Swimming In Unusual Places.....

I'm in charge of 5 of my younger siblings this weekend

as my mum and dad are away for the

weekend for their 30th wedding anniversary.

I took them to The National Museum of Scotland,

and ended up going for a swim.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

Yesterday

we probably had the best Scottish weather possible.

Not a cloud in the sky.

Today,

i'm sitting listening to the rain tap against my window.

After a year of Solid Cairo Weather,

i'm fairly enjoying the unpredictability....

At any rates,

My Nana, my sister Georgia and I went for a little stroll down to the beach.

Oh yes with the dog.

Since i've been away they've gotten a dog.

I'm not really a doggy person, but this one is slowly growing on me.

Mandatory poses next to the ice cream van..

mandatory human/dog totem pole picture,

giant ice cream.....

this water was FFFRREEEEEEEEZZZZIIIINNNNNGGG,

the North Sea is Cold, give me the Red Sea or the Mediterranean any day.

But there were people out swimming in it....

good thorough bred Scots

After we got back Georgia a I decided to give The Dog a pampering session.

A nice shower and a hair cut.

The Dog had been supporting the DreadLock look,

mainly because it lives in a house of wee boys who arent big

on grooming for themselves never mind a dog.

So we ended up mainly just cutting all the matted hair off its butt and leaving the rest of it.

it now looks hilarious like some wannabe Poodle....

i think its a look thats going to catch on

Shabby Apple Non-Giveaway....

I'm not a big blogger,

and must of the time i dont really care.

I keep this blog as a sort of mini diary of sorts,

seeing as i'm so crap at keeping a real one.

But there are times when i wish i was a

fancy blogger with a gazillionfollowers,

cause then Shabby Apple might get in touch with me

to do one of their giveaways and get a dress for free in the process.

And i superduperly want this dress for my

upcoming sailing trip on the Black Sea....

I'm mean,

what is a sailing trip on a fancy yacht with out a super cute sailors dress....

oh well,

never mind....

a Polaroid Betrayal....

So after only a week of owning my Polaroid camera

i have returned it to the shop.

i feel terrible,

i've wanted one for so long,

but in reality its just not worth it

and i've traded it in for the Fuji Instax Mini.

I loved my little camera

(ok its not so little its built like a brick)

but the fact of the matter is that the new film is so expensive and so unreliable.

I met my friend who i hadnt seen in a long time,

and had carted the camera all the way down to London in order to take a photo with him,

only for it be so bleached out that we are unrecognisable.

i like the idea of having an actual Polaroid camera

but i'd also like something that can actually capture the memories....

So fingers crossed the Fuji will fair me better.

i also felt pretty awful as i had to phone up my gift giver

and ask if they minded if i traded in their gift....

what awful person trades in such a thoughtful gift....

me

Rainy days......

As i left the house early yesterday morning to catch the bus down to London it was raining.

An ordinary occurance for Scotland, nothing out of the norm....

but it was the first proper rain i'd seen in almost a year.

It made me exceedingly excited.

After a rotten 9 hour journey,

i was greeted at the station by my lovely buddy buddy steven,

who took me to the new M and M's store in Leicester

(by detour of Buckingham Palace.....

he wasnt quite sure why i was so excited by Buckingham Palace

seeing as i used to live pretty much down the road from it a year back....

which he had to remind me as i had forgotten,

that seems so long ago)

The M&M's store was ridiculous.

4 floors dedicated to m&m tack....

but the punters seemed to be loving it....

And now i'm just chilling,

folding wedding invitations at my sisters house

whilst the rain pours down outside,

i love it

RAIN!

anyhows,

seeing as i couldnt find my camera to take

any pictures of some actual London sights

(ie lots of different coloured mandm's)

here are some engagement photos of the happy couple

First Day Home In Nearly A Year......

First day back home,

i nearly didnt make it after getting lost twice in Heathrow airport....

boy oh boy....

that place has got big and confusing,

Got home and said hello to all my wee brothers

who have shot up in the past year.

