Another great day in quarantine!!!! Not quite as hot as yesterday – about 28C. Nice little breeze and a few little clouds scattered about. As usual we did jobs in the morning. Bob took his Dremel to one of the cement “grouts” between the surround of the outside shower tray so as it would drain into the border again. It was pretty hard going but he got there in the end. He would have done it in two mins with his angle grinder which he had intended to bring out with him, but baggage allowances got in the way.

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Afterwards he took the front off the outside condenser of our bedroom a/c unit and washed around in there to get the dust off. There was a lot. While he was up there, a car pulled into our driveway and it was another quarantine inspector. This time for Bob. Same drill as before. Checked the app, checked the wrist band and that was it. We still don’t know what day we finish and when they are coming to do the last PCR test but I guess all will be revealed. We’re not going anywhere.

I researched the whole process of applying for temporary residency and what documents we will need. It doesn’t look to be a problem but we will need to start as soon as we are free next week. It will give us a fallback option as to when we return to the UK and also it will help later in the year so we don’t fall foul of the 90 days in 180 rule. That won’t apply anymore.

Marion came over at about 11am to deliver two big water bottles for us (the sort that go on our electric cooler). We are drinking a lot of water and getting through it pretty fast. We had a distanced chat. She also left me the water card for the meter. The way it works here is that you prepay for water. You go to the council offices or the mukhtar (village mayor’s) office and pay a given amount for water and that is added to the “credit card” and then you take the card to the meter, it reads it and will continue to dispense water up to that amount. It seems to work well.

Tonight is the first night of Eid, I believe and it is a public holiday here for a few days. We call this Eid, the Sweetie Eid as the tradition is to share sweet things as part of the family celebrations. Later on in the year there is another Bayram (religious holiday) which celebrates Abraham’s sacrifice and is the “sheep” Eid when families will buy a whole lamb and share it. Lamb prices obviously rocket at this point.

We spent the afternoon around the pool reading. It was so pleasant today. 11 hours of total sunshine and a light breeze. Same tomorrow. Spoke to Lucy a few times. She and Leon are off to Sharm el Sheikh tonight for 10 days diving. So envious of that. Especially of Leon’s first experience of diving in the Red Sea. I was tremendously lucky in that I learned to dive there with the Israelis but still, my first experience of Sharm and Ras Mohammed in the early 80s will never be forgotten. I hope the reefs there have benefitted from the relative quiet of the last few years even though the human cost has no doubt been severe. Anyway, so much looking forward to seeing their photos as the holiday progresses.