Last flight out of Cairo!

As you've probably read in previous posts we had a really mental 'last night' in Cairo that consisted of frantic packing, regretting running out of bin bags, power cuts and cleaning.  After moving two summers ago we vowed we would never have a 'last night' like that again, but this one got pretty close.

Anyway - we were up early on the Sunday morning and our minibus arrived on time so Scott got to loading our luggage into the lift and onto the bus (six large cases, two small cases, trunki, rucksack, change bag, buggy and car seat!).  He did such a good job at loading everything that I called down from the balcony to check that he had it all, and when he said he did I just asked "Well, shall I lock up then?" and Leila and I gave a final wave 'bye bye' and headed on down to join him.  With hindsight it was a weird 'goodbye' for us to such a significant home in our lives, but we have the memories and so know we can't dwell on things like this or we'll never get on!

Leila was great in the minibus and at the airport when we met Nabil to check us in.  It was a bit sad to be honest even saying goodbye to Nabil (as it had been when we said goodbye to Sayed, our regular driver, the other day) but maybe we will see him again - we're definitely keeping his number!


At the airport we grabbed some breakfast (Leila was finally tempted to try some scrambled egg off our plate!) and then wandered around to keep Leila busy.  We'd got loads of Egyptian cash still, but decided to not try and spend it on random souvenirs as we can change it in London when we arrive. Leila enjoyed posting a final few postcards (after bulk-buying stamps about a year ago!) and playing around with Trunki and then it was time to board!

We'll probably get to our final destination before these do!

Leila and Trunki take a final look out on Egyptian "soil"

Trying to explain to Leila that we are now inside the plane....Luckily she's got 5.5hrs to grasp the concept!

Leila in her own seat (while Chimp gets the lap belt!)

Leila was great on the flight even though it was a lot of hard work for both of us.  Buying the extra seat was the right thing to do, as having the three seats made things so much easier. Leila spent most of the time in her seat and was kept entertained by the food and drink on the flight (and in our bag!), standing up to look behind/in front, clambering over the two of us, playing with Chimp and reading and singing.  We did a lot of reading and singing!  There were times when things were tough and she was a bit gringy, but she was mainly under control.  It was really nice though that the older lady in front of us complimented us on Leila's behaviour (and her husband claimed he didn't realise there was a toddler behind him....not sure if I quite believe that!) and on our approach to looking after her on the flight.

In London we had quite a wait for the bags (well there were a number of them!) and then spent some time figuring out how we were going to transport them all with just the two of us.  In the end Scott had a luggage trolley piled high with our six large cases and I had all four pieces of hand luggage on the buggy and then pulled Leila along on Trunki. Luckily it wasn't far that we had to negotiate with these unsteady vehicles until we were out with the P's in the Arrivals Hall.

Waiting for one of our many bags at Heathrow

Taking it easy!

Pickle - T3 Cairo

I can't believe that we're leaving Cairo around the same number of weeks with Little Pickle as we arrived back in Cairo after the summer 2012 with Leila, our Baba Ganough. It's seems poetic in a way, but also that autumn 2012 feels so long ago and so distant.

I'm really starting to feel the stretch on my belly and feel the heat now.  Today it has felt like my belly is expanding by the minute and is tight on one side as the Pickle is pushing against me!  We lost power today between 6.30-7.30pm and even though it was cooler than it had been at midday, 30-plus still isn't 'cool' and I was soon feeling pretty hot and grumpy from it all!

I'm getting there with side-lying, but still find myself on my back somehow!  I've been getting my funny hip-thing again which I think was from my joints loosening and so becoming sore at night.  At least I've been having fewer night cramps now though.

These last few weeks before we leave I have found that my belly is really growing and starting to get in the way of things.  I try and squeeze past Scott into a space and find it pushing him out of the way (!) or I bend down to get something and then realise I can only make it halfway there because my belly is in the way!

It's good that we have booked an extra seat on the flight back as the space will mean that Leila isn't all over the two of us the whole 5 hours we'll be on the plane.  Leila still very much wants to be picked up by me and as I'm bending at the knee to get her I find that it's fine to pick her up. I obviously need to carry her 'above' the bump, but this is proving OK as it feels that my bump is pretty low. 

People talk about the problems of making comparisons between pregnancies but I think the real problem is that I can't really remember what everything was like with Leila!

This week we have mainly been.....frantic!

Our last week in Cairo has been absolutely crazy-busy.  I'm sure one of the 'upsides' of being so busy is that we haven't really had a chance to get 'hit' by the reality that is leaving Egypt after six years of our lives here, but a really fustrating part of this busy-ness is that it seems so unavoidable!

