All in all it's just a...nother brick in the wall

Last Friday I went to an Egyptian Pink Floyd tribute band called Paranoid Eyes. I admit, my hopes weren't high but it turned out they were brilliant. It was a bit surreal though. It was a tiny venue, and the members of Paranoid Eyes can't even have been born when Pink Floyd's greatest albums were released. The Wall was released in 1979, I was horrified to recall. Like many of my generation in the UK, The Wall was the album that introduced me to Pink Floyd. I was 14! I said to one of the friends I was with, I'm fascinated by how this even happened. What was the sequence of events that ended up with a group of young Egyptian men forming a Pink Floyd tribute band? As it happens, I'm hoping to find out, because I've invited them to play at our wedding celebration party and I'm going to ask. I'll let you know, or if you're coming to the wedding, you can find out for yourself. Most of the audience were young Egyptians, and they LOVED it. Egyptians are more emotionally open than British people, and they were really enthusiastic. I had no idea Pink Floyd had a fan base in Egypt. Amazing.

Paranoid Eyes playing at Room Art Space

Aside from hearing great music which is always good, this turned out to be a significant event for me because it made me realise how important my own history, background and culture are to me. There were three of us there brought up in Britain of a similar age (which of course now you can work out from the above information...) I asked one of them what age he had been when The Wall came out and we had a conversation about its influence on our younger selves. Later we had a conversation about who wrote Comfortably Numb. There are few people in Cairo with whom I could have had these conversations; Egyptian or other nationalities. What is this? I've asking myself since because it gave me a profound realisation. Is it as simple as having a shared culture? I've been here two years now and I still pore over British news and watch British TV. Sometimes this country feels so alien that I cling to my roots and my culture like a drowning person clinging on to a life raft and if I let go everything will be lost.

Most of my foreign friends here in Cairo haven't moved here permanently, so at some point they will be moving on either somewhere else or back to their 'passport' country. In fact, several friends have left this year. As far as I can tell, they don't miss Britain as much as I do, and think this is because either they know they're going back (or at least believe it's an option). For me, this is a permanent situation. My husband has five children who live here in Egypt. There is no way I could even ask him to leave them and move to the UK, and to be honest I think he would hate it there anyway, for many reasons. So I am here for the duration; I can't have my husband and live in the UK. So I live in Egypt.

I am a resourceful and independent person. I have a life here in Egypt, a job, friends of many nationalities, a home, cats, interests. I'm happy with this life and I'm lucky to meet so many different people. But sometimes, I miss wall to wall green. Rain, cold, snow. Icy winds. All of which I complained about when I lived in Britain. I miss British trees and lakes and rivers. I miss having a shared culture and history and background with most of the people I meet. I miss not having to explain anything much because people just know it. So, to my closest British friend (and Pink Floyd fan) here in Cairo (who knows who he is), I hope you know how important you are to me. As well as being my confidante, shoulder-to-cry-on and person who makes me laugh most (I still swear you're trying to kill me by making me laugh when I'm drinking something), thank you for being my friend.

"The truth is you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed".

The quote in the title of this post was by Eminem, one of our the greatest modern poets. I'm not so keen on the music but the lyrics are incredible. Anyway, this isn't about Eminem, it's about my last few weeks, which really have been a crazy ride.

I was in the pub one night with a few friends, and one of my team texted to ask if I had heard the news about my fellow manager in Exams. "What news?" I said anxiously. "He's broken his leg". "Whaaaaaaaaaaat!" I shrieked. It was true. At the worst possible time of the year, a the beginning of the May/June exam session, he'd broken his leg which resulted in an operation to put eight pins in. So not a trivial break either. Our boss was due to go on holiday the next day, and then on a course in the UK, so I was the only manager in Exams AGAIN. It all went downhill from there really.

