I was so busy photographing the African Queen with her small amount of splash that I did not realise that it was about to collide, sending us into the air whilst those on the other side of the boat went closer to the water. The impact sent Roger’s hat into the water but it was promptly rescued by a boy who had wagged school to sing songs for the tourists in the hope that one will give him some money.
The pirates of the Nile hang around the locks and latch onto the sides of the ship. If you make eye contact you will have goods thrown up for you to purchase. Their oars make a splash as do much of the produce as it is returned often landing with a splash in the Nile.
The vessels all have water draining from the back – hitting with a splash. I presume that they circulate water to cool the motors. I refuse to think it is anything else.
If a book makes it to my bookshelf it stays there until it is read. At that point it will either be recycled or, if I have loved the narrative enough, I will move it to the bookshelf of books I can’t bear to part with. When I wanted to choose a book to take with me to Egypt I chose one that I was fairly confident I would be happy to leave behind and one which would also be able to be read where it wouldn’t matter if there were distractions going on around me making my reading somewhat disjointed. The book I chose was Judith Krantz’s Spring Collection.
I have to admit that I didn’t open it until the end of our holiday when we were reclining on the MS Sarah floating languidly down the Nile and I only opened it then because I needed to make space in my haversack (I travel light) for items bought. I found that it was somewhat better than I had expected and I found myself returning to it happily.
The story was set in the fashion industry where the House of Loring learnt that three of their new models had won a chance to become the face of Lombardi. The financier of the competition turned out to be the agency’s head, Justine, long unknown father who had learnt of her when Justine’s mother died and sent a scrapbook seeking revenge. One of the conditions was that Justine accompany the models but she pulled out at the last minute sending her second in charge instead. I won’t say more – it is more fun to read the story than get a synopsis of it.
What I particularly liked about this romance novel was that it had more depth than the average romance. The author had obviously researched the fashion industry and I have to admit I learnt a lot or felt that she confirmed facts that I thought I knew but had never checked on. Not only was there one potential romance going on but several and the way she developed the characters made the reader form strong opinions of them, rooting for them at times and hoping they got their comeuppance at others.
Would I recommend this book. – Yes I would particularly if you like romance, fashion or need a book that will survive distractions. It did not make it home to my forever shelves but I left it for some other boat traveller to pick up from the swap book shelves onboard. I wonder how many countries it might eventually travel.
We have had Egypt on our Bucket List for a long time but had given up the dream of ever being able to visit. We had booked to travel in 2011 but the uprising that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak saw the Australian Government post travel warnings and our tour operator cancelled the trip. Travel warnings remained in place due to the bombing of a plane in 2015. We were excited when a scoopon (online discount goods seller) came through with a very cheap deal to travel to Egypt. “Why not” we thought and we took the plunge giving us 12 days in the most interesting country I have travelled to and allowing me to cross floating down the Nile and seeing the ancient wonders that Egypt has in abundance off my Bucket list.
Iceland and Greenland were on my Bucket list back in the eighties. I travelled to both places in 1990 and was taken with the spectacular scenery and the differences in life that living in a very cold climate created. I then crossed it off my list. However, it has popped back onto my list as I would love to travel there and show it to my husband who certainly didn’t have it on his Bucket list. After seeing the Secret Life of Walter Mitty which visited both courntries he has finally agreed that he would like to visit them with me. No plans at the moment but it will have to be in the next few years because soon he is going to be saying the flights knock him so much that he no longer wants to do long haul travel.
Having my memoir published has long been on my bucket list. I say long been because the first version was started over twenty years ago. As it came near to completion I realised that I had to have an Australian publisher take me up. Most of us leave behind a bit of ourselves in our children. I have no children so that is not an option for me but I realised that I too wanted to leave a part of me behind and this could be done by having a place in the National Library of Australia and as can be seen below – there it is.
This is the closest we have got to Mainland China. From the Macau side we watched people going through the border post to work. I don’t know that China has been on my Bucket List for long although a friend of ours that worked there told us how beautiful a country it is . Now however we have added it. It is closer to home and an extremely cheap destination for us to travel to. The plan is to remove it from the Bucket List sometime next year.
Thinking of everyone in the United States celebrating Thanksgiving this week and I hope that everyone had a time of happiness with their families. Celebrations such as these can bring for some, however, much sadness as a day meant to be celebrated with family serves only to highlight those that are missing from the table. My heart goes out to all those who struggle through this time, especially this year those that suffered in the Wild fires in California.
