Wednesday, December 1/2010

The plan was to go to El Djem today, but it's quite windy and overcast and one of the conflicting forecasts is for rain, wo we decide to postpone. After which it does rain here, though pretty briefly. Discover, in the process of checking the weather, that the wifi is good as far as the corridor outside our room. In fact it's good inside our room (with only a few lapses) if you sit on the luggage rack just inside the door - but no further.

Afternoon trip to the souq. I'm not really tough enough for it. Although another way to look at it is that the sellers are too aggressive for their own good, leaving one walking away from things that one is actually interested in buying rather than be bruised by the process. And interest is pretty hard to disguide from these experts, alert to the slightest flicker of the gaze. For the first time I find myself wishing I were cross-eyed. One of the most irritating factors is the rhetoric, which is essentially that used to discipline recalcitrant children: Why won't you answer me - Look at me when you speak - I asked you a question. The tone is a bit better than the words, but it's a relentless onslaught. The actual establishing of price is the least unpleasant aspect. The shopkeepers have discovered that the most effective means of selling is to establish a supposed relationship, in the pursuit of which they ask endless questions or even resort to physical touch as you pass their shops - where are you from, etc. On the other hand, there is some humour to be found. Several will open with "only five dinar" ($3.50 CAD, £2.10) as they gesture grandly at a rack of large leather handbags. It won`t be, of course, but it's an amusing staart.

The ice and snow continue to assail Europe and we note that Gatwick is closed until "at least Thursday morning". Well, it's another week until we fly there.