The very next day, we had been due to go to Alexandria for a pre-exams, motivational team building trip. We were going to cancel, but Mr Broken Leg (MBL) as he shall be henceforth be named for reasons of anonymity, insisted that we go without him, so we did. Actually, it was great. I arranged a selfie treasure hunt (a list of bizarre objects that the team have to get into a photo with themselves). Egyptians LOVE selfies. It was much more of a success than I expected and the ingenuity and creativity of the team caused a lot of hilarity. I do love our team in Exams, they're one of the best teams I've ever worked with. It's just as well, because work has been a complete nightmare since, having to do several jobs at once at the busiest time of the year (by miles). I hope this doesn't come across as a moan, I don't mean it to. In many ways, it was exciting and exhilarating, but it was also more stressful than I can convey. But MBL is now back at work a couple of days a week, and the exam session is finished, so I'm hoping things will calm down. And I am really lucky because I do love my job.

In the midst of all this, I've had some health issues. I went to see a certain type of doctor, as a result of which I had a bone density scan, a mammogram, a smear test, some ultrasound and a load of blood tests. The outcome of all this is that I don't have breast cancer but I do have osteopenia, and I am past the menopause. Why is it called the meno-pause by the way? What exactly is pausing? Anyway, I went through a short period of depression about the osteopenia, mainly caused by looking online (yes I know - fatal) and seeing pictures of grey haired older women "leading happy healthy lives despite osteoporosis". What? I'm only 51 FFS! Well I was then, I'm 52 now. Maybe I've crossed the Rubicon into old. Luckily, I have amazing friends and family who pulled me out of the blues and now I have a plan. Finding out so early is a good thing, because you can build new bone. Sadly it involves eating less cake, amongst other things.

I've also had a completely new experience. There have been some ructions in our expat group. It's a long story to which I may dedicate a whole post to one day, but at the moment I'll summarise by saying that someone joined our wider group and created complete mayhem. The latest is that myself and my closest friend in Cairo weren't invited to a mutual friend's cocktail party, because if we had gone, three of her other friends wouldn't have gone. I mean, seriously? Are we all six or something? We can't possibly all like each other in life, but can't we all at least act civilly? Apparently not. My own personal transgression, I found out the other day, was because I spoke to Internations because events were frequently being posted by one of the three people mentioned above, where women wearing hijab were not allowed. Internations kindly told her I had complained, but I mean, seriously? This is a Muslim country! Those of you who know me well will know that I can't bear discrimination or inequality, so I took a stand. And now I'm not being invited to a cocktail party. Fortunately, I have plenty of real friends in Cairo who SUPPORT me for standing up for what I believe in. I'm pretty impressed though to have reached this age without actively not being invited to something. I can tick it off my bucket list of "slights to receive before you're sixty".

On the positive side, I really do have incredible friends here. Sadly, some of them are leaving soon, but I honestly hope we can manage to keep in touch. We've also made the decision to move out of Mokattam. Much as I love living here, it's just too inconvenient. We're hoping to move to Zamalek, which will be a stone's throw from work, and it's a bit of an expat haven, full of western style shops and restaurants. It'll be a bit more expensive, but I won't have the transport costs (easily my biggest expense here) and so many of my friends live there. I also won't have the hideous commute to and from work, breathing in the fumes every day.

Beautiful Alexandria

We had a lovely little short break to Alexandria a couple of months ago. Despite my accident prone-ness in Alexandria, I do love it and it was great to spend some time together just chilling and breathing in the sea air.

Egypt can be a difficult country for expats, but it is truly an incredible country in so many ways, and this is what keeps me going during difficult times. Most Egyptians are the kindest and friendliest people you could meet, with a great sense of humour. Some of my work colleagues have me in stitches at times. You can get anything delivered at any time of the day or night. You can buy things over the counter in the pharmacy that you have to get a prescription for in the UK (and every second shop is a pharmacy). The fruit and vegetables are incredible, especially the watermelons which are in season at the moment yay! I love Egyptian food. It was so beautiful during Ramadan, everywhere was decorated with lights and Ramadan lanterns. Unfortunately I missed the feast at the end of Ramadan due to an emergency trip back to the UK, more of which another time.

To quote another song writer - life's what you make it, and I'm doing my best to made it good.