Silenced

 

This blogpost was composed several hours ago. I scheduled its publication to happen at 11.30pm on Monday night.

You see, we are not sleeping in our own bed tonight. Instead, we should be nicely tucked up in the Ibis Budget Hotel at Manchester Airport. At 9.00am on Tuesday morning we will take off for Luxor, Egypt. 

Staying in the airport hotel meant we did not have to get up in the middle of the night, drive for an hour and park the car before heading to Terminal 2. Just too much stress.

I have no intention of blogging again until Wednesday, March 18th and will be absent from all my usual haunts in Blogland.

This means that authors of the blogs I habitually visit will be able to relax. You can let your guards down with regard to spelling, grammar, right wing remarks and seedy reminiscences. Think of it as a kind of holiday. No Yorkshire Pudding for nine days. Whoo-hoo!

Shirley and I have never been on a cruise before. The idea of those huge cruise ships is quite appalling to us. Our River Nile cruise should be rather different with just seventy cabins and no pesky children.

Two nights in Luxor before journeying up The Nile to Aswan. It is a pretty standard itinerary for Nile cruises. Along the way we are going to see several temples and ancient tombs. On our very first morning we will be heading to The Valley of the Kings  where I hope to stand where Howard Carter famously stood in November 1922  -  inside The Tomb of Tutankhamen - the boy king.

There are two possible flies in the ointment. Firstly the possible repercussions of the Netanyahu-Trump  war upon Iran. Hopefully, Egypt will remain unaffected but you never know. Secondly, toothache is stirring in my skull and it is too late to seek intervention by a dentist. I have some oil of cloves, some cottonwool pads  and some hope that the pain will creep back into its lair. Bugger it!