23 November '13: November a month of many firsts! Amazing that it is some 9 weeks or so since I last added to my blog - apologies, but it has been a quite hectic few weeks with many visitors staying with us. A great time was had by all but the highlight has to go to my 7 month Grandson Aidyn Ridley who has taken to crawling at close to the speed of sound, making him quite a terror in our big living area. We have had visitors from Oxford, Marseilles, London, Liverpool, Derby, Belfast, Ballywalter as well as Rabat, Agadir, Imlil, Amizmiz and Ouarzazate, (yes I did say Ballywalter!! They were a difficult bunch who never stoped chattering about the mysterious goings on in 'Sleepy Hollow'. It would make an interesting script for a new TV show!). So what about the many firsts - well November saw the unfurling of the summer duvet. The temperature started to drop just a little and I relented and allowed Roberta to bring out the light duvet, though many a night I slept with at least one leg on top to keep cool. The night temp suddenly dropped two days ago and we now have the winter duvet out to keep us warm. This is more than adequate and I have put my foot down (for all the good that ever does me!) and refused to allow the heavy Moroccan blanket to be unwrapped. I say heavy because it weighs about 20lbs per square foot and when it is on the bed you are exhausted just breathing. I find my shoe size reduces two whole units because my toes shrink back under the weight of the blessed blanket; ' Never mind the quality feel the weight!!!' Another first is that I am now in long trousers during the day. Much to the amazement of the locals I still wear short sleeve shirts without a jumper or body warmer. They just shiver and shake their heads in total unbelief and my reply is that they know nothing of a cold Irish winters day. Another undesirable first were our car accidents. After a whole year of trouble free driving we have been involved in four ot five minor altracations with other road users. In absolute truth I can tell you that none were our fault but were the outcome of bike riders behaving as though they own the roads and need not comply with even the most basic of rules. To anyone on two wheels, traffic lights and road signs are purely advisory! They are literally everywhere and going every direction. In one instance a young boy cycling home from school at lunch time pulled out right in front of me to overtake a lorry that was coming the other way. There was but a 12" gap between the lorry and myself. That was bad enough but he had his mate sitting on the handlebars! Needless to say they clipped my wing mirror heavily and both fell off somehow landing in the thin strip of road between the two moving vehicles and not going under the wheels of either. Scary to say the least. Anyway I got out and checked they were not injured, which they weren't and then proceeded to take the cyclist right around my car to show him the red paint from his bike spread all over my driver's door. A big crowd gathered round and then an older local man came over who knew the boys. I thought I was going to get an earful in Arabic, instead he grabbed the boy by the ear and started clipping him round the head for being so stupid and careless. Anyway that was only one of our near misses involving us both, so we are very supportive of each other when the trauma sets in of what might have happened had someone been more seriously injured. I did have to spend two hours working with T-cut to try and remove the scratches from the bodywork. Until the next time eh! November also saw having to renew our residency papers. We decided that given the masses of paperwork and the numerous visits to the 'Moqkatar' to have everything legalised, we would try and get five year residency this time. The process required us to undergo a medical examination, see September's entry below, but also a police check in Rabat, a four hour drive away. In true Moroccan fashion I then had to take the train journey back to Rabat 4 weeks later to collect the required forms. Arriving in Rabat in the middle of an industrial dispute and fighting my way through the crowds of protestors to get into the office left me in dread that I was not going to get the papers I needed. 'Ma-Kaan Mushkeel' (no problem) the office worked merrily under seige and ten minutes later I emerged clasping both our documents. Clearly the police here don't yet know about the various convictions and fines for bad tambourine playing back in Kings in Bangor, not to mention the my record for raiding 'orkies' back in the 60s. Roberta has clearly managed to keep secret her fraudulent home-made puddings that we all know they were bought in M&S in Bloomfields! Back to our 5-year residency application.... our bundles of papers, including evidence of our mothers' waist and Fathers' shoe size, were accepted and everything looked good until we returned after two weeks to be told we could only have one year, 5 years only available after completing three single years applications. This turned out to be an area of dispute between the officials downstairs that received applications and those upstairs that processed them. We sat in the office watching a full blown row between officials at all levels waving two opposing documents setting out the rules. In the end a young girl was sent off to find out which document was the most recent and, hey presto, we have now been recommended for our 5 year permits to be collected in January. Last of our 'Firsts' this month was a drive over the High Atlas Mountains to vist a place called Quarzazate. Lovely place, unusually clean and finished, without the sense of buildings waiting for another storey to be added. Little else there except an old film studio where they claimed such silver screen epics as Cleopatra, Gladiator and The Game of Thrones were shot. We paid our 40Dhs (£3) to be shown around this pathetic delapidated series of rooms with the most random selection of flea eaten props and dilapadated costumes on show. This was followed by a tour of the prop store where the props had been allowed to deteriorate; what a shambles. Then we saw the two massive studio buildings - One even had a pit which we were advised was Cleopatra's bath! Looked more like a pit for a mechanic to change the oil in his tractor to me! The highlight came when our 'guide' asked us if we would like to see the set of 'Kingdom of Heaven'. Well we couldn't miss that could we? I looked around for the studio tour bus but was directed back to my own car into