Busy-ness at work
Scott has had a lot on at work recently, which means his days have been chocca with getting things done.  At home Leila has been running around and wanting to be busy doing things all the time which has kept me on my toes also.  When we finally get her to bed we have no time to do anything apart from sort and pack and fall in to bed.  We're so glad that we started early with our sorting and packing, but can see that it's going to be up until the last minute with everything anyway.

Busy-ness packing
It's been hard, but we've been sorting our stuff into three, rough, groupings; things we want to keep, things we want to sell, things we need to give away.  Then the 'things we want to keep' have been sorted in to two/three groupings; things we want to keep but don't need on us (that will go in shipping directly to Romania), things that we want to keep but no longer need (pack in suitcases but then leave in London), and finally things to just pack!

We started quite early with some of the stuff to sell and managed to get our diving gear sold to Ciara and Brian (it was sad to admit that we're unlikely to use it in the next six years and therefore it wasn't worth taking with us). I was surprised at how hard it was to sell some of Leila's old toys amongst baby group people, but then realised that it was probably due to the fact that not many of the babies in the group were the ages that needed the things we were selling. I managed to find a new facebook group 'Maadi Yard Sale' that turned up trumps in terms of getting some random bits shifted that was good. We managed to convince Therese, Rob and Ruth that they wanted a lot of our odds and ends for a cheap price which was great, but then it took about four trips to actually shift everything (once we realised quite how many pillows, towels and bedding we had accumulated!). The most frantic aspect of all of this though was, of course, the last few items to sell. We wanted to keep the computer monitor for as long as possible, but this ended up meaning that the guy came to collect it on Saturday night before we were due to fly to London on Sunday morning! Towards the end it was also really hard just to deal with the stuff to give away, as Scott needed to take a taxi to the church to donate a load of things and then the bowab and ella had to make multiple trips to collect all the things we had for them.

When it came to stuff to ship we had the shipping company come round in May to look at all the things we wanted to take.  We kept saying 'it's not much' because all it was really was our pictures in frames, some toys for Leila, some bits and bobs, soft furnishings and two guitars. But as time went on we gradully found ourselves adding to the pile in our corridoor and it totaled 16 boxes and nearly 300kg in weight! Even looking at the manifest of what is in each box we can't quite figure our how it got to be so much.  I'm sure when it eventually arrives in Bucharest we'll wonder quite why we were sending some of these things, but hey-ho.  This week has been particularly frantic because the shippers came on Monday afternoon to pack everything up.  This timing was due to work well, because Scott was home from work so could be there with me (and Ella was working and so could take Leila out for a bit!). But actually the timing was a bit of a mad rush because we found ourselves getting things sorted for them on Saturday and Sunday night.

Just a few things to ship....

Oh, and all these pictures.... Damn you, Prime, Westwood and Hance!!

Turns into 300kg

Oh, and the the stuff to pack, well this was made slightly less frantic by the impromptu finally visit from the P's last week who were kind enough to take two suitcases back to the UK for us!  What was fortunate about their trip too was that it meant we actually counted the number of cases we had...ten!  Just the right number to cope with our EgyptAir allowance (we thought for a long time that we had just nine cases and so were literally about to go out and buy a new one!).  Two cases back with the P's, two cases as hand luggage for us, six cases in the hold for us, a buggy, three 'personal item' pieces of hand luggage (including Leila's trunki) and finally a buggy with a car seat! We had to go out and buy a specific bag that would be large enough to take the moses basket as it wouldn't fit even in our huge red case.  One of the genius aspects of our packing was determining that the blue hold-all could be packed on the morning of our flight and was just the right size to fit in the travel cot, pillows, washkit and a range of dirty clothes!

Our six cases ready for the hold!

General Busy-ness
The final thing that made this last week so frantic was the return of powercuts and the realisation, just a few days before we were leaving, that we would need to make sure that the apartment had been cleaned before we left.  It sounds silly, but we really wanted to be good tenants and for the house to be left in a good condition, but we had sold our vacuum cleaner (!), had already said 'goodbye' to Ella and then there was a powercut for over an hour on our final night!

Other things we managed to fit in this week included; two swimming sessions for Leila at Maadi House, a final apointment with Dr Cherif to say goodbye and get our permission to fly (!), buying Ramadan bags and giving them out to some of the people who have been so kind to us and Leila (our bowab, the bowab nextdoor, the police and the security on the corner), a visit to the bank to withdraw the rest of our cash in GBP and EGP, some final drinks and playdates at the BCA.

