Bureaucracy

Has it really been a month since my last missive?

IMG_2651Since then a sneaky plan to bring our brother Robin out here sort of worked, but due to a post on his Facebook wall, Corinne called his house on the morning of his flight and his answerphone message let her know that he was coming out.

IMG_2638We had two weeks with him out here, mostly relaxing on the beach, enjoying good food and catching squid.  We went regular fishing and Rob caught 3 picasso fish before noticing that the neighbour had caught something decent.  He chatted to him and found out it was calamari (squid), so we switched to squid lures and caught ourselves 3 decent ones.

IMG_2645That set the scene for every night after.  Just before dusk Rob would head down the pier and bring us back some squid.

The two weeks passed so quickly, it was great having him here and we hope to have him back soon.

 

IMG_2668During his visit I went with Emad to get the bike licenced and transferred to him.  around 15 hours of messing about over 3 days got us to the stage where Emad had ownership of the bike.  Corinne and I then took a trip to the bike shop and bought the new baby.

 

 

IMG_2652Hend and Ahmed came over for the day and we relaxed, ate food and drank beers in the sea.  We then visited them a few days later and had more good food and drinks (including Hend’s shrimp – always amazing) at their home in Hadaba
A week and a half later and I was back in the traffic police sorting out the licence for the bike.

Finally we had the bike legal, but there were quite a few things not working properly on it.  Back to the shop.  We picked it up again later and took it home.

IMG20151007130441The next morning we headed out on the bike and as soon as we drove out of our gate, the electrics went.  Kickstart time.  We took the bike back the next day and left it for 5 hours while they checked out the reason for the fuse going again.  It turns out a vibration was causing a short which was blowing the fuse, but also that the fuel gauge was dead.

Thankfully that’s all there is to get done on it now and it will be done when we take it for its initial 100km service.

IMG_2709Yesterday we set out early to the visa office with multiple copies of everything we thought was needed.  Turns out we just had enough and for 20 LE (£1.80) each our applications were taken in.  We find out today what’s happening with them, as they have changed the rules completely from the old easy-to-get one year visa and re-entry 6 month visa.  No more re-entry visas.  Rumour says we’ll only get 2 months extension on this visa.  Who knows?  Watch this space to find out if we’re still welcome in Egypt.

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