Syria, four days.

I am – and this is rare for me – struggling with so much to say that I am daunted by it. I think I cannot sort Syria into a logical sequence of events, impressions and photographs. What I will send is the muddle of glimpses of the colour and richness, the tastes and antiquity and the kindness and affection of our friends. No sequence, just bits and pieces as I write them up. While I am saying this first, it will eventually end as the last thing you read on Syria if you come to this blog only occasionally. Please see it as an explanation.

So many sights, so few words.

Looking Forward to Syria

I go to Damascus tomorrow. Bob has had a call to present his credentials, and we leave in the afternoon, to be there in time for the ceremony next day.

I am almost shivery with anticipation. I love Damascus. It was probably my hardest first six months, but became a total and absolute capitulation. Those who love the Middle East have no way to hold back. This city seeps into the bones of those who walk through it and learn to know it. It has high walls, huge gates, and narrow alleys, with enchantment around every corner. Second storeys project over the streets and cobblestones, shadowing people below from summer heat or winter rain, and leaning to nuzzle at the corners of windows covered in meshrabieh. Despite the bright plastic and roller doors of the shops, there is a sense of time turned back. If I could walk you through one city in the Middle East for one day, it would be Damascus in Syria.

I could not resist the chance to send some wonderful patchwork patterns from the Middle East. They are all made in stone and not cloth, but many of these date from the reign of the Mameluks. This first one was in the Grand Hyatt spa in Dubai, all others are from the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo.

Just Because I Promised

The menu for the dinner in Honour of Senator the Hon. Robert Hill and Mrs Hill

Poached Tasmanian Salmon on Creamed Leek Fondue

Seared Australian Beef Fillet with Balsamic Red Onion Compote and Sweet Potato Roesti

Apple Tart with Caramel Sauce

OK. That was the basic list of food.

However – the salmon was somehow layered and utterly sumptuous, with a melting slick of creamy sauce over a thick bed of simmered leeks. Leeks are not known here, so the local guests who came (which included several Ministers) were interested. They were even more interested when we pointed out that they were the national vegetable of Wales – but mostly because they couldn’t think why anyone would want a national vegetable. This led to a debate on which one Egypt would choose, which did not reach any conclusion.

The beef was a disc of rich dark fillet a full four inches across and a good three inches high. I have never worked out to cook meat in these proportions as I tend to get charred and dry on the outside, raw in the centre. This was delicately rare in the centre, perfect on the outside.

I had gone to the kitchen to check the process early in the evening and found that crew cooking in the dark. They had decided that they didn’t want to sprinkle everything with dill and the tiny green insects were out in dive bombing squadrons. So they turned out the lights. I had to pick the Australian accent to find the cook – a lovely man I also knew in Jordan. He is from the Grand Hyatt here, and they do most of our catering.

The tart sounds simple, and like all the best food, in a way it was. It was a crisp thin shortcrust pastry bowl of apple with high golden sides. The apple was sliced paper thin, swirled into the crust, and only just cooked till tender so it still had a faint flavour of fresh apple. The caramel sauce was rich and very home-made, drizzled over the apple and spiralling around the base. It was served with a generous scoop of real vanilla icecream.

Not on the menu was the totally divine selection of tiny petits fours served with coffee – long thin sticks of almonds barely held together with light toffee, almond meringues, low and flat and filled with coffee cream, and tiny friands studded with raspberries.

Better still were the leftovers as a quick lunch on our return from Al Arish. There is nothing like wonderful food from a party appreciated in the solitary tranquillity of a day later. I wonder if they realise they left a whole three litre tub of vanilla ice cream, regularly speckled with tiny black seeds.

Don't tell.

Two Bombings and a Beach Trip

It was a fair indication of the week we have had, when we sat down together to dinner at the Embassy’s house at Agami in the north of Egypt, and agreed that it hadn’t been a bad day.

