Looking back at August 2011

Every year the holy month of Ramadan arrives ten days earlier than in the previous year, so this year it started on the 1st August and as the month ends we are just about to take just a few days off for the Eid feast, as it is a national holiday. It is only three days but a most welcome three days.

August Pictures CLICK HERE to take the tour and see the large images. There are more than the six pictures shown here

We had a lovely day at El Quseir with Jan, Dawn and Amy as you will see in our photos. We went snorkeling and saw lots of wonderful fish followed by lunch - not fish - and then back to Luxor but we did notice this sticker on the back of an Egyptian car, in the car park as we left and it made us smile. It is quite amazing how many things here are written in English but we are glad that they are.

We are still trying to finish the roof off but with the intense heat we can only spend a couple of hours on it, just before the sun goes down, though it is still rather too hot up there, and that is only when we have the time and energy so it is far from a daily event. We are now at the painting stage and with our time off for Eid we hope to get it finished as we bought some lovely cactus that will like it up there.

Cindy returned from a very wet trip to the UK and Mr Gaddis the Horary British Consul returned from the USA and we enjoyed a lovely meal with very large portions at the Gaddis Hotel where - if you like that sort of thing and we most definitely do not - Cindy does an excellent karaoke twice a week.

Cindy is a very pro-active supporter of AWOL which celebrated another really successful year, its fourth, on the 11th August. Click Here to visit the AWOL web site and do click on the Newsletters button to read all about what we and everybody else have been doing throughout August. It is a really good cause with a really good team so do become part of the team and help us help the animals.

We have maintained our temple visiting schedule and this month it was Hatshepsut Temple. As you will see it was virtually deserted so we had a wonderful time. It really is something that we should have done before, as every time you see something different. We also visited the Ramesseum towards the end of the month and were the only two visitors the whole time we were there but we will cheat and add those pictures to next month's newsletter. We hope to be going back to the temple of Montu at Tod followed by a late lunch at Africa Restaurant once Eid is over which we are looking forward to. Sabine also returns from Holland which is great for us.

As for Luxor itself, as we said last month we know that many of you have concerns about coming back, but you really shouldn't worry as we still feel very much safer here than in the UK.

If you are coming to Luxor and plan to meet up with us then please Click Here and print off the page that opens which has Pauline's mobile number and also full details of where we can meet. If you have a corner to spare in your suitcase do Click Here for a few items that we would love you to bring over.

Pauline and Graham XX and our zoo xxxxxxx

If you would like to e-mail us then please CLICK HERE. It can sometimes take several days for us to answer but rest assured that we always do.

Click Here to take our August photos tour.