Monday 28th March

 

It has been Mothers day here and Geoff and Maddy did not take the opportunity to buy me a gift! WE did so well having 2 Christmas’s but they didn’t manage 2 Mothers Day’s I’m expecting them to forget when the UK one is.

Life is quiet but busy here. School have had a trainer out from the UK but to avoid disruptions to lessons they train at the weekend, so I spent last weekend training. Geoff had a quiet weekend as Maddy went away with her friend to the beach (and came back with a tan from swimming in the sea). So he watched TV and played games on his computer. Maddy has been asked to try out for the girls football team today after her PE lesson and she seems quite keen, we will see how it goes!

We have booked a trip back to the UK in April for the week before Easter and will be able to pick up our books from Geoff’s mum, shoes (they aren’t big enough for me and Maddy here), some clothes from Asda and any other bits we see. DVD’s aren’t a big problem as we are streaming a lot of Tv shows at present, Bones, Criminal Minds, Stargate (!), . . .

On Thursday we are hosting a baby shower for Melinda, who is in my bible study group, she has about 2 weeks left before the big day. In honour of her being in the pudding club we will eat puddings and Maddy did some research and found there are a number of strange and interesting party games to play such as pin the sperm on the egg! I have passed this information onto Brian and Liz as they will have time to make and gather the items needed.

During one of my A level maths lessons recently this diagram was produced. What can you say? Maths is fun!

Saturday 12th March

 

We are still here despite the chaos around us. Cairo is pulling in two different directions at the same time. On the one hand people are banding together to clean the streets (the team we saw today were sponsored by Persil and were wearing red sport bibs saying so) and paint kerb stones, and then you hear about the rise in crime and how people in their cars are being robbed the same way it happens in South Africa. The police need to come back on the street, not as the intimidatory force they were in Mubarak’s time but as a force that supports the people. If they can’t then the military police need to step in to help!

Now Geoff is working we are starting to add house items, a bookcase, mirror, new throw for the sofa and Geoff’s piece of ceramic that should be on the window sill but he liked it so much it stayed in the house and we are looking for light to put in it. In the background you can see the flower curtains I made with Liz.

 

We did try to find some kitchen scales, Maddison really does need to weigh the ingredients when she cooks rather than throwing it all together, but to no avail, we may have to pick some up next time we’re in the UK! Hopefully we are going back for a week at Easter to pick up essentials and English chocolate!

Friday 4th March

 

Back to school and back to a blog a week! It was like starting a new school year, the students were twitchy and wanted to have their own revolution. Across the school there were several incidents – students refusing to enter classrooms, refusing to work. My year 7’s spent a lesson clicking pens tops, tapping feet, whistling, at one point most of them put up their hands and as I went round to solver their problems they didn’t need anything. The culprits came back and apologised the next day, but there were issues in their next lesson with a smaller number of students.

On Friday the school had a non uniform day where the students got to dress in the colours of the Egyptian flag, red, white and black. One of my year 7’s wore this!

Even the trees are being spruced up in this patriotic time.

As well as the curb stones being painted, mainly black and white, but it looks good. 

Saturday 26th February

 

Didn’t get up until 11 am and then went off to Church to pack another 120 food bags. As I walked past the Coptic church there was a another wedding (there have been several over the past few weeks) the bridal car for after the service was a pink thunderbird! (phone photo)

It was my last chance to help with the food bags so I took some phone photos there as well.

As we finished Maddy and Geoff turned up and we walked to Link Dot  Net to get the paperwork sorted for the internet (the landlord had got together everything we needed very quickly). This went smoothly and all should be activated in about 3 days. After we wandered across the road to a Metro we hadn’t visited before. It was the best one so far. A good selection of food, fairly big for the shop in the basement of a block of flats and they sold Maynards Wine Gums! Maddy sometimes finds her chocolate allergy hard to deal with but these brightened her day.

Then we wandered back to Road 9 for more junk food (McDonalds), and an electric drill to put up curtain rails. Both accomplished successfully.

School tomorrow so ironing when I got home and lesson planning and we will all be up at 6am to be on our respective buses by 6:45 am!

Friday 25th February

 

I got this from Twitter yesterday, allegedly it’s a police car being burnt after the shooting. We went to look this morning, a 5 minute walk from our house, but there was nothing but a pile of ash on the road. There were 4 APV’s on the road as we walked there and a couple of small army trucks just to keep the peace, they were parked outside the police station to protect it yesterday.  Anyway we came back via the Metro where we bought 100g strawberries for 25p (2.25 LE) and Maddison has already eaten them! We will have to shop locally until Carrefour is refitted and Friday morning is a good time as many Egyptians sleep in (many shops have 14 hour days so they need to).

Dominos pizza delivery and cake for tea and then telly watching!

Thursday 24th February

 

An interesting day today! It started off with a trip down Road 9 with Liz and Brian who knew where there was a shop that sells curtain poles, but first we hit the book shops. Four book shops and a trip to the Coffee Bean (nice cakes and apparently nice coffee) later, I had the complete set of Narnia stories for Maddison. She is limited to reading 1 a day so they last, it will make a nice change from the Vampire Dairies she has taken to reading.

Anyway then on to the pole shop, anyone who has shopped in Egypt will know things can be a bit hit and miss, today was a hit! 1 adjustable black curtain pole complete with brackets and curtain rings for the main window and 1 brass coloured pole for over the arch complete with brackets and curtain rings all for 141 LE. It was reminiscent of shopping at B and Q only so much smaller, 1 man and two dozen poles to pick from!

Then on to church to pack 120 food bags, the process is starting to run like a smoothly oiled machine now. When I got back Maddy and I went over the road to pick up some essentials, before taking a small break before getting ready to go to home-group.

I should have known something was wrong when Geoff arrived home a little late with a story of a burnt out car and diversions round the back streets. Geoff got a text and phone call about 5:30pm to say a policeman had shot a mini bus driver and people were upset and focusing on the police stations at Port Said and Road 230. I phoned Liz to let her know so she cancelled home-group, along with the chicken curry we were going to have Then we got another text saying the British Embassy were advising people to stay indoors  (its not often we hear anything from them) so here we are sat inside watching TV (and listening to what sounds like gunfire). Who knows what tomorrow will bring !

Wednesday 23rd February

 

Cleaning day! With Geoff at work I get to do most of the house jobs so today I polished, hovered, mopped, . . . . and then ironed the curtains I made with Liz yesterday. I had bought the material in Boulaq several weeks ago and have finally got round to sorting it out. Liz sewed on her machine while I ironed hems and such, it took about 3 hours to make 6 curtains. There are 4 for the main window and 2 to hang over the arch when we find a curtain pole. The 4 at the window make the room look more homely and less Egyptian. We shall probably need a net curtain as well eventually so we can leave them open.

The only ‘cleaning’ job I don’t do is shutting the washing machine door. There is a knack to it I don’t have which leads to a large amount of water over the kitchen floor, so I load and Geoff shuts, usually before he goes to work and when he gets home!  

Tomorrow I am looking for curtain poles and packing food bags – and coffee at a coffee shop.