Ah, the sounds of summer in the city: the gentle tinkle of glass on pavement...

The fashions hark back to the mid-1980s, there's a recession on which is accompanied by mass youth unemployment, there are riots on the streets of Toxteth, London and Birmingham sparked by police brutality - yes, the Tories must be back in power again...

But politics aside; we had one of our best days for ages yesterday at the Science Museum's 'Big Object Store' at Wroughton, on the site of the ex-WWII aerodrome just outside Swindon. WANHS had organised a behind the scenes tour of the store, archive and library as very little public access is allowed at the moment due to the deteriorating state of some of the aircraft hangars that are used to store the objects and financial constrains forcing them to abandon anything outside their core remit. 

It was absolutely stunning. First there are the WWII hangars which are brill. in themselves, but then to go in and find them stuffed with everything from lawn mowers to Polaris nuclear missiles (stuff that make bomb go bang been safely removed), taking in mark 1 hovercraft, trams, 18th century fire engines, a Dan-Air jet and just about anything you can think of in between. We went in 2 stores, a refurbished store (who'd have thought that an empty warehouse could be so interesting?!) before seeing the archives. The archive building included a very early Daimler with the Royal Carriage Collection - they were all housed in the archive because the conditions were better for them than in the hangars.

 I had an interview at the library in 2008 before I got this job and I'm now rather glad that I didn't get it 'cos I would never have done any work and would have been sacked! The archive includes coach builders' plans of their custom-built bodies for Daimlers, Bentleys, Maharajas' Rolls Royces, etc. They have Donald Campbell's photos and diaries, plans for the Conway and Britannia tubular bridges, Charles Rolls' photo albums of his early exploits driving motorcars and motor bicycles, Barnes Wallis's plans for the R100, the paintings of Egypt from Napoleon's Egypt expedition, and so much more. I could quite happily go up there everyday for the rest of my life and just look through the archive a drawer at a time! Honestly, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Almost as good was driving the length of the main runway to get there. Well worth a day off work. We had lunch at Barbary Inn, Broad Hinton. Beer was excellent and the food was a little slow but very nice.

Seeing the hovercraft, hearing about their Concorde and reading elsewhere about the final Space Shuttle flight made us rather sad. All of these innovative mid-20th century projects have now been de-commissioned - no hovercraft has taken you across the Channel for over a decade, no Concorde will fly you to New York in record time, no Shuttle will ever get the chance to take you to the moon for a holiday - it seems to show a lack of ambition and financial will in the governments of Europe and America to fund exciting projects. But perhaps I've just answered my own point. Perhaps it's an indication of innovation and development moving eastwards as Japan and China develop bullet trains, use hovercraft and American astronauts start hitching a lift with the Russians.

The Reckoning

When we went on our 'trip of a lifetime' to Egypt in January 2009, we were chatting to the taxi driver who had taken us to Deir el-Medina and he was asking, "Where are all the tourists?". We thought that there were lots of tourists around, but he said no, that there were usually many more and that the Egyptians were earning much less as a result. We heard the same question from a tout later in the week. We explained that we had been 'credit crunched' and that people were afraid of losing their jobs and were saving their money.

This sparked a conversation about food prices, as wheat was beginning to rise in price and at home the 500g of pasta that had cost 33p the January before was now 75p, the 70p loaf was now £1.34 and cheese had risen by 20%. These price rises were something that most of us in Britain could shrug off, but in countries where such staples make up a fair proportion of the diet and where most ordinary people had 2 or 3 jobs to try to make ends meet; what would happen, we wondered, when these price rises hit whilst coupled with less income coming in?

Well, 2 years later, I think we just found out.

On us hols...

Well, actually, we're just back. From Egypt. Where we'd been for 2 weeks. In January. How decadent is that? We'd never been away for 2 weeks before so we weren't sure whether we'd still be speaking by the time we got back!

This was Jon's dream trip so he chose everything - I just tagged along for the ride - and it was brill. Our first week was on a cruise ship on the Nile from Luxor (ancient Thebes) down to Aswan and back and the 2nd week was in a hotel in Luxor. See the photos on our web album over on the right => but be warned, there are about 300! (I actually took 667 so count yourselves lucky that I didn't put them all up there!)












The ship was the Regency and it was great (although the rickety shower wasn't exactly 5* Delux). It has about 50 cabins so can only take just over 100 people which gave it a nice friendly feel. We were a bit nervous of the idea of being seated with other people on a large table at dinner - what happens if you're stuck with people you don't like for a week? But the other 3 couples we sat with for meals were lovely and really helped make the holiday (I hope they felt that we weren't too off-putting too!). All the trips below were included, as was the guide.

Day 1 - by coach to the west bank of the Nile to see the Colossi of Memnon - two enormous but badly damaged statues (damaged by earthquakes in 'antiquity'), Valley of the Kings and Queen Hatchepsut's Temple. The difference between the land watered by the Nile and the desert is so abrupt that it's stunning and you can see this best from














the 'plane or a hot-air balloon. It's amazing that almost all of Egypt's people live on that thin strip of green either side of the Nile. The Valley of the Kings is barely 20 mins drive from Luxor but it's so arid - which was why it was used of course - and you really do feel that you're in the desert. We saw the tombs of Thuthmosis III (a mammoth climb up and then down - don't attempt if you're scared of heights), Ramesses VII, Seti I and, of course, King Tut (which is a bit small and maybe disappointing, but you've just got to haven't you?). The tombs are stunning and it's almost impossible to believe that they were painted 3,500 years ago. Queen Hatchepsut's Temple is also amazing, especially the paintings that are virtually outside. That's something I couldn't get used to, being from such a damp country, that it NEVER rains in southern Egypt so nothing rots or gets washed away. The climate preserves everything: bodies, paint on buildings, wood, cloth... Back to the boat for lunch and an afternoon sailing to Edfu.