'Baby brain' vs. 'Big girl brain'

Me (with 'baby brain'): Leila, let's find your camera so that we can go out. Mummy's looking for it! (I have no idea where I have left it....)

Leila - walks straight to her room, turns on the light, gets her camera from the chair, turns off light and walks back the living room putting it in her bag.

What would I do without her!!!

This week we have mainly been....saying 'goodbye'

Although the End of the Road gig/afternoon was our sort of 'goodbye' to everyone as we have had another week in Cairo we have actually been doing lots of little goodbyes. Some were to people and some to places!

I was off work on Tuesday morning and so headed to Beanos so that Leila could have a play on the equipment there while I had a coffee. We were joined by Zuki and Tess who are both about a year older than Leila, but she really enjoys watching them and trying to copy them playing.  When it was time to go I said to Leila that she needed to say 'goodbye' to them and give them a big hug. Which she then did. Super cute!

A hug for Zuki

A hug for Tess

After swimming on Wednesday we popped into the CSA for a coffee and to drop a few things off to the Baby Group (old toys of Leila's that we weren't taking with us but hadn't been able to sell/give to Ella).  It was funny walking back in the door and seeing the room again and all the mums with their coffee and cake whilst baby was asleep on the floor, or the mums trying to breastfeed on the awkward fold-out chairs there! It's wierd to think that we didn't go at all this year but that a lot of the babies in the group now will be too big come September again and that the third generation of CSA Baby Group-ers will be there instead.  It was lovely to see Ursula and her new baby Sara too (Ursula's daughter, Luisa is the same age as Leila and we bonded when they were little because we went to the same shops and had the same slings!).

Back where it all began!

On our final weekend Scott and I were trying to get things sorted at the flat, but it was just proving impossible for us both to be productive with Leila wanting (quite naturally!) to play.  So I took Leila out so that Scott could have some time to get stuff done.  I took Leila to Jared's Bagels where we have been regular eary-morning customers since she was born. It's one of the few places open early every day (they open at 6am!) and it's usually pretty quite so they tolerate us and Leila. Oh, and Leila loves their bagels!!!

Bagels!
 

On the last weekend we did quite a bit of wandering around the streets of Maadi as I just wanted her to see it all for one last time. We bought Ramadan bags as gifts for some of the people that have been so kind to Leila and took a few final photos with them too.  On the roundabout near our house we said goodbye to the two policemen who work at the embassy (as mentioned in 'Things We See in Egypt') and the securtiy guard who took something of a shine to Leila, buying her many litle gifts.

The kind security guard who gave Leila her bird hat and first dolls!

We had always planned to have our 'last supper' at the BCA; mainly as an excuse to get out of the house and not cook on the last day here! What was lovely though was that it meant we could have a last play with Boodie and Samia and a last chin-wag with Mo.  We're going to miss Mo, who is very much our sort of person and we both got on well with her.  Boodie was always a real character (again, the same age as Leila) and we'll always remember him generally causing mayhem wherever he went!

Hot and sweaty with Boody and Samia

Now, this 'goodbye' happened a month or so ago, but we didn't blog about it properly. In mid-May the Prebbles left Cairo for the States (via the UK for a few weeks). They went through a similar journey to us in terms of Cairo, marriage and baby, and it's such a shame that we are going our separate ways once again (Scott used to work with Matt in the UK), but we know that we'll stay in touch and our paths will cross again. 

Prebbles and Allsops on Road 9

End of the Road

From an overhead conversation on the bus home six years ago.....

JT had been desparatly trying to read his book on the backseat of the Grand Mall bus when he overhead Scott talking about his Star Wars pop-punk band with Kenton, but he couldn't resist.  A week later and Scott was down on Road 9 buying a guitar (as we'd not brought one out with us) ready for a jam around JTs place with the other members of One For The Road (aka Cairo's Premire Irish Folk Band). It's impossible to try and blog about everything that OFTR and JT mean to us both, but now, six years on and it's all change.

The evening gig was billed as a 'teacher's farewell party' that the band would be playing at, but for us it was a whole lot more than that.

In the afternoon we had invited Leila's friends down for a final play and sing-along and it was really lovely to see so many of them able to join us. With everything being so busy it was hard to find a moment to be emotional, but looking back it's odd to think that most people there in the afternoon we wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for Leila, and without most people there, there is no way we would have got through the last two years in Maadi.  The support network of the Maadi Mum and Baby group has been what has enabled us to do this crazy thing these last two years!

