reached anyway, there is less call. Many of the few girls who do swim, just don’t at certain times. By the time the girl is married, the concept of tampons is abhorrent.

I have discussed this issue a number of times with some (male) doctor friends, who have all said something along the lines of, “Well, she isn’t a virgin if she uses tampons. It just depends on whether you want to marry a virgin or not.”

Cross cultural discussion is a blog unto itself, but the key is that just because two people speak the same language and appear to agree, doesn’t actually mean they agree at all: it’s the concepts, not the words, that are important. Most people in the ‘West’ would consider a 14 year old girl who has not had sex a virgin, regardless of what she used during menstruation. Not so here.

So, it was with great delight, that after four months of searching shops, I finally managed to do some stocking up today.

*I still miss the newspaper.

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!

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.

I absolutely love the carbon footprint concept. I’m not exactly sure why, maybe it’s to do with not leaving a mess behind (something my Mother was always trying to instill in me, which I solved by finding Mr S - read Super Tidy), or perhaps it’s the control freak side of me that is tickled by the idea that I can even be in control of what destruction I decide to leave in my wake. So, it was with great delight that I embarked on my first Eurostar trip last week.

Of course, in order to get to Paris in the first place I had to fly there. Negative points for me. Before that we had to drive to the airport. A few more negative points. The day before that, as with every day, Mr S had to drive home from work. Negative points. But I work from home, so perhaps that equals his negative points? We do buy locally grown fruit and veg. A couple of pluses there. The locally grown fruit and veg are transported in vans. Does that bring us down more points? Sometimes I buy fruit from a donkey cart. Yes, that brings me up, surely, very green transport.

The sports we enjoy (cycling, diving, windsurfing, gym, running) all leave us smug at our environmental friendliness, however, to get to all of them requires driving, especially the water sports, which take between 3-7 hours driving each way. Ooops. Lots of negative points for that then.

Then there’s electricity. A bit of a disaster really. Summer means AC and winter means heating via the AC units. Hmm. I dread to think where that takes us. Is this the right time to admit to leaving the AC on in our bedroom on really hot days (the majority) so that the wine in our “cellar” there doesn’t go bad?

Ok, it’s pretty bad. Perhaps I can add in here that if we could have solar power for the household electricity we definitely would (nearly impossible to find here and it’s not our place so we can’t go changing the electricity anyway!). Perhaps too I could add that were we to build/refurbish an apartment we would definitely make sure it was insulated, despite what is normal locally, so that we didn’t need too much heat or AC in order to keep the place warm or cool. So, if actions are by intentions, as is the case in the dominant religion here, perhaps we’re actually doing ok.

Of course, we could always look at other ways to offset our footprint. Eureka! Here’s an idea. There are lots of people who are looking for extra ways to make money. We could pay someone, hell, why not an entire building, to not use AC throughout the summer. We can then be comfortable knowing that we’re reducing our footprint and providing income to families who want a bit extra. Two birds with one stone. Great.

Something seems a bit wrong though. Would that mean that we are reducing our footprint, or would it mean that the non-AC users are reducing their footprint and getting paid to on top of it? Hmm. Kind of reminds me of big business tactics. Can’t imagine why.

Being a bit anally retentive about eating pith I tend to avoid oranges unless I can cut all the pith off and scoop each individual segment out from it’s casing. Feeling like a bit of vitamin C after a pathetic gym trip this morning, out came the knife and off went the pith at lunch today.

So what, huh? What a boring thing to write about. Ordinarily I would agree, but you didn’t see this orange. It was so juicy it was a ball of oozing orange liquid! It seems Egypt’s orange season is in full swing.