Exactly one year and a day to the last time it rained in Hurghada, the gorgeous one and I were lying in bed early evening and heard a rumbling.
“That sounds like thunder”.

We bounced out of bed and ran through to the lounge, where we peeked through the curtains and saw lightning!  Opening the patio door to go outside we felt wetness falling from the sky, which quickly became torrential.

After spending last year sluicing out the lounge, we quickly grabbed towels and built flood defenses against the patio door.  Smug in the knowledge that, this year, we could watch the sound and light show without water wings, we sat on the balcony and enjoyed the madness.

The doorbell began to ring continuously (it shorts out during rainstorms, we have found).  Upon investigation we noticed that the rain had decided to attack from the front of the apartment this year, and was coming in under the front door.  Corinne grabbed the mop and I grabbed the squeegy and stepped out into the rain to sluice the water down the front steps.  Hailstones the size of golf balls began bouncing around me – ouch!

Anyway, we survived the night of hell and over the next few days the damage to our beach was repaired, although the damage to the weather (temperature drop) took a few days longer to recover.

Mum & Dad arrived a bit later and so we have spent the past two weeks having breakfast, relaxing on the beach, wandering around town and going out for some rather excellent meals.  During our adventures we’ve discovered two new restaurants, which is nice.

After repeated demands that we should go and buy our Christmas and birthday presents while they were here, we went out and returned with a 58″ television.  Despite having to go back to the shop as there were no screws for the stand, and bringing the guy from the shop back to the house to search for the screws as he didn’t believe us, it’s now firmly ensconced in the lounge.

We also went hunting for a tagen as we’ve been making some rather tasty seafood tagens over the past few months and thought we should have a proper pot to cook them in.  Thanks to Gran for the tagen set.  Thanks to Robin for the crates of beer.

As we’re not travelling a lot at the moment, I’m supplementing this travel blog with my other great fascination – food!  You can, if you feel so inclined, check out my food-related blog at netyoda’s food