The tv is broken so they acted out movies for me,

(they really know their Predator stuff)

Had a bowl of Coco Shreddies with fresh milk....

FRESH MILK!

bliss...

and bacon sarnie.

One of my little brothers was

moaning that it was the cheap bacon.

I tell you this,

after living may a month bacon free....

it was good stuff.

Went to organise getting some new spectacles.

Tried on a hundred pairs,

my sister talked my out of ones they thought looked awful

into ones they thought looked only slightly awful.

(Have to wait a week to get them as apparently

they dont keep the super thick milk-bottle lenses in stock.)

I could do with a pair of these bad boys...

Oh.....

and most exciting of all, arrived home to a surprise package

a POLAROID CAMERA!

I'm a bit nervous to use it as the film is soooo expensive

(anyone know where to buy it cheap)

but the note from the gift giver said -

" I remember you REEEeeeeeeeAAAAllllly desperately wanted a polaroid,

so I thought you needed one,

I nearly didn't buy it when I found out how much the film costs -

CRAZY!

But then I thought you would like the surprise

more than the practicalities."

Oh how i love a good surprise......

The Holiday Slob.....

HHHOOOLLLLIDDDAAAAYYYYYSSSSS!

So i'm now into the second day of my holiday,

the first one was spent feeling very grateful that my roommate

was already of on holiday so that i could laze around

the house in my underwear cause it's so friggin hot.

I also baked a cake, one of those ones from a box,

cause its the only 'food' i had in the house.

I ate exactly half of it

and by this time tomorrow the other half will be gone also.

I'm not going to spend my whole holiday being a

cake-eating-underwear-wearing-slob though.

In fact I'm going to be going to these nice places,

Edinburgh (aka home)

Croatia

Turkey

although i havent mentioned this to my bank

account yet as i'm not sure that he can take it....

Backstage at the Ballet...

I'm currently camera-less as my charger

was one of the many items that i keep discovering went missing when i lost my bag.

But here a few pictures from our last performance

by my lovely fellow dancer Vicente....

The show must go on?

The end of my first year as a dancer at The Cairo Opera Ballet is coming to a close.

One more performance to go....

maybe......

it could be cancelled,

depending on whether the current protest

that is on Tahrir Square will continue or not.

Which kind of sums up what life is like here at the moment.

I constantly receive emails from my Embassy warning me

that perhaps this Friday there will be a protest and it could become dangerous.....

in fact i receive them so often i've begun to ignore them.

Also, having moved out of The Downtown area,

i no longer feel connected to the events which are happening there.

In fact on my street right now there is a live band

and street lights and a big party going on.....

not many revolutionary thoughts going on here at all.

But, I check out the news and see that the situation at Tahrir

this week seems to be hotting up again.

The change and progress the people want is slow.

Things go on,

but the Revolution and the discontent that it brought up is still around,

under the surface,

ready at any moment to resurface.

(photo of me by Vicente)

2 birds, 1 stone.....

Like most big cities Cairo has an Underground train system.

Its called the Metro.

Having recently moved further away from work and the Downtown area

(i disliked the constant threat of revolutionaries on my doorstep).

I now have a slightly longer commute to work.

The Metro in this summer heat is stinky and suffocating.

Its like half an our in a sauna....

and let me tell you this i am not the type of girl who likes to go to saunas ...ever.

But i do like to try and look on the bright side of life

and so here is one thing i do like about my commute on the metro....

shopping.

Oh yes....shopping.

Egyptians have a thing where they peddle their wears on the metro.

A little man/lady will come on, she will go down the metro car handing

out one of their items to each person there,

wailing aloud about how great their 1le product is,

they then return and either you buy it or they take it back.

There is a lot of trust involved in this little exercise....

in the London tube there is no way anyone would be returning the item....

in fact the first time it happened to me i thought that it was a free gift.

And 99% of the time the items are crap....

but every now and then they come along with something and you think,

'Yes! just what i needed'....

and it makes my commute just that little bit more worth while.