A quiet day !

In amongst the hustle and bustle, dirt and dust of Cairo we are able to find quiet spaces! One day last week we travelled to our nearest tourist spot - the pyramids of Giza. From our home in Ma'adi this is just a 40 minute cheap taxi ride. On our arrival we had to 'fight off' at least 2o extremely enthusistic 'fake' tour guides who all approached us alone or accompanied by a camel or donkey, once we had got past the first large King pypramid then we were all by ourselves in the still of the desert and amongst these amazing ancient structures. Just for a moment time stood still - and then a coach party arrived and broke our reverie!

In our working lives we have just completed our first unit of teaching- with most of our students passing their English exams. We have both enjoyed getting to know them all and the reward of teaching a valuable, much wanted skill. Now we have a few days break and we are off to the North to Alexandria, the weather forecast is cold, wet and sandy, we look forward to an interesting few days. J

Another Bed

We've started teaching English at the Anglican Training Centre and we are now in the process of moving to a flat which is very near to where we are teaching. We are moving from the Anglican Guest House which is in the centre of Cairo. We hope to stay in our flat for a while because we have once again found ourselves changing beds on a regular basis: since Christmas we've moved from Devon to Yatton and then to a hotel at Heathrow; from the Anglican Guest House to a flat above the Guest House because the guest house was full; and finally to our new flat later today - we just need to buy some bed linen and we will have ourselves a new home. P

Packed

We've finished packing our one suitcase each and we're heading to a windy Heathrow. This time we are not taking so many books with us as we are now the proud owners of a 'kindle'. This e-book can store about 400 books. We have downloaded about 25 books over the Christmas period. Many are free because they are out of copyright, such as
Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle and Victor Hugo.
We have enjoyed our 'home-leave' but we are looking forward to putting into practise what we learnt on our TESOL course, and we are excited about experiencing another new culture in the Middle East - Egypt. P

Exciting News - New Jumper

One of the problems of being on the road is packing and trying to travel as light as possible. I have managed to reduce my 'wardrobe' to just the bare necessities, but I recently lost my one and only jumper. Without a reserve jumper I reluctantly had to visit our local shopping centre where I bought the item on the right. I'm not sure if the jumper looks like that on me!

As I right this blog I am packing my new jumper along with the rest of my wardrobe . We are travelling to Bournemouth once again for our second intensive 2-week TEFL course. In between the courses we have been studying at home and teaching Turkish and Hungarian women.

I hope I don't get any jumpers, socks or scarfs as Christmas presents this year as my suitcase is now full with essentials.

I do hope we will have more interesting news to share with you after our course. P

'All boxed up'

Surprisingly, it was 4 years last week that we shrink wrapped all our remaining pocessions into this 7ft by 7ft by 5ft wooden packing case before flying off to Bethlehem in the West Bank. It was all quite traumatic at the time, storing everything that felt so precious and so important to us. Now all these years later, I am not really sure what is actually in there; perhaps some Ikea furniture, a guitar , a camera.

2 months ago we did the same but in reverse. We flew home from Israel/Palestine with 2 suitcases, a rucksack and computer bag each. In 4 years I have learnt to live with less; admittedly we have left some non -valuable stuff in Nazareth but I am aware that we are shrinking as we go.

As we are travelling around the UK visiting our Churches and supporters we take a tiny 'snail shell' of belongings; mainly 'techy' stuff - computers, cell phone a few clothes. I have definitely learnt to be content with less. Jane

The Shires

We really feel that we are home after spending time walking 'England's mountains green' - and yes we also saw the 'Last Night of the Proms'.

This last week we have visited friends and supporters in the north of the country: the Lake District in Cumbria, the Vale of York, and the Derbyshire Peak District where we walked 'Lose Hill' (see picture). We are now returning to Somerset for a visit to the Georgian city of Bath before going on a retreat on Exmoor in Devonshire - the best of all the locations (I am Devonian so I am slightly biased).

What a great selection of places to visit - hard to beat anywhere in the world.

So far we have had sunshine every day - in between the showers of blessings. P

Habeebee

We have started our British tour with a couple of gigs near to our home - this means there is less work for our roadies.

Our first visit was a church in Bedminster, Bristol. It was good to hear the familiar Bristol (pronounced Bristle) accent. A non-romantic Bristolian term of endearment that is used for friends, or sometimes even strangers, is 'my lover'. An Arabic translation of this is 'habeebee', which is also used in the same context.

Our second visit was in a small hamlet in Somerset, where the church tower dates back to the 13th century. The church (in the picture) is surrounded by green fields and rolling hills and confirmed that we were truly back in England. P