Morocco

Its been a while since I have posted up here. Christmas has been and gone, family arguments have emerged and then faded away again. I am a little more tubby and a little more grumpy than I was before. But all in all, fun was had.

Last week I was in Morocco where we stayed i

n an amazing Riad just outside of the Marrakech city walls. Marrakech is essentially one massive maze of small streets and souks (covered marketplaces) which flog a mixture of tourist tat, Moroccan crafts and items for the locals. More often that not when you buy anything from these places you get massively ripped off, but after a while (and much shopping) you begin to understand the value of things and learn to offer a quarter (or less) of what they are demanding. 

The formula seemed to work well for us. Lucy proved herself to be an excellent bargainer (I am particularly poor, being too polite for my own good).

I thought I should post up  a few of the better photographs from the trip. Morocco is a photographers dream, vivid colours and unusual people are everywhere. You can spot snake charmers, storytellers and street apothecaries in the main squares at dusk, and during the day the sunlight breaks through the rough souk roofing an casts all sorts of interesting shadows.

Only one thing prevents the photography -  it is nearly impossible to take photographs of people because they will either a) become offende

d, or b) demand some money. therefore the majority of my photos are of places, animals or of people I have bought something from.  

The Berber village we stayed at, in the High Atlas mountains for one night whilst doing a bit of walking:

The football pitch below is approximately 2300m above sea level. The local kids hike up 

the mountain to the only bit of stone free, flat land available. I just wonder what happens when they lose the ball down the hill.

A couple of mules that we saw on a tannery trip in Marrakech. I guarantee to you that the one on the floor is alive as it lifted up its head about five seconds after I took the photo. I was unsure of its health though as I was for a number of other animals we saw around the city:

A very colourful orange cart:

The main square in Marrakech at dusk. Street performers and street food everywhere:

One of the more interesting souk shop-fronts in Marrakech. I spent about half an hour standing outside it as my mother bartered hard for an amber necklace across the road:

If you are interested, want to see the photos without the sides chopped off, or are a stalker the rest of the photos are on my Flickr page linked on the right. If you have any advice on how to display photos without the sides chopped off. Please let me know at the usual address.

Renault Clio 1.2 v Toyota Prius T4

I got delivery of my new company car this week - hurrah! Strange considering those who ordered Fords in my company wont have theirs for another three months and there isn't even a Prius manufacturer in the country.

So this week I swapped this:

Renault Clio 1.2 (2008) hire car with about 4000 miles on the clock.

For this:

Toyota Prius T4 (2008) with about 150 miles on the clock.

I settled straight into trying to prove to myself that the Prius was the right choice for me. Over the last 6 weeks or so of driving the Clio supermini, I kept a careful check on the miles per gallon I was managing to get over my normal driving route (mainly heavy motorway traffic on my commutes to Leeds and country driving on my commutes to Manchester). With the supermini 1.2 I was able to get on average 39.7mpg over the full 6 weeks. There were a few drives on which I managed to get it up as high as 43mpg with some concerted effort.

So in my first week of driving the Prius I have tried to use my normal driving style (albeit a little like a grandad as Lucy would tell you). Just to get a fairly like for like comparison (although the Prius is obviously much more spacious and heavier). So far I have managed an acceptable 52.9mpg.

In future weeks I plan to increase the grandaddedness of my driving style to see if I can't get that up a little. I will probably be going to Rattling the Kettle for a few tips on how to go about it (this may have to wait until late January due to the impending Morocco trip and some business in Canada).

Based upon my cig packet calculations the Prius would save me £460 of fuel per year (plus the additional tax benefits it holds). I think I should be able to get that figure up a little.

On Being a Scrooge

I have noticed a significant change in my other half over the last couple of weeks. She is noticeably more 'cheery' and 'enthusiastic' at the moment. Not that she wasn't 'cheery' and 'enthusiastic' before, just that it seems to be more obvious. 

I have found that more and more I am having listen to her 'enthusiastic' conversations she has at me, and they are getting longer and longer. 

And the whistling is kicking back in (I thought I was rid of that). 

Its not that I don't want to listen to her yarns. Its just that whenever she has an extended conversation at me, my mind fills with the last good tune I heard on the radio and I feel the need to whistle it out loud. 

Over the top of her talking. 

This evening it was 'This is a Low' by Blur (who incidentally are re-forming and touring in the summer) which got me into trouble.

Other strange things have been happening too...

....Lucy has been going on mysterious late night shopping trips and coming back laden with cheap tat

... the house is becoming decidedly more sparkly an Lucy appears to have acquired a bazillion small pieces of gold foil from her Nan which have taken pride of place trodden into the hallway carpet - twinkling in the moonlight when I go for my midnight toilet trip 

... and most bizarrely my bank balance seems to be ridiculously low for this time of the month.

Whats that? 

Oh ... its nearly Christmas!!! Well that explains it (particularly the bank balance thing).

I generally have a bit of a love / hate relationship with this Christmas thing. 

Whilst I don't mind the festivities of Christmas day - I can only take it in small proportions, and the stress of prolonged Christmas tends to put me a little on edge. Though Christmas Eve can be fun.

