Hi again

It's been a week and a half of new arrivals, and endings. Firstly was the sad departure by the lovely Tristan, who returned to the UK last Thursday. The photo of us attached was taken on his last morning - despite what it looks like, I was wearing a sarong and he had his shorts on - honest!!! However, the Universe provides and having lost one lovely, gorgeous, funny flat-mate, I've managed to find two new ones in his place. Firstly, Mike, who I mentioned before - the free diver who is moving in to the little house to paint it and live rent-free for a month to help him with his finances, and secondly, Alberto, my new permanent flatmate, a lovely guy from Spain, who is really great to share with!

All of a sudden, I'm the most popular girl in town, not because of anything I've done, or am, but because I have managed to get both of Dahab's most sexy, eligible batchelors living with me! Having not had any friends popping in for a cup of tea since I arrived, I'm sure I will now be inundated by vists! As well as both being very good looking, they're both really lovely and helpful and kind and considerate, so I have totally lucked out. Unfortunately I haven't managed to get any new flatmate photos of them, but will have some next week, I promise! You know how women jokingly bitch about other women who appear to 'have it all' - amusingly I overheard Tristan say under his breath 'Bastard!', just after talking to Alberto. Thinking I'd missed something and that they'd had a disagreement, I asked Tris what was wrong. 'Not only is Alberto totally cool and a really nice guy, he's also so fucking good looking and sexy!'. Now I don't know if I've just missed out on this aspect of the male psyche, but I didn't think that guys bitched about other guys like girls do - unless there's a REALLY good reason to. Well, my flat mate seems to qualify to be bitched about by other men. To add to his accolades, I told him how he's ruffling a lot of female feathers in town, and he seemed genuinely shocked by the effect he's having - humble with it!!! I strongly recommend all single female friends get out here asap (although I get first dibs!!!). Oh, and he just texted me that one of our fave restaurants has banoffee pie tonight so he's sorted out dessert for me this evening too. What an angel!

Talking of boyfriends, Adel and I have decided to call it day. It was just too hard, and as he's leaving in just over a week, rather than fight and struggle to both get what we want from the relationship (which are obviously very different things) we've decided it's better to part as friends and just spent the last week as mates. It's certainly sad, but I definitely feel that it's right that we now move on and get on with our respective lives... him in Dubai and me in Dahab. We've had some wonderful times together so I'm really glad we're ending on a 'positive' note, rather than an argument.

Other 'departures' include the nest of very young kittens which we found in the garden just before Tristan left. Unfortunately they seem to have caught
something and have all died. We buried those that we found, and I hope the others have found a peaceful place to move on from. Very sad. The mother cat is now back in heat and is being mercilessly pursued by two local toms, which are making a horrendous racket in the garden - I had to sleep with my earplugs in last night as they just wouldn't shut up. So I'm sure, before long, we'll find another nest of kittens hidden in a corner of the garden somewhere. The other nest of kittens is doing really well. They're almost at the stage now where they want to get out and explore, although the mother is a bit wary of Noura - and rightly so, seeing the torture she puts my kittens through - so I think they'll probably stay put a while longer. She - the mother - is getting more and more tame and let me stroke her today for the first time. While I don't want to encourage her and her impressive reproductive abilities in the garden, she's a very sweet cat and I do have a bit of a soft spot for her.

On to work, I've been busy getting the yoga business up and running. I bought a colour printer and have been designing and printing colour posters to take to all the hotels, dive centres and shops to see if I can drum up some extra business. The town is really quiet at the moment so I'm not expecting miracles, but hopefully a few extra tourists will drop by and help fund my lifestyle out here!!! I also arranged a photo shoot for the website (which is slowly but surely making progress...) - a group of yoga friends all turned up and received a free class afterwards in return for their bodies!! The photographer took over 300 shots and so I've got to go through them all to see which ones I want to use. It was great fun and really great to get so much support from people that I really haven't known for that long.

My yoga photos wasn't the only modelling going on this week. Last week, as I was taking Welma and Noura for a walk along the beach, I stopped to talk to some German friends who manage one of the hotels. Welma was tied up to their terrace and kept resting her head over the balcony to see what was going on. Somehow her rope became untied and she climbed up the 7 or 8 steps onto the hotel terrace where we were drinking coffee as she hates feeling excluded from the action!! The guys thought she was so cute, they asked me to take her back to take some photos of her for their website. So yesterday Welma and I had coffee again, together on the terrace, and she also struck a few poses outside their dive shop - and she didn't throw a single diva-tantrum. What a star!

Another truly wonderful thing happened last week - I received a parcel in the post at the dive shop. A friend and ex-yoga student, Pam, had sent me some toys for Noura!!! She's a nanny so sent a couple of baby toys that one of her charges no longer needed, as well as a couple of squeeky toys. The best discovery, was the squeeky 'newspaper', identical to the one which my parents had brought out, which Welma had taken to, but then swallowed the squeeker!! So she's now happily squeeking away in her corner again! And Noura absolutely loves a stuffed horse/giraffey thing (maybe it's a camel?!?!), which she carries round the garden in her mouth - v cute!!!

My mum arrives tomorrow for her second visit in as many months. The heat and the energy here seem to have done her so much good - and of course she gets the pleasure of my company!! - that she's coming back this time with a friend. I'm really excited about seeing her again, although in the meantime I have to walk round town and distribute my flyers and posters!!!

The only downer at the moment is my stomach. I feel fine most of the time, but in the evenings my stomach bloats up and gets very painful. I don't exactly have the runs, but things aren't exactly normal down there either, without getting too graphic about it!!! I went to see Dr Adel in Sharm when I was down there visiting my reiki teacher, Ilona, a couple of days ago and he thinks I might have parasites - how yukkky!!! So I have to send a sample to the lab there so I can be prescribed the right medicine. Having suffered with gut problems before I'm extremely careful about taking anything that kills bacteria in the gut so I want to make sure we know exactly what parasites they are so I can get the specific drugs to kill them, rather than broad spectrum, which kills good as well as bad. Fortunately two friends of mine are going to Sharm tomorrow and have VERY kindly offered to carry my 'poo in a pot' with them to drop off at the lab!!! WOW - people here are SO lovely!!!

The weather's great - yesterday it was 39 degrees, but with a gentle breeze felt very pleasant indeed. Today feels a bit cooler, but I haven't been out yet. Sleeping can be a problem - a cold shower, and standing wet and naked in front of the fan before bed seems to work, although last night I seemed to have had a few mozzies in my room so in the middle of the night had to go and retrieve my mozzie spray from Alberto's room - I had to creep in very quietly, praying that he doesn't sleep naked!!! I won't say whether he does or doesn't as that would give away his secrets....

Anyway, that's it for this week. I also have a friend/ex-colleague and his two sons arriving on Saturday so, with them and my mum, no doubt there will be trips and antics to report on next time round!!!

Lots and lots of love to you all,

xxxx
Sara