It's just like I remember it...

Thanks to the ministrations of EgyptAir, Thomas and I arrived safe and well in Sharm el Shiekh, yesterday afternoon. The journey was great and at Cairo airport there is a special terminal just to fly to Sharm and Hurghada, which made the whole process very smooth indeed.

I did get into a conversation with an American at the baggage carousel about the situation in Pakistan and I was shocked by how passionate I got about a country that I have lived in for only four months. Thankfully the guy was not typical of his countrymen as he had grown up in Tehran and realised that there is a world that exsists outside of the 'U.S. of A'.

Thomas and I were here just over two years ago, just before I started work in Great Houghton and he started university. Even then he was making an effort to communicate in Arabic, now he is so confident and capable in the language, its a pleasure to watch. I don't have a clue what's going on as I have about 6 words of Arabic.

Today we have had a very lazy day, first by the pool and then on the patio in front of our room. We are staying at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Resort which is sort of like an Egyptian version of Centre Parcs, which touches of Butlins!! There are even some Red Coats knocking about! It does have some advantages over the other two places though and the main one is the weather. I am certain that I would not be swimming off Skegness beach, though we did manage a couple of dips in the Red Sea today to swim with the fishes! It is just like swimming in an aquarium swimming here, there are thousands of beautiful coloured fish, sometimes just inches away from your face.

After our swimming and reading by the pool we retired to our room to change and then headed for lunch. This was a delicious canelloni and then back to the room to sit on the patio in front of the room.

Here I challenged Thomas to Scrabble, to which he reluctantly agreed. Here there is a history you have to understand, for a long time Thomas invariably beat me at Scrabble and I could only claim the odd victory. However, after 9 months working at The Dearne High in Rotherham and playing Scrabble every day with Steve Smith I have improved enourmously and now I have the upper hand. Though even by my standards today was a bit of a walk over as I won 390 -240! I have to gloat where I can as he is so much better than me at most things, I have savour these little victories. The only other time I usually come out on top is when we go bowling.

We are now in Sharm Old Town about to visit a restuarant we first visited on our last visit, it served us then, with the most excellent fish and we are hoping that they will come up trumps once more...