From Tunisia Sept 09

This year we're off to sunny...

Tunisia actually and as you can see it wasn't! But we still got out to lots of 'sites': Punic and Roman Carthage; Tunis and the Bardo museum; the Ribat at Sousse; the medina, a mausoleum and a mosque in Kairouan; and the amazing museum and Roman amphitheatre at El Djem.

The museum at El Djem had an excavated Roman villa in it and a partly excavated Roman town - really stunning. They have so many fantastic mosaics that all the museums we went to had them set in the floor for you to walk on, or have them in situ out in the open in the villa or town for you to stroll on - things that are so rare over here in the UK that they're treated like fragile fabrics; protected behind glass.

Tunisia was great, much less hassle than in Egypt and a lot cheaper too.

Anyway, now we're back we can enjoy our new sofa and chair. Lise will remember our old sofa 'cos when she moved into her first house they bought a grey and white striped sofa from Habitat. When we moved into our first house a about a year later (May 1990) we bought the peach and white striped sofa-bed version. I gave it a new seat pad and re-covered it in a Laura Ashley yellow and orange check when we moved to the new house in 2000, but it's now come to the end of its life and has been replaced by something rather Edwardian looking with large maroon chenille flowers on a dark grey background. We've also replaced the wooden framed chair that I 'bought' as one of a pair from the chap I used to work for in a newsagent's when I was a teenager: I say 'bought' 'cos all he wanted was a £10 donation to charity and I had to store them at Nanna's for several years before I had a house to put them in. The new chair is a sober cream with beige and brown stripes.

Last year Jon replaced the large heavy old armchair (which must have been about 50 years old) his Gran and Grandad had given us when they were replacing their suite 15 years ago with a very nice leather armchair from Laura Ashley. So the living room now looks rather elegant, although I'm not sure that the furniture quite matches the walls and curtains, but I don't think I can be bothered doing anything about it!

Now to start saving up to have the boiler replaced, but I don't think that will be quite so much fun as choosing furniture!

Oh, and, have you sponsored Claire yet? Click on the 'donate' link on the right to read about her up-coming trek. She's done so well at controlling her diabetes through diet that the doc has taken her off the insulin for a trial period - how good is that?! We're off on a training walk with her tomorrow, so fingers crossed that the weather will stay fine.

Hey, my butcher's on YouTube!