Alex in Egypt...

Morning all!

Just a quick entry from Egypt. I still haven't been able to get an internet connection in my hotel so I'm posting this from the cement plant via their network, which is rather slow to be polite. The work is going well. It is absolutely boiling here. It must be well over 40 degrees which makes working on the back of a kiln that runs at 1400 degrees rather sweaty... I have heard from Jackie that the kitchen saga once again has backfired. I don't believe it! (again in a Victor Meldrew voice...) Ah well, being this far away from it I must leave it to my more than capable better half to sort out this new problem... A f&^%$%^ing gasleak? Every time we fix something we think that surely that must have been the last problem something else blows up. Still the new cooker has been connected and is working so that is something I suppose... I hope that nothing buggers up my flights on the saturday as that is my birthday. Jackie will be seriously annoyed if I don't show up for my own birthday.... I'm staying in a rather nice hotel on the coast. www.stelladimare.com . There are loadsa pools and the sea is right outside the front door. Unfortunately I haven't made it there yet as work has been over running. My new best mate is the instrumentation engineer here. He has got the longest name in the history of names. He is called Ahmed Abdel Tawab Kamel Moustafa. That has got to go down as a record. He has been working with me getting the systems up and running. The factory here is something else. They have 5 kilns and the place makes a mountain of cement every day. The location is rather plain. We are surrounded here by sand, dust, rocks, ruble, stones and more dust in 300 shades of beige. I will post some pictures later when I get my internet connection sorted in my hotel. The driver that picks me up from the hotel every day is extremely funny. He is called Soammy or something like that. He speaks only arabic which I don't speak much. That does not stop him from having long discussion with me about all sorts of stuff ( I guess...), he just jabbers and jabbers. His driving style is rather amusing. This man can do 7 things at the same time. Drive the car, answer phone calls, clean his dashboard, smoke a fag, talk to me and overtake at the same time. Sometimes after overtaking he forgets to return back to the side of the road where he was driving. He then swears, flashes his lights and honks at the other cars as they try to persuade him to go back to the normal side of the road. All very amusing and very helpful for waking up in the morning. At least he is friendly. OK, time for me to go, I have some work to do...

Cheerio from Egypt!