Dad and daughter at the bar

Looby Loo

Leila and Luisa

Leila and Halle

Leila and Karl (doing the electro!)

Maadi Mums and Babies!

The Dads Club (Sam with Ayman, Leila with Scott, Karl with Fouad, Luisa with Kriss)

Leila wondering why Dad isn't just singing for her!

Tea time / Sound Check

Hey Baby, Let's Rock n Roll

This week we have mainly been...having a growth spurt

Leila has been eating constantly these last two weeks; she'll want a snack before breakfast (fruit), but then will still eat her cereal all up, then she'll have another bit of fruit after breakfast and oatcakes or ricecakes around an hour later, then a larger mid-morning snack followed by eating well at lunch, a snack of eggy bread maybe after her nap and maybe a cracker or two before tea which she eats well as well as having more fruit for desert. Phew! That's a lot of food for a little girl.

Scott has been saying 'it must be a growth spurt', but we didn't have any real evidence of it until today when we realised that for the first time she was able to scoot herself along on her trunki as her feet touch the floor!

Our little girl is getting bigger!

Oh, and she's also getting fangs....her incisors seem to be coming through.  That, combined with powercuts during her naps and overnight that shut off the AC, mean sleeping is a bit off at the moment.  I'm sure we won't be complaining about the heat in six months time though!!!

EDIT: further evidence includes the fact that she can go on tip toes and reach the doorbell to the flat!

Cairo bucket list: Bab Zuweyla

This was a favourite old haunt of ours and so we're really pleased we've managed to go one last time.

Leila enjoyed a runaround on the top of Bab Zuweyla, although her daring runs to the edge and precarious leaning over the edge kept us both on our toes.

This was Leila's third visit to the tentmakers market (the first two being to design then collect her name hanging) but unfortunatly Ashraf was not there this time. We bought a few pieces from his nephew, though, and left some photos with him of our prevous visits.

I remember when the shipping company asked us if we were going to buy anything else to ship we confidently said 'no', but as well as the new cushion cover we bought 6m of ramadan material (kids curtains maybe), coffee, a mini fanoox lantern and a tent!

It was a late drive home (as we tried to fit the trip between nap wake-up at 3pm and dinner at 5.30) and we got home just after 6 in the end. A kate dinner was fine though as she'd survived a slow traffic journey home on crackers, rice cakes and a Shaggy mix-tape!

Cairo Bucket List: Pyramids trip

When we decided that this would be our last year in Cairo we wrote a little bucket list of things we wanted to do before we left.  The haven't, and won't achieve 99% of them, because of one thing or other (a final 'Desert Ball' didn't seem worth the money when I couldn't drink because of the pregnancy, and when we really thought about it a 12-hour drive to Siwa wouldn't work with a toddler either), but at least we have the list and will hopefully return at some point to cross a few more off.  One thing on the list though was a pyramids visit.  We've got pictures of us and Leila with the pyramids from our Mena House stay last year, but nothing up close.  We've never been a big fan of visiting Giza because of all the hassle that you always get, but decided that we should give it a go before we left and we're so glad that we did.

We booked a private tour through the CSA as we thought that this way we'd reduce the amount of hassle we'd receive and with four adults it seemed to make sense to have transport in one vehicle rather than two cars.  We wanted an early start on the Friday too, to keep out of the heat and hawkers.  All in all our plan worked. Yes we got a bit of hassle from hawkers, but not all that much, and having the guide also smoothed a few other things over; like Leila (not) having her picture taken with a camel for instance.

When Chin was visiting about three years ago we went to Giza together and managed to get inside the smaller pyramid on our ticket, but this time we really crossed something off the 'list' by going inside the Great Pyramid of Giza!  The authorities used to restrict the number of tourists going in, but now they have just upped the ticket price and have an open policy (tourism needs to bring in some money!).

We decided to buy all four tickets, but just see how we did inside as to whether we'd all continue into the burial chamber itself (one of us being only 19 months old, another having dodgy knees and another being 7 months pregnant!). But we're very pleased to report that we all made it.  The key to our success was going back down the steep slope on our bottoms and using the back-carry position for the sling for the steeper climbs.

We were in fact the first people in of the day and had the great gallery and burial chamber all to ourselves for a few minutes before anyone else made it inside.  The first stand-out moment for me though was when we first entered the pyramid and Leila just toddled off down the passageway herself!  The second was the mini-break we gave ourselves in the chamber itself where we sat down and had a Pennington pyramid picnic on the floor!  Leila had a packet of raisins and we all had a drink of water to revive ourselves while others came and went until the path out was clear enough for us to go.

