Friday, February 25, 2005

A Day In The Life

SharmAirport.JPG
SharmAirport.JPG, originally uploaded by Miloflamingo.
I'm in Sharm right now, a three day weekend that is full of work. Today, Friday, I had a general assembly planned for our airline. A group of six men were coming to my house in Sharm to conduct this meeting that would set up a new management company to handle the affairs of the airline. Part of the new regime was a booth for Orca at the AVEX airshow in Sharm el Sheikh airport. This let the industry know that Orca was back in business. Yesterday I took a tour of the airshow with the general assembly scheduled for today.

I woke up about 9:30 this morning. There are real advantages to not sleeping next to the bird cages. No way can I sleep that late at home. I checked the living room for damage since my son and some friends of his who were going to help me with the meeting had been up late the night before. The living room looked like an explosion in a junk food factory, but there was nothing that a good vacuum couldn't fix, and I started in on the task.

Deciding to take some garden cushions into the storage room next to the laundry room, I wandered back there only to squeak in dismay as I waded into a pool of water. For reasons yet to be determined, my washing machine had decided to fill and then overfill with cold water, flooding the laundry room and part of the storage room. Having no mercy, I roused the younger generation and set them to work with mops and towels to get rid of the water while I finished cleaning up the living room.

As we embarked on this flurry of flood control and cleaning, I got a phone call from a friend of my daughter who was staying at my home in Abu Sir and babysitting the dogs and parrots. My oldest dog is a neutered female, Stella, who was adopted from a stable and been with us for about 15 years. She's getting very old and a bit weak and pack mentality is pretty merciless. Today one of the younger dogs attacked her and Pat broke up the battle incurring an accidental bite in the process. She's getting some stitches in her ears right now and there is a hole in her leg that has to be stitched up as well. But the phone call was definitely less than welcome. I had to take a break from the frantic clean up to call a neighbour to check on Pat (he administered a tetanus shot as well) and a vet friend of mine to come to check Stella as soon as possible.

Once I'd marshalled my veterinary and medical forces, it was back to work on the flood, work that was almost done when the visitors arrived for the meeting. Chairs were dragged into the garden and business commenced over coffee and tea. Three hours later, we'd finished our meeting and business will continue with the management company pushing my airline's renewal. Now I'm waiting for Karim to report on the dog. It's been a long day.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Happy Trails to You

I realise that not everyone is a horse freak. I am. Always have been. I can't remember a time when I wasn't reading about horses, dreaming about horses, or as a child playing games with horses. I got my first horse at the age of forty while we were living in Alexandria. It was both a dream come true and a nightmare. It had been twenty years since I'd ridden regularly and I had to completely re-learn the skill. I hid endless bruised spots and wrenched joints from my concerned husband in the process. But I persisted and within two years was the happy owner of a second Arab mare. Later I bred both mares and now I have their sons. An accidental breeding of the first mare with the son of the second one gave me a third colt. These horses formed the core of my little herd.

While the horses, my riding and my plans for my horses are an important part of my life in Abu Sir, they aren't all of it. Rather than writing as much as I'd like about the horses and riding in this blog, I decided that the riding deserved a blog of it's own and I've started one at http://haramlik.blogspot.com. First I'll be introducing the members of my herd and talking about riding in Egypt, but soon I hope to have some good traveling stories as we plan to do a multiday ride from Abu Sir to Fayoum and back sometime in March. Any of you who are not nuts about horses can give it a miss, but any of the rest are more than welcome to join me.

Ahlan wa sahlan