Marrakech

B got very drunk that first night.

When she woke up the sky was the brightest blue and the temperature was creeping up to 30 degrees centigrade. She decided she could cope with the knowledge that O was in the same city of one million souls, even if she did have to spend some of her time in his company. I spent Sunday morning sunbathing and swimming outside in the hotel pool. Pretty amazing seeing as how 72 hours earlier I had been snowed in and couldn't get to work.

I had woken up very early. I thought I was imagining a horrible din, but it was in fact one of many calls to prayer which are relayed to the population each day. We didn't get the impression though that it was a particularly religious society. We only saw three women who covered their faces the whole time we were there and when the numerous calls to prayer were made they seemed to be ignored by everyone except O who would complain about 'The bloody row.'

We did get called non-believers once on a vist to the Souk. O was not around us all the time but he did take us out in the evenings to the old town and I can't speak for B but G and I were really glad of his presence. The old town is wild and heaving with people, many of whom are after money. It would have been a bit daunting had he not been there acting as our protector. Anyway, there was a biscuit stall just visible in the picture. The seller obviously didn't realise we were with O as he said to his mate he would get the money off the non-believers but O over heard him. The next thing we knew O was engaged in a violent exchange of words with this guy as he was so affronted by what he saw as an insult to us. He finally came away with a parting shot which translated from the Arabic was "You can shove your biscuits up your arse!" I was still laughing two hours later about that.