 
We then stopped off at the 'photo spot' which is a little drive away, but allows you to see all three pyramids together for a great picture.  Leila wasn't completely obliging up here, but we bribed her with a banana and managed a few shots.

Then  we got out her toy (Dear Zoo) Camel for her to play with, the hope being that this would attract her interest in the real camels sat about and we'd get a picture of her with them.  It worked and she was doing lots of pointing to the camels and then 'showing' them her toy camel and being very excited.

Our guide, Ahmed, then managed to negotiate that we'd have a picture of her with a camel (we felt that camel ride might be pushing it a bit), but this is where it all went wrong.  As she approach the camel he let out a very camel-esque grunt!  This was the first time that Leila had heard what a camel sounds like (we pretend they just say 'gamel, gamel, gamel') and she was suddenly very put off the idea of going anywhere near it!  She backed away and just kept saying 'no no no' and wagging her finger at it!  It was a shame we didn't quite get the photo we wanted, and we hope she hasn't been permanently scarred by the idea of a camel ride, but it was quite funny really.  She was soon distracted from the camel and his strange sound by an old rusty chair that she decided to sit on and then decided to play with her camel along in the sand all the way back to the minibus.

Although it wasn't even 10am it was starting to get hot and we realised that we only had time for one last thing before Leila really 'lost it' in the heat.  We decided on a quick visit to the Sphinx and so started the walk down the slope to it; the was Leila's favourite part of the tour I think as she had the whole road clear for her!

We had to wrestle her into photos and then once we were inside the sphinx complex had to fend off people wanting photos with her; I didn't want to let a random person manhandle her into their photo, when she didn't even want to be in ours!  In the end we got a few nice pics once she had a bit of space to walk again and we made a quick exit to head home.

All in all we're really pleased that we did the trip and hopefully Leila and Pickle 2 will be able to go back again some day.

This week we have mainly been....copying

On Wednesday afternoon Leila decided that she would change Fang's nappy.  She got the baby wipes and wiped him and then put some nappy cream on him and then wrestled with getting the nappy on him.  It was amazing to watch and see her copying what we do with such attention to detail (throwing the used wipes in the bin and then getting a new one for instance). Once she managed to get the nappy on him she wanted to repeat the process again and again - I think this took up the best part of the afternoon!
Then on Thursday she did the same thing; first with Fang and then with her toy black-and-white cat Jess (who she is calling 'Mog' at the moment - even though she has a different grey cat called Mog). The other bit of copying that she then did on Thursday was when Scott got home and she was playing with her Basha puppet and decided to take him through to her room, put him into the bed and then put the blanket over him!
It's great that she is copying what we do, and so funny to see her doing it with her random toys - as she doesn't really have a specific 'dolly' type toy to mimic with.

The blanket mentioned in the 'putting to bed' copying is a new thing that has gradually evolved and has bene led by Leila.  Her bedtime routine has been gradually changing, some of it caused by the lighter evenings now that the clocks have changed (can't really start bedtime routine when it's still so light out!), and some of it initiated by us as we try and prepare for having two kids in the house!  She had this cellular blanket in her room for a while now and sometimes Ella has offered it to her at naptime.  She sometimes takes it, sometimes not, but now is starting to reach for it once she has laid down in her cot. The good thing - at the moment - seems to be that she isn't clinging to it for sleep, because when she wakes up the first thing she wants to do is hand it back to us!  And I managed to wash and dry it the other day without her noticing, s hopefully it won't become a conmplete comforter, but just an association.

The other bedtime change has been the addition of story time after she has fed. Leila loves reading and so we haven't quite worked out how to 'end' story time - the second night we did it she insisted on reading Bear Hunt five times to herself, and the time after that she wanted to sing songs too!  It's nice though that she's so happy to read and is happy to have the last thing before bed being a book.  We've a way to go though as she still wants to feed as part of her routine and she can be fussy about who reads what (some stories only she is allowed to read!) and who she has a last cuddle from (she fusses when Scott tries to pick her up rather than  me).

Bowab in training?

Leila loves going to the park ('Pa!') and is really friendly with the bowabs and gardeners there.  She also loves saying 'hi' to our bowab and to Darwish outside our building.  Maybe she is a bowab in training?!

Leila and the gardener at the 'park'

Leila with Darwish outside our building

Leila watering the park - splish splish

Erm..... Well she got home in one piece, so I guess she got away with nearly spraying this large dog at the park!

Leila finds a chair to sit on during a walk along Road 9