which we climbed with the tour guide taking up a position in the boot. After a ten minute drive over a dirt track into the middle of the desert we arrived at what was quite an an impressive Kasbah/fort made up of scaffolding and a fibreglass three storey construction, complete with ramparts and heavy wooden gates. After handing a ticket stub to an additional guardian who told us he was having a busy day and we were his fourth set of visitors that week, we were able to enter the main gates of the Kasbah. Actually we enjoyed our walk around the set but couldn't quite get over the lack of hand rails in the most precarious of places and the 50 feet straight stairway descent with minimal support in the way of ballustrades. In truth it was like coming down a very tall ladder front on. Can't help thinking the H&S police would never allow it to even open in the UK - actually the risk kind of added spice to the whole experience. Oh yes, one more first, I had Camel Tajine to eat. Roberta nearly took the 'hump' when I offered her a taste! Back in the UK in a couple of weeks, will try andprovide a short update blog while I am in Liverpool with the girls for Christmas, Santa duties permitting. Here is hoping Christmas is a enjoyable and great time for you all. Do drop us a line - Russell and Roberta. 30 September '13 Doesn't seem like two whole months since I last blogged and in the interim we have visited Liverpool. then Sandhurst, then Wales, Chester, back to Liverpool before a week in Hillsborough, N.Ireland, back to Liverpool, down to Sandhurst and then back to Marrakech with Laura. Lots of travelling and seeing family and friends and the weather was really quite good to us throughout our visit. Best part was missing the 45+ temps back here in Maroc where poor Khalid and Clare were boiling! You can see from our itinerary that spending time with Aidyn remains a high priority and it is amazing the things he learned even in the six weeks we were in the UK. Even now we have a skype call every weekday morning to see him eating the yucky but healthy breakfast delights that Gillian concocts for him to eat. We have noticed that none of it ever goes in to Gillian's mouth, tell you anything? Oh - In case you didn't know grandchild No2 (wee girl we think) is also on the way and due to arrive with the Minejems in late January. Three quick funnies...... 1. Had a great night with the Minejem extended family with Laura in attendance. Before she sends the photos I have to tell you about a most embarrassing situation. I was walking out from Fatima's home through the cobbled side streets talking with Khalid's uncle. Now he is a wonderful man and I consider him a very good friend, but not good enough to walk with holding hands. However this is quite normal in this culture but still very strange for me, especially as he was wearing a traditional Djelabba. I could hear Roberta and Laura walking behind sniggering at the sight of big Russ holding hands with this man. Didn't do my image any good whatsoever. When the man's wife heard why they were laughing, rather than take offence, she burst out into very loud laughter drawing even more attention to my predicament. 2. Roberta and I have to go through the motions of applying for the renewal of our residency. This requires endless photocopies of numerous legalised documents and certificates as well as 12 photographs each, a Police Check and a Health Certificate. To get the health certificate we had to attend an Occupational Health Clinic, at least that is what they called it. It was the day after a huge storm and very many floods, more on that later, and the clinic was absolutely swimming and very uninviting to say the least. Anyway we presented ourselves before the senior 'nurse' and she asked us our height and weight. She wrote them down on a certificate and then stamped it and didn't even charge us the 40Dhs that was the anticipated fee. She also waived the eye test. I suspect it was because she reckoned we didn't know the arabic alphabet. Now she didn't check any of the details, in fact putting Roberta's down as 165Kg which I had to quickly correct. As regards my own, had I known she wasn't going to check, I would have taken off a few more Kgs and maybe added thirty centimeters to my height. No questions about illnesses, diseases, infections or the like. We could both have had HIV, TB, Malaria, Heart disease or anything. The outcome? well we now both have certificates which say we are in complete control of all our faculties! (If only the Lady knew the truth - I was showering this morning and used a funny sort of new shampoo which was kind of hard to get into any sort of lather; when I put my glasses on, the shampoo turned out to be an antiseptic mouthwash which Roberta had left out for me because I had been having tooth ache over the weekend. I now have a surgically clean scalp and not a fly will come within a two meter radius of my shiny polished dome!) 3. Two Tuesday nights ago we had a humongous storm, with driving rain and lightening lasting nearly four hours. It was fun the first hour counting the seconds between the claps of thunder and the flashes of lightening, with a few leaks under a number of windows. Then it got serious when we discovered the drains front and back were not taking the rain and we literally had a river flowing in the front and back doors in the basement. Thankfully our tenant Dave jumped in to action and I was able to lift the cover of an internal manhole so Dave and I could direct the water, him from the front door and me from the back, towards and down the open manhole/drain. After an hour of squiggying we thought we were winning when suddely I heard a cry from upstairs where Roberta had discovered the roof had also now flooded with 3 inches of standing water which was pouring in both roof terrace doors and running like a river down the four flights of stairs. It soon became clear we couldn't turn the water back so instead we had to channel it down the stairs and back out the rear back door to the internal stairs which sits higher up. Anyway we certainly got all our floors cleaned that night. We have water damage to a few of the bedrooms where the standing water on the roof had seeped in and down the walls but we got off light. That same night we visited a young American couple who had just taken possession of all their furniture and clothes etc after moving from USA. It was all stored in their basement which in ten minutes became flooded with the water level rising to over 5 feet! What an awful mess!