I must also apologise for my sudden absence. I know some of my readers worried and for that I am sorry. In August we gained possession of our new house. Roger had never really settled into unit living so we had decided that we would move. The house we bought needed a lot of renovations most of which we were going to do ourselves and we had a period of a month in which to do paint the house before the new flooring went down. This proved harder than we thought as Roger is now in need of a total shoulder and hip replacement. At the same time I persuaded my mother at 90 that she should stop driving which means that I am doing a lot of chauffering duties. She also had emergency surgery which saw her in ICU for a few days but she has now recovered well. In fact she had less reaction to the anaesthetic than Roger did the last surgery he had. All in all – life got on top of me and I found I suddenly couldn’t cope. Creativity went out the window. My camera even went in the cupboard. I was frozen when it came to blog posts and I had no time to visit anyone which always makes me feel guilty. I simply have not gone near my computer for a couple of months and I feel revived for the break and look forward to returning regularly to my pages and hopefully yours. You never really know what challenges life has for you.
Soon after we moved we had a new dog join the family. Marley is a rescue dog that came with some issues – none of which we have yet experienced. He is a delightful dog and has made our family complete.
This was the most awe inspiring place I have ever visited in my life and I can assure you that over the coming weeks you will hear about it in a travel feature that I am going to start writing.
I was thrilled on my return to learn that my memoir Nightmare in Paradise has been published.
It is available as both paperback and ebook (in a couple of formats) but I can’t as yet find it as an ebook on Amazon so if you want it in this fromat you will need to visit Zeus. If you read it I would love to have you review it. I am now trying to plan a book launch and for an introverted person this is going to be the hardest part of the entire writing process. I will also do some posts on what I do in preparation for this and whether or not it is an effective strategy. If anyone has experience would love to have your ideas on what works and what doesn’t.
Only a month to go until Christmas. It seems like it only happened last week. This Christmas we are looking forward to and I plan on decorating the tree and house. We have my brother from Switzerland arriving before Christmas and my sister-in-law, her husband and her grand-daughter arriving from Germany on boxing day. It will be lovely to have so much family around – not something that happens often these days as everyone is spread around the world.
Times Past will return at the beginning of December and I look forward to reading your responses to the prompt.
Now I think I have taken enough of your time – over to you. Have you read any good books or seen any films that should be seen? Looking forward to seeing how your week has been. Thank you for dropping in for coffee, it is lovely to see you. Thanks to eclecticali who is our host of the weekend coffee share.
Cee has challenged us for this weeks fun foto to picking topics from the above photograph. She suggests possible topics are: This week’s possible topics are music, guitar, instrument, men, candid, coffee, cup, cafe, jewelry, plates, sofa, etc.
My everyday is full of water. On the river there is always something or someone to watch but never is it busy enough that it stresses – rather it helps unwind.
Don’t spend hours looking for the impatient husband. We came across this kookaburra on our dog walk. If it had been just Muffin and I, I would have taken photo after photo until I got a clear well defined photo. I had not realised just how difficult it would be to hold a camera with a telescopic lens steady and I know a tripod is now on my wish list. When I’m with Roger though, I have maybe two minutes to take a photo – hence the lack of clarity.
I began my working career as a reluctant potato peeler whilst waiting to commence my training as a student nurse. On completion I worked mainly in intensive care/coronary care; finishing my hospital career as clinical nurse educator in intensive care. A life changing period as a resort owner/manager on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu was followed by recovery time as a farmer at Bucca Wauka. Having discovered I was no farmer and vowing never again to own an animal bigger than myself I took on the Barrington General Store. Here we also ran a five star restaurant. Working the shop of a day 7am - 6pm followed by the restaurant until late was surprisingly more stressful than Tanna. On the sale we decided to retire and renovate our house with the help of a builder friend. Now believing we knew everything about building we set to constructing our own house. Just finished a coal mine decided to set up in our backyard. Definitely time to retire we moved to Queensland. I had been writing a manuscript for some time. In the desire to complete this I enrolled in a post grad certificate in creative Industries which I completed 2013. I followed this by doing a Master of Arts by research graduating in 2017. Now I live to write and write to live.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 