Tuesday, August 20, 2013

 

Beer and Bears


Have we ever been busy!! It has been a fortnight of chaos, with no chance to get near the computer. First off, Dad got a letter from the tax office saying he owes them thousands, then we found an error in the way they calculated things, so hopefully that problem has gone away. Then the gardeners cut down some prize callistamons and the Oldies are arguing with the gardeners. Then the garage door motor died and we had a major job clearing storage shelves so that the mechanics could fix it. Then Dad's sister arrived for a quick visit. She headed on to the snow and we just found out that she broke her wrist while skiing. Then Unka Ray and Aunty Libby arrived in town on a surprise trip for Unka Ray (no grizzle about visitors; I love these people). It has been all go. Dad has been working almost non-stop and needing infusions of beer to keep him going. Speaking of beer, "Voyager of the Seas" has a bar where the beer menu is A3 size! Despite valiant efforts, Dad couldn't manage to try all of the different brews during our New Zealand cruise. Do small bears drink? You betcha we do. Every time the Oldies leave a drink unattended we are in like a shot. Mind you, there are better things for small bears to do on cruises. Scruffy and I found this great machine on Voyager that claimed it could produce animal friends. Problem was, we couldn't get enough effort on the handle of the machine to produce anything. Sometimes it's disappointing being small bears.

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Tuesday, August 06, 2013

 

Karnak, Colossal

Egypt is one of the highlights of the Oldies' lives, so they say. Actually, I thought having me around should be the continuing highlight. Anyhow, here are a couple of pictures that show just how colossal some of the ancient Egyptian monuments are. Dad is busy photographing hieroglyphs on the columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall in the temple at Karnak. The columns are 24m high and were covered in carvings. Many of the carvings were broken when some of the columns fell and the restored columns are smooth in the lost areas. You can see how much darker it is inside the Hall by comparing it with the second photo, where Mum is standing near a statue of Ramses the Great and his daughter, Bent'anta. Ramses wasn't that much bigger than Mum or his daughter; the size of the statue indicates how important he considered himself. In this case he is about 7 times bigger (i.e. more important) than Bent'anta and Mum. I dispute that; nobody is more important than Mum! The Oldies took over 9,000 photos in Egypt and Mum and I have been translating the hieroglyphs ever since they got back from the trip.
It's a real shame to see Egypt in the troubled state it is in at present. I hope that common sense will prevail and it will be once again a beautiful country full of beautiful people.

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