Thursday 16 September 2010

Hassles

Had a hard time getting into this blog. But all is fine now.

My combi boiler has crashed. A man will be here to fix it today - so the insurance people say. No hot water and no heating. So more duvets. It will need to be fixed for P. to use. The man was supposed to be here by 11 and now its just past that time. Hey ho, these things are sent to try us.

Anyway back to Morocco. Ammar is setting off from Rissani on the long way round trip via Beni Melal. He will be at Marrackech just about 6.30 a.m. We decided it would be a good idea for him to go to the Ibis for a rest so I booked it for just one night. He will be able to stay there from 12.00 noon and have a rest and a shower and then come and fetch me in the early evening from the airport.

I would like to stay at the Marana again but this time we need to catch the early Supratour bus to Merzouga  and it goes from near the railway station and the Ibis is also near to the station. So we will go to the Marana on the way back.

Ammar told me yesterday about one of his nieces being pregnant. That is three babies on the way now and two of the mothers are his nieces and the other one is his nephew's wife. I hope one of them is born when I am in Morocco.

Ammar has nieces and nephews in 6 families. Well not exactly correct as one sister has 5 sons and is daughterless. But now two of her sons are married and so she has help at home at last.

I am knitting another hat in my spare Moroccan wool. Its a stripy number in green, blue and red. I have a lot of red but have now run out of green and only have a bit of blue left. There are some great hats on the net to knit. And I learned to do the ladder stitch to sew up knitting. I watched it on a youtube video.Youtube is a great resource for learning. I will definitely have a good look when I return.

So I am just going to ring about the boiler man. Well that's great, they weren't even coming out today. So I have arranged for them to come here on Saturday and P will have to deal with the man. So now to email him about it.

The more you rely on these inventions the more you will have to deal with the difficulties they present.

I will have to empty the airing cupboard. Oh joy!

Saturday 11 September 2010

Returning

I have just done a preview and couldn't get back to this page. Also I forgot to save my blog.

So here I go again. Next Saturday I am flying out from Bristol with Ryanair, as usual for my 12th trip to Morocco. The plane lands at Marrakech, where I will be met by my lovely Ammar. We will probably stay at the Ibis there as it is near to the place where we have to catch the Supratour bus to Merzouga. The bus goes all the way there now so we don't have to break at Ourzazate and stay overnight. So Supratours now have two routes to Merzouga.,the other one is from Fes.

I will be travelling down by train on Friday - buying two tickets to make the journey cheaper. I expect I could do the journey on Saturday as the plane leaves in the afternoon but I would rather take it easy and stay overnight at the Ibis near Temple Meads Station.Maybe I could even find some charity shops to visit in the afternoon.

Ramadan is over now so Ammar is back to his usual self. I don't know how he manages to do it. I really admire muslims for taking it on. He sent me a lovely photo of Ayman, who is now lying on his back and chewing on melon rinds - his teeth must be on the way. I have been at home since February and so he is about 7 months now.
It would have been nice to have more photos of the kids but skype was sending files so slowly. The kids were all dressed up for Eid and Hamid wore a turban.

I am also getting excited about seeing Tricky and her new kittens. They were born after I left. I hope they are still there when I get there. My darling little Shrad died and I was very upset, but I have some photos of her and some nice memories, especially of her following us home and sleeping in the cardboard box Ammar put out for her. And jumping at the bees and eating them. And climbing up onto my shoulder.

My suitcase is almost packed. Just got to put some trousers in and maybe another top. I hope I am within the weight limit of 15kg. I am taking a smaller backpack so can't take so much in it. I left the larger one with Ammar.

Today I ironed and one of the things was a length of cloth that I will get another caftan and trousers made from. Its light yellow with green and red stars. It's cotton so I have washed it so that it will shrink before it's made up into garments.

On this visit I want to go to Chefchoaen - I hope I have spelled that correctly. I must look for a suitable place to stay on the net. I hope there are cheap riads.

Another thing I want to see is my black shawl, which is going around the family to be embroidered by the womenfolk. It will be unique.

I will be doing knitting - this time its hats not scarves. Last time I noticed that a stall in Rissani sells yarn already wound into balls. When I decided to take up knitting scarves I could only find wool in skeins and Rkia and Zohra helped me to wind the wool. I still have some and I have already knitted three hats from it.