We are falling a little behind in the “blog-world”, but much has happened this last four weeks and it has been difficult to put cyber-pen to cyber-paper. The news is all good and we can take a deep breath and now post something meaningful.

I (Ian) have been an inhabitant of Lazio (the region of Roma) for a full four weeks now and even Cathy has been here for more than a week. We (Ian at least) is in his third separate “accommodation” in that time and next week, all being well, we will move onto our fourth and final abode.

Abode #1 was five nights in a single room in the Gambrinus Hotel where I had stayed previously. This room was probably the smallest hotel room in the world but it had all mod cons and was comfortable (albeit one could not yawn and stretch for fear of bursting through the (padded) material wallpaper. A forced eviction on Good Friday saw me move to a much, much larger apartment (abode #2) – but one that just didn’t quite “work”. The bathroom and hot water system from hell, the bed heralded by the Michelin group as the least comfortable in the northern hemisphere, and conveniently situated between the nightclub district of Rome (Testaccio) and where all the happy-go-lucky and drug-fuelled revellers walk past at anytime between midnight and dawn, yelling loudly in Italiano. Not to mention the trattoria beneath.


Evicted from this as well after just two odd weeks, the apartment was taken over by two priests. Perhaps they will not be home much because they will either be in prayer or drug-fuelled and loud at the Testaccio nightspots. Anyway, we plan to, at an appropriate time, press anonymously on their intercom and greet them with “Bless me father, for I have sinned!”. At least in annoying them.





Abode #3 is really sweet and much larger than the Gambrinus – but this in itself is misleading because it packs into its 30 square metres of neatness and renovation – “compactness” – perhaps best exemplified by the shower that ejects itself in the middle of the bathroom floor – just a wall and a curtain on three other sides. We are very happy here. It is truly less than 5 minutes from work, in the suburb of Aventino.

The Circo Massimo is within view of our gate, although we do not see this as we are a semi-basement at the back (with our own private terrace mind you). The magic evaporated slightly when, during the culinary crescendo of dinner on Saturday night, we turned on just too many electrical devices and blew the fuse. Of course, not knowing much about the Aventino fuse conventions, we could not fix that. All we could do, courtesy of the laptop light, led to nought. A desperate Sunday morning call to our landlady, Margheurita, did not achieve much as we had to wait til our doorman, Mossimo, returned on Monday morning. We had worked it out but the fuse box we needed was locked from us in the bowels of this building. An interesting couple of nights and cold showers – sadly our little stock of fresh food in the fridge had to go to the great street bin of Aventino.


We are finalising negotiations on a larger place, still in Aventino, but perhaps in a less highbrow area of it. But it is sweet and Roma leaps out of every ounce of it. If this happens, we move into the currently being renovated abode #4 in just over a week.

Incidentally, Aventino is the “Hamilton” of Rome, so close to the business end and it reeks of history.

We are starting to feel Italian and must be looking a little Italian because Italians are starting to ask us for directions. And, indeed, we are starting to know how to satisfy them.

Ah! Roma! Delightful restaurants, good wine, a city of drop-dead beautiful people in tight jeans – (these are apparently highly uncomfortable as they cause very snooty expressions). We need to master a little more Italian – but Cathy has begun formal lessons and Ian is surrounded by it all day.















It is hard to walk any distance from any of the abodes, without being stunned by the beauty and uniqueness of the eternal city and its inhabitants.

So, Rome at last!

But not without some traveller's tales getting here. I departed Brisbane airport at 12:15pm on Saturday the 15th – the Ides of March. Seemed a somewhat appropriate date for an assault on Roma – a six-month campaign. The QANTAS (domestic) jet was spot on time and I was soon winging towards Sydney and it's international terminal. After a brief transfer, again spot on time, we were invited to board. I must have been in the first group of 20 passengers and had just settled into my seat and overhead compartment when we were called upon to 'de-plane' so that the mechanical fault could be repaired – always an encouraging sign for flyers.



But this aircraft, one of only two Airbuses of its type in the QANTAS fleet, was out for the count, so they diverted the other (of its type) from duties getting folks to the Grand Prix in Melbourne and we “swapped” - over four hours late. My connection in Hong Kong had a two-hour transfer and sadly they did not wait for me. At three in the morning they put me up in a very nice airport hotel room and told me that I was booked on KLM to go to Rome via Amsterdam at 11:00am. Nervously worrying about sleeping through, I arose to check out at 8:00am but was too early at check in because I was wait-listed only and had to “wait” which I did for 90 minutes until I was given a ticket.