Finally, the clocks nearly went back last Saturday night. The whole country was all set for an extra hour in bed when an internet message came through to tell us all that a Government Committee had met and decided to defer the change and bring Morocco into line with the rest of Europe, changing only at end of October and again in March. Sounds a great idea in principle, but not with less than 24 hours notice. Chaos reigns. Buses, Trains and Planes departed half empty with people not knowing if their departure was for example 8.15 'new time' or 'old time'. In church we had one complete family turn up just as we were signing the last hymn. Would be funny but this confusion happens twice every year, in fact it is 4 times a year because they often change the clocks back during the heat of Ramadam to bring the breaking of fast earlier into the evening. We will soon have people asking if it is 10.00 o'clock the new-old time or the old-new time. The locals can't fathom this bi-annual clock change, perhaps because a lot of their life is not governed by a clock but by the sun, especally the 5 daily prayer calls. In language class last week we were doing the time and we were told not to worry about 5, 10 or even 1/4 'past' or 'to', concentrate on the hours and half hours and that will be close enough for most Moroccans! Anyway it is 10.30 pm Old Time and I am off to bed. Drop me a line and tell me how you are doing sometime. Love to hear from you all out there. Russell PS Gidday Lyndsey (down under), beat you to it, when are you gong to blog again?
24 July 2013 I am writing this entry from Liverpool, having escaped the Marrakech heat (40+) on Monday. We recently had a very important little visitor to our Moroccan home, yes Aidyn our darling 13 week old Grandson arrived with his mum at the beginning of July to spend three weeks with us. Now I have joined the ranks of those doting old codgers who think their own grand children are the most beautiful of all God's creations, only in AIDYN's case it is absolutely true; Roberta has confirmed it and she says she is not biased one bit! Not half! We had a brilliant time playing with him and even in those three weeks we could see amazing development as he started to string baby conversations together,taking a firm grip of things in his hands and smiling like a real trooper. The only annoying thing was that he seemed to understand Khalid and Farida speaking Arabic better than either Roberta and myself, after a whole year nearly of us attending language lessons. Makillickeen!!!! The June/July heat kind of put an end to my golf outings, it was simply unbearable trying to walk 18 holes in the heat. Even a golf buggy didn't sound very inviting and, as I had hurt my shoulder carrying a heavy gas bottle, I decided to give the golf a rest until we return in September. Pity though as in early June I had my best round ever with a net 78, one shot better than Tiger in the US Masters the same day. Meeting some interesting people on the course too, one was the son of an English Lord and the other the brother of an N.Irish Earl; don't know what that makes either of them other than wealthy, posh and all day to play golf! My brother-in-law Michael and I did beat them in a putting match though. (Silver Spooners 0 - The Plebs 1) The heat has also put paid to my gym sessions. I couldn't stand the heat and the copious amounts of body fluids splashing everywhere from stupid people who will not allow an open window to let fresh and slightly cooler air in. Also to make matters worse, the instructor, Mr Bendy himself, was starting to pick on me for demonstrations of particular demanding sequenced movements. Why? Not because I was in any way good or even able to bend half way into the different positions but because I was the only one with a sense of rhythm who could keep my restricted movements in time with the music. It is really funny and while I am improving I still only manage to barely reach my ankles when the rest have their hands flat on the ground between their toes. Well, I am the second oldest participant and at least I have rhythm ('of sorts' I hear William shout!). Will go back to gym in September also! In truth is was something of a relief to escape Marrakech in the middle of Ramadam. On the evening of the 12th July we took Gill, Dave and Aidyn down to Jamalf'na, the big square; parking behind Koutoubia mosque, our 'traditional' parking space. It is really handy and we are well enough known now to only pay the local rate of 10Dirhams and not the 20 they charge to 'stupid tourists'. This requires you however to leave the keys of your new car with a man wearing a yellow bib as his badge of authority, so he can manoeuvre vehicles to maximise the available parking. System works well and is cheap city centre parking for a good couple of hours or more. We then proceeded to the big square where we visited our regular orange juice seller and took a photo of Aidyn serving behind a massive display of oranges. I will try and post the resulting photo of our own wee 'Aidyn the Orangeman' at the top of this blog. Anyway at 7.45pm we decided we needed to get Aidyn home and started to walk back to the car. No way! Of all days on this glorious the 12th July however our traditional route back to the car was blocked by a couple of hundred Moroccan men all getting ready to pray in the street beside the biggest and oldest mosque in Marrakech. The police wouldn't even allow us to walk past them for fear that we might somehow corrupt their efforts to please God or snap an inappropriate photograph. Sound familiar? I immediately protested my 'right to walk on the King's highway' and so applied to the local Parades Commission for approval but they have