Family Vacation

The Man of the Place hasn't been on holiday with his sister since he was about 12. As of this week, he is going to get to do that again. My lovely sister-in-law Victoria and my beautiful niece Emily are going to be joining us on our Egyptian adventure. I'm so excited! If you could photograph "ants in your pants" you'd get a photograph that is not too far off what I look like now.

So, not only do I get to go diving in the Red Sea for days on end. I get to hang out with Vic and Em. It'll be great to have more women than men on the vacation.

The thing is, sometimes when on vacation, I just want to sit under an umbrella by the pool and read a book. The Man of the Place can't do that. He has to be "doing something". When we were in Tunisia a few years ago, I put my foot down one afternoon and said I wasn't going anywhere. I was going to read my airport purchased novel by the poolside. Little George can splash about and we'll have a great time. To be fair, Henry tried. After I had gone through about ONE chapter in my book, I folded it away in my bag and caved in. The swimming pool was too cold for George to swim in and my darling husband had been pacing around the pool like a caged tiger. To be fair though, doing stuff was much more fun and there was enough down time during the holiday for me to finish all the books I brought with me.

This time, if I just want to lounge by the pool either I will have company. Vicky is a fully paid up member of the poolside sisterhood.

I can't wait! (Did I say that already?) We're also planning a day trip to Cairo to the Egyptian Museum and the Great Pyramids over in Giza. In the 70's the Tutankhamen Exhibit did a tour of the US. It came to Chicago for a bit, the closest it was going to get to me. I missed it though. I think I was too young to have enough influence to get the family to go to this exhibit. I remember thinking to myself, that I'll never get to see the famous death mask unless I get to go to Egypt and when was I EVER going to go to Egypt. Henry bought me a book, Sharks of the Red Sea. Hee hee. He's more afraid of sharks than I am. Now that I think about it. I'm not afraid of spiders, snakes or mice either. They'll startle me, but after the initial flinch, I'm okay. Large mammals will get me to run the other way though. I was one of those rotten kids who would chase the other kids in the neighbourhood around with garter snakes. I am also the official "get the spider out of my room or bathtub" person.

I say the most dangerous part of any dive is the journey to the dive site. In fact, I surprised that Henry has suggested diving in the Red Sea at all. Last year he was pretty adamant that he would never dive anywhere where there might be sharks. I said that if that was the case, we had to restrict all our dives to freshwater lakes and the Mediterranean. Sharks are a much bigger danger to snorkellers and surfers than to divers and if we leave our wetsuits made of meat at home, we should be okay.