I have to admit that the flights into and out of Honkers were very good and I was able to sleep. The hotel room was handy because I was able to shave and shower and started again somewhat refreshed, but the first and last legs were ordinary and the whole process turned what could have been 24 hours from airport to airport into a marathon.

I arrived in Rome just after 10:00pm local time (or 7:00am Brisbane time – on Monday). So that was a 43-hour trip (door to door – 46 hours).

I understandably crashed in my hotel room in Rome. A dangerous thing to do in a hotel room that is only 5 feet wide (I could not stretch without putting my hands through both walls. The same hotel where I stayed when last in Rome but then it was a small room that was two or three times the size of this one. However my mini room had all mod cons and was very neat. I just had to be careful when I moved about.

The hotel was booked before departure from Brisbane and I chose only to reserve for five nights, thinking I might change into more permanent accommodation. When that didn't happen and I asked to stay on, I was told that the hotel was booked out over Easter. So I had to make some sudden plans and moved into an apartment on Good Friday. I will only be here for a few weeks pending better digs coming along. My present abode is very Italian. Also a little tired and a little noisy, being a corner apartment on a busy street, in a “night club district” – read an area where Italian yobbos greet the wee hours of the morning with a loud delight in their language. The stairwell is being renovated and looks like London during the blitz, and there are six flights of stairs to this, the third of four floors.

But I was able to have a home-cooked meal on Good Friday night for the first time – spinach and ricotta torteloni cooked to the accompaniment of some Italian opera courses on Mac's iTunes – Hey! When in Rome!!!

This apartment is but 15 minutes walk from my office so that is a pleasant distance. The hotel was 45 minutes walking, pretty much across the centre of Rome. It was near the Porta Pia. A straight walk down the Via XX Settembre (viente settembre - 20th September) that continues as the Via del Quirinale, past the Presidential Palace. Thence down a narrow street lined with ruins and hotels (and ruined hotels) and you are on the road to the Colosseum. I work about 800 metres past it.

The twice a day walk for five days was delightful. The Forum on my right and very few tourists about, just commuters and street sweepers, unlike in the middle of the day when the whole area is invaded by Lonely Planet-clutching, camera-clicking and excited visitors.

The mornings and evenings have been very brisk – one or two days quite cold but I really enjoyed the exercise of walking especially after being restricted in planes for two days. I am already feeling much fitter and as I tend to hit the sack early for the first few days (8:00pm is 5:00am according to my body clock), my meals were solely a solid breakfast and a light lunch in the office cafeteria. So I might have lost a pound or two to boot.

Apart from the cold, the weather has been very changeable with a night time electrical storm, drizzle, rain, some brief hail and a wet Easter.

Observations so far in Rome? Well, I have now been here longer than all of my other trips combined, no dramatic differences this time, although being a resident now, I have learned how complex everything is. I doubt that it is even easy for the Romans, and they speak the language at least. I now understand why they left the place to conquer Gaul and the Britons – they wanted to avoid filling in forms and paying fees!!!

But apart from the Italian language – still pretty much a mystery to me – crying out that I am in Rome, there are lots of other spectacular “flags” – the (frequent) whining of ambulances as only they can whine here (reminiscent of so many European movie soundtracks); the proud “SPQR” on every manhole (Senators & Patricians of (Quo) Rome???); the small coffees and the need to pay for them somewhere other than where you obtain them and drink them; skin tight jeans and snooty or painful expressions; communal rubbish bins on the streets; dogs in restaurants; the morning an evening clip-clop of horses hooves as they travel to and from the tourist haunt of the colosseum; yep!! This is Rome.

'Til next time

Your obedient “The Douglas Report” correspondent

After a long period of silence, The Douglas Report is reactivated.

Not that the intervening period has been boring – the family has visited Mexico, the US, NZ, Israel, India and the UK since my last post and I returned to a delightful three weeks in Cairo in May of 2007.

But the spotlight has changed and tomorrow I embark on a six month journey – based in Rome.

I will keep you up to date and try to include plenty of photographs.

Here goes Ulysses again!!!

My first posting to this blog, three months ago, began - “And so, the odyssey begins ….”.

