Shake me up, Judy!

Hello peoples! Since I last wrote Egypt decided to remember it was technically winter and become freezing cold. Only in the mornings and at night, mind you, the day is still generally sunscreen weather.

Because I have a million thoughts and not the time to write down every story, nor the unwarranted attention of you all, I'm going to cheat and dot-point out some excerpts of life at Amarna from the past few weeks. Please excuse the laziness!

• A single cat is a joy. A pack of cats is an horror. The dig house cats are something like that family from 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo'. Except they do unspeakable things with/to each other. When they're not shagging they're fighting, or breaking into the dig house to eat biscuits/chips/paperwork, or making noises like demon-possessed children do in the films. We tried to give them away to the workmen but no one wanted them (clever guys). The cats have recently decided to sleep in the bread oven because of the colder weather. While this may solve the long-term problem of too many cats, I'm worried about my food being cooked in the same place as a manky cat sleeps. I'm going to get a parasite that sends me blind, I know it.

• I think the workmen get an unholy pleasure in choosing the worst moment to pop up and offer you a tray of sticky desserts, like during a sandstorm or when your hands are full of bone or dead-person hair. Then they come back again, and again, and suddenly it's become a three cake kind of day. They mime to me that I won't get fat because I'm troweling all day, but since at that time I was holding a tiny paintbrush and had just spent 2 hours brushing minuscule fragments of plaster, I don't think it really works.

• When it rains in Egypt, crazy things happen. Donkeys are electrocuted by power lines, cats run around confused by wetness from the sky, workmen go home (actually not that crazy) and archaeologists make hats. In honor of it being the 100th year anniversary of the bust of Nefertiti being found, we threw a big party and made Nefertiti crowns in her honor. It was marvelous.

• In this regard, a Nefertiti crown can be made out of anything, pretty much. Mine was made from biscuit packets, coffee wrappers, the inside of a cheese box and those plastic bubbles tablets come in. When I washed the rubbish in the kitchen sink, the cook didn't even bat an eyelid, which made me wonder what other things he's seen throughout the years here.

A drawing by our cook, I love it.

• Egyptian shindigs are wonderful things, with music and dancing and a whirling dervish with a skirt that lights up at the click of a button. It further confirmed to me if you have enough guts (or gin), anything can be used as a dance prop - a broom handle, a level stick, a rifle (one of the guards, believe me, he had some moves).

• There are moments in life where you stop and think - this is perfect. I have to say that walking at sunset with a host of other Nefertitis to the house where the bust was found, champagne stowed in someone's backpack and glasses shared amongst the group, this was one of those times.

• Possibly as an Egyptian ploy to prevent obesity, packets of chips here have a depressingly small amount of content. As in approximately 4 chips. Meaning you eat two or three packets to get a normal sized serving of chips, leading to you being overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, shame and secrecy. Oh Doritos. On that note, they also have flavours of kebab, paprika and both cheese AND seasoned cheese.

Also our honey jar has a picture of a crocodile on it and it says "Activity, Strength and Lively". I can't even come up with an explanation for that, unless it involved getting the honey actually from the crocodile (milking it? Is that how it would work?) which would comprise both activity, strength and a certain amount of liveliness.

• Lastly, people say the funniest things here in all seriousness. Like "I haven't touched a body in weeks" or "I put his head in a box and his beard fell off" or "How would you age me from my mandible?" or and my favourite so far, "Pigs are a pain in the ass, they eat babies and stuff".

Things are wrapping up here, these are the last few weeks before we finish up and leave site. That's going to make me very sad if I stop and think about it, so instead I'm going to focus on my plant-stem matting I have to draw tomorrow and apologise in advance for any potentially somber future blogs full of deep musings on friendship and goodbyes.

Lots of love in the holiday season to you all, eat some prawns for me please (I'm totally craving them).

xxxxx