The Defence Minister had left the day before (more on that trip later). The day had started with a three and a half hour drive to Cairo with three in the back of an Embassy Mercedes, traveling from North Camp on the Sinai Peninsula where we had farewelled the Minister. Then we had a couple of hours to catch up on mail and throw clothes into bags and food into eskis. At three o’clock we discovered that our four wheel drive we had intended to use to drive ourselves and the Consul and his wife to Agami had a flat battery and would not start. There were two Mercedes, including Bob’s, parked at the house, but we had keys to neither. A call to the driver to bring back the key was made, and he set off. About forty five minutes later, another call to see where he was found that he was fifteen minutes away, but that dodging jammed traffic meant that he had had to come the long way around.

He arrived with friends who were there to work on our car, and carrying the news (via our guard) that there had been another bombing, this time at the underpass of the 6 October Bridge near the Cairo Museum. I wish Egypt did not name places after dates. I simply do not remember dates, and am often confused about just where I am because I can’t remember the numbers. Names are not as hard. But I digress.

At this point, when you work with an Embassy, and a bomb goes off, all else takes a back seat. Everyone moves through a set of standard procedures. Consular emergency people in Canberra have to be notified, a ring-around of Australia-based staff to check they are safe, the seeking of information, often long before anyone really knows what happened, in the hope of finding out if Australians are among the dead or injured.

The story varied according to informant. Someone had thrown a bomb from the overpass onto people below. Someone had been carrying a case and had blown himself up, targeting Israelis. A man had been running from the Museum and had detonated the bomb when police challenged him. Two Israelis and one Italian were dead. Two Israelis, one Italian and one Russian were dead. Only the bomber was dead, the others were just injured. On local television the cameras were fixed on the scene, and riot and tourist police swarmed the area.

Threaded through this were our driver’s reports on our car. The battery was cracked. The dynamo was dead. We hadn’t used it enough. At least the last one was true.

We decided to pack the Mercedes and go as far as the consul’s apartment. He is also our Administrative officer, but this was a day for the consul hat. At this stage we were a good two hours late and it was starting to look as if our long-promised chance to relax after a few very heavy weeks was just not going to happen.

Over a cup of tea came some more fact-based information. Only the bomber was dead, no Australians were involved. Bob decided we could leave town.

We left, threading our way through traffic jammed solidly in the hope of going in the other direction on the 26th July Bridge.

Out on the road to Alexandria the phone rang again. We were still chasing details of the bombing, and the men’s phones had been taking turns – like the dueling guitar and banjo.

This was another bombing. Or a shooting.

The different stories started again.

A man and woman had tried to blow up a tourist bus and had been killed. Two people had tried to blow up a bus, made a botch of it and had shot each other. Two women in nekab (the black covering that leaves only the eyes visible) had tried to blow up a bus and had shot each other. Two women in nekab had tried to blow up a bus and had been shot by tourist police traveling with the tourists on the bus.

The whole standard procedure started again, while we drove steadily north, in hope that we wouldn’t have to turn back. Bob said one more bomb and that would be it for the weekend away.

Finally it was established that no-one else had been injured in the second incident and we headed on to Agami. We arrived at eight o’clock, tired and hungry. We microwaved large potatoes and reheated the beef dish which had been my back-up “in case I have to feed the Minister’s party” meal.

In the well fed and contented frame of mind that a good meal and a couple of bottles of good wine engenders we decided it hadn’t been a bad day. That was when we realised that two terrorist attacks, six hours of driving, and a car breakdown and are not anyone else’s idea of a ‘not too bad’ day. It is a real indication of what our last week had been like.

This morning the news reports that the two incidents yesterday were linked. The man who had the first bomb had tried to get to the Cairo Museum and been challenged, then chased, by tourist police. He had detonated the bomb as they gained on him. His sister and fiancé had fired on a tourist bus, then one had killed the other, then herself.

My Studio

I once promised to send photos of my studio. I have the best arrangement I have ever had, two rooms that sit at the front of the house, almost on their own on our flat roof.

As I approach from the stairwell the one on the left is my studio. The laundry door is first, then the high stairs to the beautiful space I think of as the wind room – a small high pavilion open on all sides to catch the evening breezes. My studio is tucked under this.

On the right side of the roof is the room I think of as the reading room. I have kept it fairly free of clutter, but all my books are there, and it is set up as a quiet retreat. I have had my small sewing group up here, curled in chairs and reading. It has a wonderful high arched ceiling and feels utterly Middle Eastern – and I just love it. Between the two I have the perfect arrangement.