Now, as I sit in an airport lounge to begin the final episode, I have to suppose that the odyssey is coming to an end.

I am not sure how much I have in common with Ulysses returning to his beloved Ithaca. If I am Ulysses then I have no old dog, no “Argus”, to greet or recognise me on my return, but equally I trust that my “Penelope” will not have been suffering from the excesses of too many suitors.

And of my time in Egypt, I am pleased to say that there was no descent into hell, no Cyclops. Things went, by and large, very smoothly – no disasters, only traveller’s tales.

This blog has been my medium for recording some of the adventures. Like the narrations of Ulysses I have attempted to capture here the things that I found interesting in the past three months. For those who have persisted this far, I can only applaud you. I hope, if nothing else, this has stirred an interest in travel.

I have been in the Middle East for 20 of the last 60 weeks. I have been to five different countries (and three emirates). I have lived in Egypt for longer than I have lived anywhere other than Australia. Yet, if two or three years ago, someone had asked me whether I might ever travel to the Middle East, I guess I would have had to reply “probably not”.

But now, I am sure that I will return at some time to these fascinating lands.

It has been a long time to be away from the people and places I love and I will enjoy being back in Brisbane, the place of my birth. Three months allows plenty of time to suffer mood swings – from the sheer excitement of being in Egypt to some home-sickness at not being where your life otherwise resides. “Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home”. Maybe a little trite, but in accord with Homer who wrote:

“Happier his lot, who, many sorrows’ pass’d,
Long labouring gains his natal shore at last.”

Would I make the same decision to come here again – absolutely!

It is not that I am in raptures with everything that is Egypt. If I had to make a list of things that I don’t like about it, the list would be substantial. Things like littering, smog, poverty and the class system, (traffic of course) would appear on the list. But the overall effect is what counts and I really enjoyed my time here.

The long time I had here came to an end with a rush – I remained very active until the last. I have made some good friends and met some great people here. I will miss them and hope to maintain some form of contact with some. The Egyptians that I met were really very generous and pleasant to me. That may be because of my “grey hair” – there is much more deference to seniors here than at home. So if you find you are not getting the respect you think you deserve, move to Egypt!!

During this past (very busy) week, I experienced an odd mix of exuberance with imminent departure for home and a melancholy fuelled by the very thought of leaving Cairo. One night a group of us went to an, as yet untried, restaurant – another Egyptian food restaurant floating on the Nile off Zamalek, called “Le Pasha”. The food and atmosphere were great. We had a good table overlooking the Nile where we could watch the brightly and colourfully illuminated little “cruise” boats go by. A little later, an Oud (lute) player and a drummer (single drum) came out and began to play and sing.

The very strange sensation that I experienced was a feeling of being “at home”. This situation was entirely usual to me – it was comfortable and comforting. I started to think that I was seeing things more as they were, and in a way that I would not have three months ago. In unfamiliar surroundings, I can’t possibly take everything in and I have “survival” and what happens next on my mind. But I think with time, much of the things that were always there to see, and feel, and smell, become apparent. I compare it to observing a far off forest. What appears only to be a group of trees comes alive when some animal in front of it moves. The animal had always been there, unnoticed, and if I had watched for only a short period of time I would not notice it.

So I think that the extended stay here displays different dimensions of the place. And I think it has changed me in some ways, such that I am more attuned to it.

It was a very strange feeling to be leaving Cairo today. The traffic was terrible and my passage through immigration delayed by an officer who couldn’t count to three. I am three days short of overstaying my three month visa but it seems he detected a breach and I had to report to the boss in the office, who (with some difficulty) eventually got the count correct. So Egypt has been Egypt to the last.

I will finish this, the final chapter of this blog, and when I get home I will publish it, effectively closing the series. Insha’allah no disasters will befall me on the journey. If you are reading this, I guess this means that I have arrived safe to my home. (I recall a high profile politician making the reverse point that if you were watching her video it meant that she had met her demise).

My task over the coming days will be to settle my jet lag and travel weariness and to attack life in Brisbane again – something that has been “on hold” for sometime now. I look forward to seeing everyone again.

