Photography Club

 

I have volunteered to help one of the Arabic teachers run the photography club at school . I was motivated by the fact every member of staff has to be involved in an extra curricular activity and I needed something I could tag along with. Anyway he takes them on trips with their cameras and our first trip was Sunday 9th to the Khan el Khalili. Because he knew the area we took pictures of the bazar and moved onto the historic buildings in the same area.

It was an interesting time and I found this tile pattern that I’ve forwarded to David Bailey'.

Maddy is 15

 

October 2nd was Maddison’s 15th birthday. We tried to get 15 candles into her life in strange and wonderful ways.

 

! didn’t quite manage it but we had a laugh! Her present is coming from the UK with her Nan when she comes to visit next month. Because there is so little here that Maddy wanted (a cars pencil case) we went away for the weekend to Ain Soukhna where she goes with her friends.

Geoff’s school have a special deal with Stella Di Mare, one of the hotels there in a walled compound. It has 2 other hotels in the same compound and a large number of private villas. The Stella Di Are was the golfing hotel of the three. The room came with robes for all 4 (Louisa came too) of us and a fruit basket, some nice toiletries and a balcony. The food was included breakfast and dinner and was an amazing buffet. Maddy had chocolate cereal with chocolate sauce one morning.

We didn’t take the golfing option but took tickets to the Spa at one of the partner hotels with a private beach.

we spent quite a bit of time in the hydro spa and then went to the beach 25 m away. Sun worshipping is boring! I can’t see why people do it. The Red Sea was beautifully clear and we could see ships waiting to travel up to the Suez Canal.

 

Geoff and I returned the following morning to the spa for an hour then we returned to Cairo rather burnt. I’d forgotten the pollution and dust saves you from burning in Cairo but at Soukhna the sea breezes blow all that away.

Mysterious Man named

 

The email about the pavement photo did indeed come from David Bailey, a tessellation fanatic in Grimsby of all places. (Hull, where we ‘live’, is just across the Humber from Grimsby). We have exchanged a number of emails now, the upshot of it all being I have tried to enlist the help of the students at school to find the tessellation in a number of locations and asked a tour guide to help out with the questions. David would like me to measure the tessellation as well. Thursday is a public holiday (Army Day) so I will try and get it done then. Eventually he will write a paper on it for one of the mathematical journals!

As part or her English homework Maddy had to design a web page . . . . . When I showed her a site for writing your own free web site on she has got a little carried away and has spent a lot of time working on something for her favourite game, Dragon Age’. Eventually she will publish it so everyone can see her master piece. At present she is out with Louisa enjoying a birthday lunch, a tour of the coffee shops on Road 9 and maybe a trip to the cinema as part of her weekend birthday celebrations that will continue until Monday!

Geoff also spent some time at Road 9 today, 90 minutes at the dentist! One of his teeth is cracked so last week he went and had the filling removed. Today he had the root removed and in 3 weeks time (when the dentist gets back) he will get the tooth rebuilt. All in all it is costing him £120, I am sure it would be much more in the UK and am grateful  we are here. If the work goes well I am considering check-ups for Maddison and myself as we haven’t been since before we left St. Helena.

Famous Cairo Tessellation

 

So today I got an email from somebody called ‘tessellationfanatic’ , via the blog comments thingy, who tells me one of my pavement photos I took when we first got here is famous! They sent me a link to 2 sites both with further information on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_pentagonal_tiling

http://www.tess-elation.co.uk/cairo-pentagon---truly-named-

So this is all quite exciting. I have emailed David Bailey at the second site to see if it was him but if not I’m not too sure what to do next and how to email back my mysterious tessellation fanatic!

The picture was taken in a district of Maadi in September 2010 as I was wandering the streets, probably on the way to church or Road 9. Now I know it is famous I will have to incorporate it into a lesson somehow. Oh and the picture ? . . . this one

and there was me getting excited about Ada Lovelace Day on October 7th

http://findingada.com and the online comic about The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage that Maddy and I chuckled our way through.  It has to be read! http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/ (Geoff was very boring and painted models while we did this).

21st September

We have completed our first week at school are are now getting ready for the second. New children to meet, books to organise, meetings to have, procedures to follow. The maths department have new text books for year 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 so we have lots of things to put in place.

Geoff now works in the British section of his school and is much more at home with the material he needs to cover this year rather than last when he was teaching in the American section.

Maddy (and many other students) are waiting for the uniform shop to restock with the new PE kit and polo shirts. She has also signed up for singing lessons after school which will be on a Monday night for 30 mins at 150 LE (£15). She has started her GCSE courses this week and seems to be happy with her choices. All 3 sciences, drama and business studies as well as maths, English language and Lit. She also has to take Arabic as an ex-pat at the school.

4th September Geoff’s Leg

We are back at school working hard while Maddy sits at home. I brought her back the first 4 books of the Percy and the Lightening Thief from school to keep her busy, no doubt she will finish them in a couple of days.

Geoff took it upon himself to train the ruby squad after school today, about 14 boys turned up even though there had been no school, he managed to do this to his leg!

 

Quite impressive for his first session.

3rd September ‘Twas the night before

‘Twas the night before school and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring not even a Mo(use).

The laptops were packed by the front door with care,

In hopes that their owners soon would be there.

And so began the last night of freedom before school! We had a busy time last week. I finally found and purchased a photo quality printer and then printed off some of my favourite snaps , then we went to the photo shop and bought frames. The walls look a little less bare now although I have lots of other pictures to print. I want to do a series of 6 Ascension prints into one of those partitioned frames, so I will work on those when I have time.

These are 3 on the New Zealand pictures I choose. 

these are some of the St Helena pictures.

Maddy is back from Suknah with a deep tan line, washing and tales of jet skiing. She is now catching up with her TV watching (we have already seen one and a half series of Psych since we got back and all of Grey’s anatomy series 5. all of Pushing Daisies and some of 30 Rock). After tomorrow we may not have all that much time to watch!