DAY 34 Fri 16 July

Good night sleep last night – I had better make the most of it before heading back home and to the horrible shift work. When I got up I came across to the main house to feed dogs and birds and get Maryanne her tea – she can get into the kitchen now, but can't carry anything out with the walker – needs a tray on the front of it – lol.
Later in the morning (probably later than was sensible), I headed out for a ride with the grooms. I was riding Wadi, Hassan was on Nazeer, Mohamed on Negmadin and Waleed on Lilly. We went out via the road again (and today I actually remembered to start the GPS running before getting out to the desert). Once in the desert we turned right, and headed up past the Sun Temple, and then galloped back towards the edge of the desert and along to the Saqqara Country Club. Three of us made it that far, and once we pulled up the horses we realised that Hassan was nowhere to be seen. So we turned and raced back. Poor Nazeer had fallen for some reason, and they had both come a cropper. Hassan had lost some of the skin off his face, and Nazeer had sand all around his nose and mouth. But other than that they were both fine, and we continued on up the wadi, and under large power lines towards the sand quarry and the dump, before walking back towards Abu Sir, past the rest areas for the camels. At one stage there were palm branches lying up one of the wadis – they would make good little jumps – lol.
I took the camera out and managed to get some high speed video as we headed back towards Abu Sir (as the cameras get better, especially with the stability control, so to do the videos you can take while racing through the desert – lol). We were on our way back to the gate back into the countryside, when a horse and rider came galloping down a hill and up near us, followed by three other guys also hooning it, and one calmer ride trotting along behind. We caught up with them again as they rode through the mango grove that we used to use to get into the desert when I first started staying with Maryanne. They had continued along through the desert, while we had headed along through the village after leaving the desert.
It was a good ride, and the boys enjoyed looking at the photos and video that I had taken.
The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing (and I must admit snoozing), and getting blogs and diary up to date.
Now I am waiting for Pal and his wife to turn up. They are taking me to Janie's for a bbq which will be nice. In fact it was very nice, if somewhat hot. Pal informed me that the temperature had made it over 40 degrees, and I think the humidity is up too. The food was wonderful, especially Janie's lovely potato salad and the lovely middle eastern salads. And for once I wasn't mosquito fodder – I'd remembered to put on some of Sabine's insect repellent before I left (just as effective as store bought repellent but smells a heck of a lot nicer!).
A breeze did start to pick up in the evening, but not much of one unfortunately. Dessert was a lovely rich caramel cake, though the last of it was finished up by Zainab's French Mastiff, Hanouma.
I got dropped back at the farm by Pal, and collapsed into bed.
Desert ride 8:
Distance - 7.83km
Time - 1:04:12
Average speed - 7.3kmph
Max speed - 50.5kmph