Post Script

My flights to Australia were bearable and made more interesting by the company I kept. First, from Cairo to Dubai with Latifa, a native of Dubai and thence to Brisbane with Doris, a native of the British midlands. Doris, aged 82 has seen much in her time, with two of her four children predeceasing her with tragic circumstances. Latifa, age not determined but very young for the mother of four daughters, two of whom have finished university, told me of her marriage at age 13. From each I was taught more about what it means to have been a woman in different parts of the world these past eighty odd years. For each they are seeing their daughters’ worlds change dramatically, creating a challenge for them because their values, forged by what seemed proper in their day, those values that help to make them what they are now, are not translating as plainly as they would hope to their children. The world is wide and diverse, but, in essence, so very much the same.

Happy New Year! This blog has now closed – (“for the moment”).

Perhaps the rot has set in after this length of time in Egypt. Or am I just being led astray by the colourful company I keep? At any rate, during this past week, it seems that I have been spending a disproportionate amount of time on hotel roofs. So commented my darling bride when I emailed during the week to report in on my activities, including after work drinks on the roof of the Nile Hilton and from the lobby bar at the Grand Hyatt. At least in the latter I was inside and on the ground floor, albeit watching the Nile flow by through the tinted glass of a bottle or two of Sakkara Gold, and over the silver bowl of accompanying nibbles, illuminated by the floating scented candle.



I have to admit that the Grand Hyatt is a “flasher” pub than my digs since the start of November. Very opulent, very large, very smart – but would they bring my morning omelette to me, just the way I like it, and without me having to order it, at the Grand Hyatt I ask? We had bee-lined for the very high top floor (so high that one’s ears pop in the elevator) for the bar at the lounge in the revolving restaurant but it didn’t open for an hour, so we roughed it in the lobby bar.

We were buoyed with confidence to do this having roof-topped at the Nile Hilton on the previous evening. That location provides a somewhat unique opportunity to see the Egyptian sun sink brightly and “pinkly” over the Giza plateau, illuminating and then almost silhouetting the pyramids nicely. It also provides delightful panoramas of the Nile putting itself to sleep (or does it only awaken at dusk?) and of my personal favourite, the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, from above. So that you can share in some of this I include some snapshots from the Nile Hilton roof in this posting.

Very pleasant on the roof of Cairo …. but also very cold. Maybe that, or maybe too close a contact with my French colleague from Rome was the reason for my demise. He was clearly suffering from a heavy cold by the time of our farewell dinner for him and for my Spanish colleague at the Khan el Kahilly restaurant on the third night of the week, but yours truly experienced the second head cold of the sojourn in Egypt. It actually showed the first signs of its arrival before my birthday (and, to be fair, before Monsieur’s arrival), but took nearly a week to really manifest itself. So I bet on my immune system being primed and able to defeat it totally before departure this Thursday. I don’t really want to spend over 20 hours at altitude with blocked sinuses. The good news is that it is almost gone now after only two or three days of that miserable “cold” feeling.

But the cold did have me opt out of other social engagements towards the end of the week. I mostly took it very quietly on Australia Day, sleeping, reading, typing .. and absorbing some of the Aussie spirit by listening to Slim Dusty music that, serendipitously, I had at some time downloaded to my laptop. Quiet that is, except for a wonderful Australia Day reception at our Ambassador’s residence.

It would probably be reasonable to say “Ambassador’s mansion” because from the little I saw of it, the residence does Australia no shame in the Middle East. A delightful cocktail party, a distinct lack of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…. Oi! Oi! Oi!” but a nice mix of around 50 ex-pats and locals. The function had a second purpose in acknowledging Australia’s long history (25 years) of input into archaeology in Egypt and its partnership with Egypt in that. I met some very young archaeologists (one here for the first time) and some more mature archaeologists (one here for the twenty-second year in a row).

So two valuable experiences from the function were, first an astounding appreciation of the varied things that Australians do when abroad – makes one want to do more oneself – and, second, how great Australian wine is – certainly my first glass of decent white wine in three months.

The Egyptian reds are drinkable but would not sell well in Australia. The whites are, in everyone’s assessment (at least everyone who I have met), plainly undrinkable. This contrasts with the local beers, Stellar (a slightly cheaper but nicely bitter ale) and Sakkara (a very pleasant and light beer). The local beer is not only drinkable but also reasonably priced at about 20 - 25 Egyptian pounds for a 500ml bottle in restaurants normally (around $5 Australian), although dearer in the flash hotels with the Nile views and nibbles.

And probably my final solo outing was on Saturday – a return to Coptic Cairo by underground. Once again, another place where each subsequent visit will unearth previously unrevealed dimensions.