This generally evokes the response of "Dont be such a scrooge!" from a number of corners (mainly Lucy) followed by extended efforts to get me in the Christmas spirit by telling me how great it is and making me feel inadequate for not being a Christmas lover. Those Christmas promoters just love to try to turn a scrooge.

This Christmas, however will be fairly different to other Christmases. This Christmas my Mum has taken the step to attempt to avoid Christmas altogether. This Christmas we are going to a Arab country - where there will be NO Christmas!

On the 19th of December Lucy, myself, my little mentioned big sister, her boyfriend and my mum will be traveling to Morocco where we will spend time in Marrakesh (hopefully with a little spell in the High Atlas Mountains).

(High Atlas mountains - not my photo!)

However due to this, the Lucy clan have opted to postpone Christmas to Boxing day - so I will be doing it all anyway. Plan foiled.

How to Bypass NHS Waiting Lists

Last night I was down at the Foundry climbing wall with The Nurse. We've just started doing a bit of lead climbing being beginners and were attempting to tackle some of the overhangs.

For me, lead climbing is a bit more exciting down at the wall that you traditional top roping. Basically rather than being suspended all of the way up, you clip in as you go. The excitement comes with the fact that is you fall off - you fall down the distance to your last clip in point, and then that same distance again below the clip. And then you fall a little bit more if the guy who is belaying you is not really paying attention and has left a little bit too much slack in the rope.

The slight apprehension about what will happen when you eventually fall and smack into the wall makes you fear just that little bit more. And the fear makes you grip a little bit harder. It all adds to the rush!

At one particularly memorable point in the night I was belaying for The Nurse who was attempting a relatively easy climb, but on a relatively difficult overhang. He had already made significant progress and had fallen a couple of times. I was trying to maintain attention, but have to admit, was getting bored with slow progress and was probably diverting a little too much attention to climbers on the other walls.

The Nurse was about half way up the wall when he managed to get both his feet onto a rather large oval shaped hold. At this point he decided to make a relatively straightforward move and reach up for the next one. He extended his foot to get a little more height ... when ... POP! Not usually a good sign. The Nurse fell off and I lowered him down.

He seemed to be in a fair bit of pain. To be honest, the Nurse has a little bit of a history of injury. I used to play roller-hockey with him a number of years ago and he got injured so many times that he ended up acquiring a (very un PC, I am ashamed to say) nickname of 'Cripple' by which he was known in my mobile phone for many years. Most of the time he was just being a big wus in my experience. But something made me believe that it wasn't so this time.

It could have been something to do with the fact that he nearly puked in the middle of the climbing hall, or the masses of sweat, or the rather horrible swollen blue colour his left ankle had gone - but I sensed something might really be wrong.

So we went to the local minor injuries unit at A&E and something quite remarkable happened. We walked up to the desk and the receptionist took a few details. Name, age, etc. What surprised me was that when she got to 'occupation' - 'Staff Nurse', the ballgame changed.

Anyone familiar with NHS A&E department, will probably be familiar with that little board you often get. The one which shows waiting time. This usually flashes by at around 1.5 hours, sometimes 3 on a Saturday night. If you have a minor injury, you may be lucky to get to the front of the queue at all! OK, so its maybe not that bad, but I was certainly expecting a long night.

But apparently if you are a staff nurse, it seems you can completely bypass the queue, nevermind the heart attacks of the broken necks, get seen to immediately - and whats more bypass the x-ray queue as well and be back out of the hospital within about 35 minutes!

Bonus was that we managed to get out just before the kick off to the England - Germany game, and get a few beers (which the Nurse was adamant, increased the effect of his pain killers).

Only downside is that now I dont have anyone to climb with.

(oh -yeah and The Nurse has to have an operation which I guess is a downside too).

A New Prius

Though this really has not been the top of my mind this week, mainly due to the fact that my office has just laid off 15% of its workforce - I have just put an order in for a new company car - a Toyota Prius T4.

It was basically down to a battle between the Prius and the Mondeo Diesel Titanium, and a Ford Focus. The Prius had a number of things working against it for me:

• Its a fairly old car - having been released back in 2003. The Toyota dealer I spoke to made me aware of the new Prius coming out in 2009 which will achieve way more MPG. The Prius essentially also looks a bit dated; and
• I love diesels (due to their power, torque, drivability and fuel consumption relative to petrols (excluding the Prius obviously)), and like manuals;

But essentially I did the sensible thing and opted for the Prius based upon:

• The taxation rates being extremely low;
• The relative cost of diesel and petrol at the moment will save me a shed tonne of money;
• I spend most of my driving time stuck in heavy traffic - so performance is not that important to me;
• It makes some kind of statement (whether it is the one I want or not);
• It has cool gadgets on the dashboard;
• My friends won't take the p*s out of me;
• And to be honest - I really should figure out how these things work!

So it looks like I will be receiving delivery in around 10 weeks or so. I shall spend my time wisely perusing Rattling the Kettle's "Maximising Gas Mileage in a Toyota Prius". Although I shall probably be putting petrol in mine.