DAY 21 Sat 3 July

What a rotten night last night – I thought I had the worst of the dogs inside with me, so that there wouldn't be too much barking... I was wrong – big time – especially when I had all the rat terriers inside the house howling for some reason. Argh.
Though I think in the latter part of the night they did start to settle down – but by that time I had about 8 or 9 rat terriers on the bed (and the great dane had also been trying to settle herself down on the bed – I had to draw the line at sharing the bed with Morgana – she is a little too large.
When I got up, it was time to make sure I had all the chores out of the way before Maryanne's clients arrived. That consisted of chasing after Demon, because he didn't want to be caught for his meds – he has got to the stage when he refused to eat his cheese and meat around his tablets – crafty little sucker.
When Cris turned up (and I am so glad the clients decided to come in the morning when Cris was also due to ride Nayzak), we got the horses saddled up and waited for them to turn up. We ended up deciding on taking out Shaboura and Nayzak for myself and Cris, and Lilly, Dooby and Nazeer for the clients, and Waleed took out Dory.
The clients were very nice, and we had a nice ride around the countryside. Saw the little donkey with its ears tied together (well one of them anyway – baby donkeys are just soo cute! The travelling salesman today was selling tomatoes, not mats. And the storks, they were taking off from a field as we went past - probably at least 50 of them – it is really quite amazing to watch as the sky fills with them.
When we got back, Cris had to head off home, and after taking some more photos around the farm, so did the clients, so I had time to fill in before I was due to head out to the hospital with Mohamed.
Mohamed had arrived in time to talk to the farriers who had to trim and or shoe all of Maryanne's horses, and after he finished talking to them, he informed me that we would be heading to the hospital at 5pm.
I then used the time to try and catch up on a little lost sleep (seems like whenever I lie down to snooze the phone will ring – lol), and on some computer stuff.
At 4.30 I made sure I had everything packed to take to the hospital, and in Egyptian time, we were on our way (Egyptian time runs on exactly the same time frame as Island time).
We went down a new bit of road to get to the ring road. While the road is in better condition it seemed to have more traffic, and I think we may actually have lost some time. There was a traffic jam at one stage (nothing like an egyptian traffic jam. On a two lane road, you will have one lane in one direction stopped, so they form another lane, which still allows room for the oncoming traffic – until the two lanes become three).
Also saw a camel as we were driving along – not too common to see them except in the touristy areas. Then there was the ute, with the tray full of egg cartons, tied down with rope (with egg cartons protecting the areas with ropes – seems like a rather dangerous way of carting your eggs round, but that is Egypt for you :)
There was a nice view up the road to the Citadel, and we also drove past the Cairo Stadium. In the middle of the road near the stadium, there was a globe. Looking at the globe, it had Australia, but did not have New Zealand - *sob*
Not far past that was the hospital – not that you would really know it was a hospital just by looking at it – it was more like one of the large apartment buildings that they have a tendency to have over here. The lifts in the hospital were rather interesting. They had a very narrow door, and were long and thin – kind of impractical for getting a lot of people in – I certainly hope they had larger lifts for getting people around in wheelchairs etc.
Once up to Maryanne's room, she was looking more cheerful than she had been sounding on the phone – the fact that she was due to head home the next day probably had something to do with that as well. After doing the changeover with Mona, it was time to settle in for a long night. It was kinda nippy in there with the airconditioning going, so I curled up on the couch with a good book and a blanket over me, ready if Maryanne needed anything, and ready for a nap while I could – I was so tired! It was rather an interrupted night, with nurses coming and going all night. I napped and slept while I could in between the comings and goings.

Countryside ride 9:
Distance - 6.93km
Time - 1:27:21
Average speed - 4.8kmph
Max speed - 12.5kmph