Day 2 - Edfu Temple of Horus in the morning, then an afternoon sailing to Kom Ombo and its temple dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god - they even had mummified crocodiles! We'd been a bit concerned about the hassle you get on the streets from people trying to sell you tourist tat, boat, carriage and taxi rides or just asking for money. And 'yes', it is bad, very bad. Kom Ombo was the worst with the little kids almost stopping you from walking - one couple found it very difficult as the kids grabbed on to their legs and they had to be rescued by the tourist police. Most of the time a purposeful stride and a lack of eye contact coupled with 'no thank you' or 'larh shukran' worked, but the little buggers at Kom Ombo were very persistent. But often just walking on the side of the road furthest from the river made you less susceptible to hassle.

Day 3 - Free day in Aswan. We went for a walk to the market and went on the back streets, rather than the road along the Nile. This turned out to be a very good plan as we weren't hassled by anyone on the way into town. We found a normal shopping area, there were some tourist shops and their owners invited us in but were easily rebuffed, but most of the shops and stalls were selling real food, kitchen items, etc. Jon keeps telling me off for going on about the size of the cauliflowers and cabbages - not kidding, the heads of cauli were a foot across, they would have fed us for a week! Made me wish we were self-catering...

Day 4 - Coach trip to the 2 Aswan dams and Lake Nasser. Then a boat trip on Lake Nasser to the Temple of Philae which was saved from the lake and re-sited on an island. One of my obsessions is 18th and 19th century graffiti and I had a field-day photographing the carvings here! One paragraph was carved by someone working with the antiquarian Henry Salt in the early 19th century - how long must it have taken them to carve their names and details in immaculate copperplate script? Then a trip in a small boat on the Nile to see the Aga Khan's mausoleum, the Old Cataract Hotel (appears in 'Death on the Nile' I think, well Christie certainly stayed there), etc. We even had a kid paddle out into the very wide and busy Nile on a plank of wood to beg money from us! The older kids obviously had been in the business longer and they could afford a small canoe. Then a sailing back up to Esna.

Day 5 - We had an afternoon visit to Karnak, at one end of Luxor town, which is HUGE. We went back in the 2nd week and spent 3 hours there. I've got to say, that you have to be careful where the tourist police and guardians inside the temples and tombs are concerned. If they show you anything, lend you a piece of card as a fan in a hot tomb, point their torch into a dark corner, or get in the way of your camera when you're taking a picture, they expect baksheesh. From the middle of the first week I was starting every conversation with 'I have no Egyptian money left' and they'd smile and say 'No problem' and totter off to 'help' someone else.

Then to Luxor Temple, which is in the centre of Luxor Town and right next to our boat mooring. There was an avenue of sphinxes connecting Karnak with Luxor in ancient times and the government is spending millions re-siting (knocking down) hospitals, houses and mosques in order to re-create that avenue. So, one day, you may be able to walk along the avenue from one to the other. Our (Orthodox) guide took great pleasure in telling us that the government asked the Orthodox and Catholic churches if they would vacate their cathedrals to facilitate the re-creation of the avenue, and the Catholic response was, "Yes, of course...just as soon as you've built us a new one".

Day 6 - trip to Denderah Temple which was actually built by the Romans once they'd taken over Egypt. You can go on the roof!

Then most people went home and we transferred to the Nile Palace hotel - which was very nice. We even donned our cozzies and went for a dip in the pool! As well as returning to Karnak and Luxor Temple, we went to Luxor Museum and did a morning on the west bank at Deir el Medina (valley of the workers) and the Valley of the Queens. Deir el Medina is the town where the tomb builders lived and died, so you can see the remains of houses, cellars, streets as well as three tombs. I think that these tombs and the ones in the Valley of the Queens were at least as equal to those in the Valley of the Kings. The vibrancy of the paint in the ones at Deir el Medina was amazing.

Again, the hassle we got when walking into town was irritating, so, instead of turning left from our hotel door, we walked down a street opposite the hotel and then turned left when we could. We walked down local markets where no-one hassled us because they knew we weren't in the market for the bream and other Nile-caught fish spread out on banana leaves; nor the shaved goat's heads sitting serenely on a table next to their jointed bodies and offal; nor the entire windpipes, lungs and innards strung up outside the butchers' shops - watch where you're walking 'cos they dangle out into the pavement at eye height (the trays of honeycomb tripe reminded me of Wigan market); nor those huge cauliflowers again and piles of other brightly coloured plump vegetables.

So, would we go back? Well, despite the hassle, I think we'd like to see more of Egypt. I was surprised how clean everywhere was - European cities could learn a lot from Egypt's street cleaners. The temperature was perfect at about 26c - just like good summer days at home - and was not uncomfortable to walk round in even at midday. But it was so expensive! Everything was European prices (and London prices at that)














everywhere that a tourist might go, so we didn't drink much, even after we'd found a cheaper bar. But, lets face it, you can see Egyptian items in Bolton Museum (where I saw my first mummy) or the BM, but there's nothing to compare with seeing these artefacts in their original settings.