A new, senior mission is here from Rome for the start of this, my last week here. That presence and a pretty heavy program will occupy these remaining hours for me.

I would be lying to say that I wasn’t excited, intimidated and a little sad to be heading out to the airport on Thursday evening. At this stage I can look back at the past three months and ponder what a great opportunity this has been. It really has been an experience that I will always recall with fond memories. But, I can’t wait to get home and pick up the threads of my more normal life. Between my Cairo life and my Brisbane life lies what is always a “trial by ordeal” – a lengthy journey, made much more bearable by an excellent airline, but still a challenge. Leave on Thursday night, get home on Saturday morning. Wish me well.

OK! I’m over it! I’m over my wife leaving me.

Sounds like a broken marriage – but in my case my darling wife is back ensconced in Brisbane and I have it on good authority (not just from herself) that she is well and feeling good after her five week sojourn here.

It was horrible when she went, but being back in email contact is good and it has been over a week now. With my own time running out, I haven’t time to feel sorry for myself.

Anyway, we are none of us getting any younger and it was my birthday on Thursday (our equivalent of a Brisbane Friday night). One of my work colleagues went well beyond the call of duty and arranged a party for me at her apartment. A small event but just great – with party whistles, a cake and all. There were eight of us there, and no two the same nationality (oddly, no one an Egyptian either). It really is like the United Nations here and that is a great part of the fun. My gracious hostess is Norwegian and the other guests were French, Spanish, Dutch, English, Swedish and Japanese. A great time was had by all but this was the latest night I had had since being here. The five of us staying at my hotel returned around 2:30am (we started late!) to find this place really bopping.

In the foyer small children were running about doing what small children do everywhere and being noisy about it, but …. At 2:30am? In the restaurant, up on the “Mezzanine”, (the restaurant where I have had so many meals at 7 or 8 pm, totally alone), it was standing room only and filled with shisha smoke and middle eastern music. This is a totally different social arrangement here, although I am sure my sons find this normal. But many of these people were potential pensioners like me.

For some reason I have been waking early every day and despite the late night, Friday was no different so I had an early breakfast and indulged in domestic chores, reading and resting. But on Saturday, I indulged myself in the one thing that I had been saving up for this time after Cathy’s departure – a visit to the Egyptian Museum (of Antiquities). Cathy and Maryann made the visit a month ago, and Cathy and I had been there as part of an organised group late in 2005, but the visit was far too short.

I mentioned in a much earlier posting the beautiful and unique pink building that is this world famous museum. It is old and massive and, even if it were empty, it would be worth the visit, a museum piece in itself. In walking in, despite the x-ray security machines, I still feel as if I have time travelled back to the time of Agatha Christie.

So I spent over 2½ hours wandering around, looking at and trying to “feel” the exhibits. It is mostly about the Pharaonic period, all of the “kingdoms” but also covers the Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman times. The popular highlight has to be the treasure trove of Tut Ankh Amon, of which all but Tut himself, his inner coffin (or sarcophagus) and a few items on loan to an overseas display are in this museum. The young pharaoh actually still resides in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. We had entered his tomb in 2005 on the holiday trip and, although extensive, the rooms seemed far too small to accommodate the supposedly 5 000 items that now sit in a wing of the museum.

He actually lay for thousands of years in bandages, in a funeral mask, in a coffin, in a coffin, in a coffin, in a stone sarcophagus, in a wooden “box”, in a wooden box, in a wooden box, in a room (full of the last box). He was the original Russian doll.

Replete with chariots, beds, bows, jewellery, even food. There are still discernible loaves of bread – and we complain about preservatives in our loaves. Much of the goodies are gold or alabaster and mostly highly decorated, intricate and in great condition. But Tut is but one of many mummies and sarcophaguses in the museum. One can get up close and personal with Ramses II - unveiled. His fine reddish hair is still visible.

And not only people were mummified. One collection includes lots of mummified animals. I found these particularly interesting – can’t imagine why. In some, pathology was clearly evident; I guess that’s why they died.

Amidst the many statues and mummies of pharaohs and noblemen, are the equivalents in Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman periods. Statues look a bit like a cross between Tut and Julius Caesar with a Pharaoh’s clothing and stance but aquiline noses and curly fringes on their foreheads. And the mummies, sans separate funeral masks, have in their place portraits painted on the cloth near where the face would be. These are largely in the style of the orthodox Christian icons, some good - some amateurish, and generally not showing the skilled art of the earlier Egyptians.

