Home!

No thanks to BA who did everything they could to make our return trip nasty, we are home. ( thumbs up to BMI who rescued us and our at-the-time-missing bags at Heathrow and, five minutes to the gate closing found us three legroom seats between the two of us).

I will spare you the blow by blow account in favour of some photos and captions:

For both our stays in Marrakech we were updgraded to a suite

Did that mean we ate in the fancy restaurant in the hotel. Of course not - not when there is cheap street food on offer...

Eating at the No 12 street stall in the square in Marrakech gives cheap tasty food and oodles of people watching entertainment. We had several meals there last time we went and four this time.

Eating at no 117 stall, however, gives you food that looks just like this food from no 12 but for Dennis at least it came with added tummy upset. Yuk.

Quilt inspiration pieces ( known to the locals as carpets) are everywhere.as are scarf stalls. Wanna be a Toureg anyone?!

Escaping the frenetic traffic of Marrakech for Kasbah Ellouze was well worth it. This is the view from our bedroom window.

On holiday you learn something everyday. On Thursday I learned two things (a) riding a camel hurts. it was only when I got a massage in the Sofitel back at Marrakech on Saturday that my inner thighs stopped aching (b) there is not a lot of point getting your Berber guide to take the photo of you on said camel.

I prefer rental Toyotas but following the directions the french owners of Kasbah Ellouze gave us to get to Chez Talout for lunch we did start to wonder if we had offended them. It was not exactly a pictureseque road. In fact it was not a road. who would guess that just a few hundred metres ahead of that photo, hidden in a dip was a house with this view on the otherside of it. An oasis. Very biblical. (But with great tagines)

I have returned with a sore throat though - combination I think of desert dust from Ouazarate and airport airconditioning. No matter. Dennis has offered to buy me a quilt book for doing all the driving over the precipitous Tizi n Ticka pass which everyone but me seems to think is dangerous - I loved it. (There are no photos though as I was busy negotitaing hairpins and blind bends with crazy taxi drivers overtaking and Dennis was busy clinging to the car door handle and commenting on every time a piece of crash barrier was missing!) So, because I don't have to return to work until tomorrow afternoon, I am going to curl up this morning with existing books knowing that there is another to come. Aren't I lucky to get presents just for enjoying myself on holiday?!