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I attended a Xmas party with friends on Saturday night - they pull out all the stops for Christmas. They had `Con the fruiterer' there as MC. He was a very funny guy. He had that comedian's ability to zone in on someone and target their weak points. I fell off the bike again on Friday, another gutter :( I was heading over to Southern Cross Station from Docklands after catching up with friends for a meal, and I rode down a ramp, across the tram lines, over the road, expecting to find a ramp on the other side - no such luck, it was dark and I didn't see the gutter. My knee looks like a rugby players but there is not too much pain & I can move ok. But my shoulder is back to giving me grief again. I've been flat out over the weekend, cleaning & getting ready for Xmas Day. Kristin came over & did the windows for me on Sunday. She worked like a trooper. I got the ice-cream made, it's a special secret family recipe, that everyone in the family knows! I los

Dead

I don't know what to do with the piece, `Death and Falling Angels (for Kristin)". I think it 's a good piece and I keep re-reading it trying to work out how to extend it or give it more depth, and I keep coming up with nothing. Maybe I'm still too close to it. I still feel like crying everytime I read it. I remember walking with Kristin after Jasper was taken out of the house, and her sadness and inability to understand that finality of death. Feeling that she just wanted those few moments more with him, as the Vets rolled him in the blanket and walked out with him. I remember sitting on my bedroom window sill listening to a my neighbours grief at 2am in the morning as he screamed `my Karen, my Karen', when they brought him the news of his daughters death, thrown out of the back window of the car as it left the highway and rolled down an embankment. I still cry when I remember his grief, unbearable, inconsolable. I remember the shockwaves of Steves death, "Hey

Morocco - social observations

One of the things I didn't expect about going to Morocco, was that of having my assumptions about women and men in Moroccan society challenged. I carried with me, assumptions about dress, social codes and division of labour. Dress: Yes the majority of Moroccan women wear the djellaba and a head scarf. In the Berber villages they wear traditional long skirts and long sleeved tops and head scarves. It appears that about 70% of women dress this way. About 20% of women wear the long djellaba or skirt and shirt with no head scarf, about 8% of women (mostly under 30) wear western dress, particularly jeans with a long sleeved top, some with a head and shoulder shawl, and about 2% have the full bourka, complete with veiled face. The wearing of the djellaba is interesting because you often see it being worn as a sort of outdoor coat, rather than a constant feature of dress. The workers in the riads wear jeans and a white tunic style top, and the kids going to school wear jeans with a white

Essouaria

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It takes 3 hours to drive to Essouaria from Marrakesh. This time our taxi is a new Mercedes van and very comfortable. We stop along the way to photograph the goats in the argan trees, and get cranky with the goat herds who get cranky with us when they demand 100 durhams and we only give them 20. Arriving in Essouaria after 3 hours of stoney desert, is lovely. The sky does that thing where somehow it looks different when you're on the coast. Gulls wheel and squeal, the sea crashes on the sand and our spirits lift. We hadn't expected such a large town, and I certainly didn't expect to see another walled medina, right on the beach. Our Riad Al Medina is a let down after the Riad Slitine and we have to ask for an extra bed. Almost everywhere we have gone, even though we stressed to the travel agent to make sure they asked for 3 separate beds, we have found ourselves with a double bed and one single bed, so we have to go through the whole routine of getting a portable bed added

3 Days in Marrakesh

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I'm really sick by the time we get back to Marrakesh. We stay at Riad Slitine and the receptionist arranges for a doctor to come and see me. Riad Slitine is heaven after our time in the mountains. The Doctor is a lovely Moroccan, who speaks french and a little english. It's not hard to pantomine a sore chest though and everyone understands `Diabetic'. He asks about my BGL's and checks my lungs and blood pressure, then prescribes antibiotics, anti inflammtory for my lungs, and a bronchitis medicine, to loosen the phlegm. He laughs when I tell him how hard it is to explain to Maroccans that I don't want sugar in my mint tea. The sugar intake here is appalling! They just pile it into everything and lollies and soft drinks are consumed by everyone. We bought some M&M's one day and they were disgusting. Much more sugar than the ones in Australia. Cath and Gill attend a cooking school which I have to miss out on. The western medicine Pharmacies here are small

Trekking

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The day before leaving Marrakesh to start our trek, I meet up with Sue, my Diabetic Nurse Educator, (Alfred Hospital). Sue is also on a tour, but has been in Turkey and Spain, and is heading to Portugal. Sue warns me that my glucose meter and pump may play up at high altitude, and be less than accurate! Cath reminds me that sometimes peoples cameras stop working at altitude.... All very reassuring (not!). Riad Kasse - gorgeous - very french, lots of books to read in the rooms. We get a rooftop suite, apparently it used to be the owners rooms. Gill gets food poisoning from the dried fruit I bought in the market. (I did wash it) I end up giving it to the mule driver for the mule. We have been staying at Riad Klass in Marrakesh, and the manager offers to look after Gill, while Cath and I go trekking. The riad people are so lovely, but we arrange to go to Ourgane, in the High Atlas and stay an extra day at a riad, `La Bergerie', postponing the trek a day until Gill is ok. I'll w