The museum is big enough to get lost in – typically I did several times, although thankfully I always knew I was in the museum, just not sure which part of it. Among all the wonderful things to experience in Egypt, a trip here is worthwhile just to see the wonderful exhibits in this museum. But better be quick. A new museum is being built out near the pyramids. I am sure its display will be better – they really do the new museums in Egypt well. We have visited superb museums for the building itself and the display in Aswan and Alexandria. And I am sure it will be air-conditioned, making it better for the treasures and for the visitors (it gets stiflingly hot in summer in the existing one, and for my visit, the thermometers in the display cases read 18 degrees C – it felt colder, certainly on the tip of my nose). But the romance factor can never be as strong as in the present museum on Tahrir Square.

My stay in Egypt has come down to “I depart on Thursday of next week”. It will be exciting to get back to the people and places that I enjoy, and three months has been a long time to spend in a hotel room with my meagre possessions. I am heartily sick of eating in restaurants, long for some of the foods and drinks that I cannot consume here, and I have a growing sense that I have done what I came here to do and that it is time to move on.

Three months is a long time to be doing this – but my visit to the museum, and my contemplation of the very ancient wonders it contains, makes it seem an absolute blink in the space-time continuum. I will be leaving soon but leaving with a wealth of memories and pleasant recollections to think about from time to time, not to mention over a thousand photographs, some of which appear here.

Woe is me … poor, poor pitiful me!!

It’s just not fair to have a place’s reputation affected by how the observer feels at the time of the “observing” – a comment I made just over a month ago when my quality of life improved dramatically with the arrival in Egypt of the love of my life. But now the table has been turned. As I write this, my darling Cathy is on her way back to Australia. So this makes my world dull and glum and much of the colour of Cairo has disappeared for me.

My remaining 2½ weeks here will, I expect, be largely now only of a work purpose. Before Cathy arrived I, pretty much, elected not to be a tourist and my enjoyment of my temporary “home town” rested mostly in the thrill of discovery. While I was with her (and we were blest with a number of bonus days when I could not be at work due to the holidays) we had a ball. Now I am without Cathy and I feel much more comfortable with Cairo so the spirit of adventure has waned. The next few weeks will seem mundane. While Cathy had Maryann with her while I was working, Cathy’s pleasure was much greater. So all of this highlights the sort of “home is where the heart is” argument and, for me is a timely reminder that the people in our lives are the very essence of our lives.

I had been very concerned that Cathy would be “bored” or frustrated by the days when she was alone here without either Maryann or me (I think 11 days in all). But Cathy is fairly irrepressible and although she spent a few days mostly reading and relaxing in the hotel room, she continued to “attack” Cairo – heading for new places on her own in subway trains and taxis, and revisiting the previously visited, discovering even more interest in them.

Perhaps demonstrative of her adventurous spirit and her gregarious nature, last week Cathy made a new friend in Cairo and they spent a couple of days together as Cathy showed her the ropes. Her friend had just arrived from Melbourne to spend some time with her husband who is working here for an even longer stint than me and they met in a dress shop. It is truly a small world when such things can happen. This chance event gave Cathy a boost for her last few days here and we two couples even managed a night out together at a Zamalek Italian restaurant.



My days of pleasant dinners with my bride in Cairo are over now and I have to face nights alone in my room where one is drawn to pathetic therapeutic activities like taking photos of one’s feet while watching CNN. But there will be a procession of work colleagues visiting Cairo in the next couple of weeks so I expect that I will have some company at most meals. Just as well perhaps as I doubt my resolve to dine alone in our now familiar dining rooms.

I truly am counting down the days now – with but 15 working days remaining and yet much to do, I have to make every work day a winner and this requires some careful juggling of the remaining hours I have here. And there are just two weekends left, likely to be spent working on my laptop and maybe re-visiting a couple of sites here that have particularly impressed me and pretty much lend themselves to a re-visit alone.

All this bodes for some fairly dull material for the blog so maybe we will see abridged versions in future.

Meanwhile, my thoughts are clearly with my darling wife as she negotiates the 27 hour journey from Cairo airport to Brisbane airport – a journey across half a world, a great gulf of tradition and culture, and across the seasons. I will be spiritually sharing every moment of her trip with her.