An Arab Spring

And so, as the winter insisted on dragging its heels, TH and I decided that enough was enough and decamped to Egypt. It has become something of a ritual that, around February, we sneak away to the Sinai peninsula, which if I’m honest has little to commend it but the warmth of its weather and its people. As Nowhere on Thames has been enveloped in a blanket of grey since what seems like nine months ago, it was a treat to see and feel the warmth of the sun, and to be able to wear just the one light layer of clothing instead of dressing in so many different garments that getting undressed was like dissecting an onion.

This really lifts the spirits whilst waiting for our poor daffodils to summon up the courage to bloom

This year, as the previous two or three, the continuing political unrest in faraway Cairo has deterred many tourists from visiting, which – whilst it certainly didn’t mean we had the place to ourselves – made the whole place a little quieter than it was a few years back.  It would appear that Norwegian tour operators are capitalising on this decline in numbers by snapping up great deals for their customers, as I’ve never seen so many Norwegians gathered in one place since a long-ago visit to, er..Norway.

 Norwegians are, it would appear,” bien dans leur peau” as the French would put it. Even when they seem to have an awful lot of peau to be bien in. There are (don’t tell any of your Scandinavian friends) certain figures that simply don’t lend themselves to a two-piece swimsuit.  And I am not sure that the Italian contingent ever got the memo about the over-seventies and the thong.  I am not above the odd fashion faux pas myself, but I think that age, gravity and a liberal helping of common sense have taught me that I have exceeded the optimum body shape and condition for revealing swimwear.

It’s not just the swimwear, either. Sometimes the daywear and evening wear appear to tell a tale of some rash pre-holiday shopping. And it would appear, from the following photograph taken of the window of a local clothing emporium, that the tourists are sending mixed messages to the host country, whose people seem to have a much less liberal approach to dressing. Is this, I wonder, a form of comment on the dress sense (and by extension, the morals) of their foreign visitors, an unfortunate accident, or simply a realisation that whatever anyone does to accessorise that dress can’t really hope to improve it?

And they don't even match!