DAY 18 Wed 30 June

Got up early today to go and see Maryanne before she headed into the hospital. Something has been very wrong with June! First she had all the sick horses, and then she lost Figgy, then Mona's mother has been sick – and now her father is sick. Nana's in hospital, and amongst our friends around the world, there are people with very sick animals, and some have even lost their animals. One more day to survive through – July, please be better!!
After Maryanne drove off to the hospital, I gave the dogs their medicine – Demon his prozac, and antibiotics for his eye, and Koheila her vitamins and other meds. Koheila ate hers all down, but Demon ate the prozac and left the antibiotics, so I was forced to shove that down his throat – and then all the other dogs get a little bit of cheese too – it's hard making sure you don't double up and that all of the 15 dogs get some (or at least as many of the 15 as are hanging around).
Then I held Demon while Magda put the eye drops in his eye – he is really starting to not like people messing with his eye, but we are concerned that if he loses sight in that eye he may start relying more on his psychic (psychotic?!?) abilities – he already sees things that aren't there!
I then trooped over to the guest house with about 10 dogs in tow, who proceeded to crash out all over the floors and sofas – they will make themselves at home wherever they have company, and at least having them over here, with the door closed means they won't be barking at Sherif or any of the other workers.
The grooms saddled up three of the horses this morning, Dooby for me, Wadi for Essam, Diva for Mohamed and Gameela for Waleed, and we went out for a nice morning ride. There was a nice breeze blowing, and at times a small amount of cloud cover to keep the heat down. However, before we got out the gate, I saw that one of the donkeys was trying to strangle itself with a bit of rope that was hanging down from their shade cloth, so Essam had to rescue a donkey first.
As we headed out through the village, there weren't as many people around sitting in the shade, because they were all out at the taps getting clean fresh water. There were utes, donkey carts, donkeys and other means of transporting water. Quite a gathering. As we headed down the road, we played a bit of leap frog – one of the horses would decide they didn't want to lead any more, there was something scary there – so one of the others would lead their horse forward and take over.
At one stage there was a guy driving a donkey cart with a whole pile of mats on the back of it – I didn't understand what he was calling out, but it looked to me like he was the equivalent of a door-to-door salesman, driving through the village calling out "mats for sale". Not far past that, a lady was standing talking to the driver of a ute. She tipped her pail of milk into a larger pail of milk, and they were busy arranging payment as we drove past – no such thing as a milk tanker over here! They wouldn't get down the lanes for one thing. The ute had about 4 large milk pails on the tray, and that was the milk truck!
At one stage, we had to pass by a big digger – concrete wall one side, digger they other, with just enough room for a horse to squeeze through – my leg got pretty banged up there as Dooby tried to avoid the digger by as wide a margin as possible – Dooby and concrete wall 1, my leg 0. They have been cleaning out a lot of the canals in the area recently – hopefully they will have them all done soon! There was a very large rat swimming in one of the canals as we rode past – lovely. It is nice riding through the countryside though – it gives you more an idea of how Egypt works – watching people working in the fields or hanging out laundry or washing dishes, or just sitting around talking, smoking sheesha's (in some of the weirdest places). I do also like the desert though for its vast openness and proximity to some of the ancient history of the human race.
Once back on the farm, I grabbed a bunch of dogs (more like I was followed by a bunch of dogs) into the guest house, where I went online and caught up with Mum again to see how Nana is doing – well enough in her opinion to send Mum back home to Auckland – that's my Nana!
It was a rather tiring afternoon for not doing much of anything, so I lay down on the bed for a while, reading a book, until an ant walking across my pillow bit my face – the sod! Later I even tried for a nap, but kept getting interrupted by phone calls, so I went over and lay on the hammock – it is cooler out there in the breeze. Unfortunately that was called short because Maryanne's gardeners needed to water the lawn, so I trooped back to the guest house with dogs in tow. While there I was visited by Pal and his wife for a bit, and after they left I went on out to check on all the animals. They were all standing round expectantly, waiting for their dinner! The back to the house to give Demon his antibiotic for the afternoon, and then after Magda had finished feeding the birds, it was time to put the drops in Demon's eyes – the crafty little sucker, screwing his eye shut.
I think tonight calls for an early night – I'm feeling a bit shattered after the day, so time to try and get the clock reset to normal.