Couscous by hand

Get a wadging great pile of flour.
Add a mixture of water, salt & cumin but not enough to make a dough.




Sieve twice




Lay on big tray & cover with some clean material like a mlhfa.
Stick on the roof for a couple of days if the sun is really hot, stirring from time to time.
Steam.
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The seemly side

Sitting round a low table of sticky rice and hunks of fish piled high with friends.


Running into local people in the street you vaguely know and being invited back for tea (a good two hour affair)

Coffee out


Home-made, squishy flat bread with friends who are delighted to see you again.


Trying out Arabic and being both understood and laughed at!

Blue skies.


A town that comes alive after dark and the temperature is manageable, heaving with markets, shops spilling into the streets and scores of little street sellers with their wares laid out on the ground.


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The unseemly side

A pile of fish heads & a severed goat's trotter in the street.

Children throwing stones at us.

Being stared at, shouted at, honked at and leered over.



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Nothing unusual about that!

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What?

Today's funniest moment that is hard to translate but I will try anyway;...
H and I are going through some basic Arabic, testing each other and she asks me; 'what's taul' or so it sounded to me. So I think well it must begin with ط because of the somewhat swallowed vowel that sounds somewhere between a T and a D. It must be followed by و which is like a W sound and probably finishes with ل, an L sound. طول. I have no idea what this word is. I give up.
Then I see what she's looking at.
A towel.
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Classic Joy

Walking down the street this evening with a couple of local friends and I jokingly wolf whistle at the girl and ask if that's the same here as in England. Suddenly everyone is laughing. I'm like 'wha..?' There's a guy just off the pavement in some waste ground kneeling down. He's not praying. It's what they do here when they relieve themselves in public. Yup. And I just wolf whistled him!
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Oh yeah, I remember...

* the early call to prayer
* walking in the road more than the pavement because of the stuff everywhere
* the dryness desiccating your feet in minutes
* the 'koba' lorry making a right racket coming round with water
* 'draa' shops (traditional male dress)
* being stared at
* 'American? French?'
* chicken necks


New since last time;

* a bus service
* lots more building work
* a fountain on the roundabout by Las Dunas


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24 unusual hours.

15:15

Was I really in Birmingham this time yesterday?! I've smiled and laughed and cried and come to some peace in that time. Know what? All this is good.


I described my blog to someone the other day as a catalogue of scrapes I'd gotten myself into. Not to disappoint my fan base, I've already been told I can't get on a flight. Don't worry. I'm under favour so I refreshed THAT status and got them to change the name on my ticket and let me through without a charge. The only two blessings I requested!

Boom! That just happened!

Landed safely and with friend, chilling out with the fan on...

More soon

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3

Finally! My Myers-Briggs 'P' has come into force this morning - particularly the motivated by doing things at the last minute element.

Overnight hotel in Las Palmas now booked.

Someone to meet me at the airport sorted.

Ticket bought for onward flight to العيون

Pick up at Laayoune organised

Suppose I should think about packing. Not before a second coffee though, right?




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Days like these...

Phone call from mini-me checking to see how I'm doing. Got link to a pile of his artwork I'd not seen before



Ran into Tony B who recommended tk maxx for headphones

Bought very reasonably priced Skull Candy that have great volume and quality


Coffee with Vanessa

Bought pile of yoghurts so the yog-hog can pay back her debt to society and the Tull's fridge

Odds and ends of jobs

Tea chez Cook's. Got three cards, 1 each from the kids with Oscar signing his card as 'bum' because there wasn't enough space to write his name!!!

Did a bit of worship at a small group and got spontaneously swamped with prayer and love

Back home to find Kirsty had hung out my washing!

Dog hugs & sleep


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4

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The upside

Bedford - Laayoune


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5

What is this rain and cold?

OK, I'm ready to go!


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Conjecture

I wonder if when Jonah was off to catch his boat, all his mates thought he was getting the one to Nineveh but once they'd waved him off he jumped on a different one?

This is conjecture, of course, but there would have been boat schedules possibly or he would at least have know in advance of leaving that the date was drawing closer.

How inviting and straightforward must that boat to Tarshish have appeared? Maybe bigger and stronger looking than the one going in the opposite direction. How easy, when no one was looking anymore would it have been to sidle from one queue to another and blend in with the travellers and tourists?

I'm not seriously tempted to 'head to Tarshish' but there is an appeal in stopping in the canaries, deciding to stay to see mini-me through uni, deciding to stay in the UK and convince myself and others what I really need is just a little bit more training.

But Saturday it is and Nineveh it will be. I carry something too precious to be sacrificed for comfort and ease. The alternative is that I am sacrificed instead. So be it. I will leave with tears and come back rejoicing with sheaves.

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6

Six days 'til I head to the desert and I'm going to try and chronicle the countdown even though it might not fit the usual bill of 'lighter bites'

Woke this morning feeling sick with emotion and heavy with the weight if impending loss.

The sun is streaming through the window and there's not a cloud in the sky on a day that was forecast for rain. I take some comfort from that.


Jesus set his face resolutely as he faced the cross and I will imitate the master.

Today is my last Sunday at KA, my last Sunday hanging out with the dear Davies', my last Sunday.

This time next week I will be flying from the Canaries to العيون





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My charmed summer

Jumping in the river
Floating downstream
Learning to ride a motorbike
Creating art
Making small children giggle
Eating amazing food
Saying goodbye to family
Fishing
Entertaining
House-sitting
Dog-sitting
Cat-sitting
Kayaking
Friends, friends, friends
Composing
Walking
Swimming
Singing
Laughing
Crying



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Left and down a bit

Back in the Llanelli 'hood for a week. Oddly full of people who I don't know but will probably end up being go-to people in the future.

First off a meeting, totally unrelated to basket weaving, with a formality that made me want to sit in the back row and misbehave.

Grinned like a Cheshire Cat in wshp. The golden fortnight has been extended due to popular demand!




Happy to be back here for a few days. Plenty to look forward to going back to as well.

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Just for fun

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Pop

I just opened a bottle of champagne on the bus to Cambridge!

She's called Sylvia and I offered some of the sweets I had. She then exploded with rapid conversation about her love of the theatre and how she used to go to the old theatre on Ashburnham Road. When she was a small girl a man from a rep company knocked on the door asking for accommodation and they ended up meeting all the girls in the company who they took on the river where they all fell in and her mother ended up having a houseful of actresses knickers hanging out to dry!!!

What a firecracker!


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Honey-crusted spectacles

Now I may be viewing this place through rose-tinted croissants but this bakery on Wendover Drive is no ordinary bread & bun joint.
Reco-ed by local gourmets and foodie folks, Tim & Greta, I stumbled out of my house-sitting pad for a 10:30 breakfast.


I chose a few things from the cooked breakfast menu and sat outside in the sun. Mushrooms; generous, cooked to perfection, bacon; crispy but not burnt, hash browns; standard but good, sausage; average but no complaints. They could do with visiting Lingers Butchers but all in all a good breakfast with medium-strong coffee.
The Honey Crust Bakery is a full on Italian deli too and sells a modest range of cakes including the Bedfordshire speciality - chocolate toothpaste.

I shall return