Don't come a knockin' cause I'm being Moroccan

So, two weeks after getting rid of my appendix Craig and I jetted off to Morocco. Now I feel I should confess something now- my geography is bad, really bad. When we booked a holiday to Marrakesh in Morocco, I thought it was part of Spain.... It's not .
Morocco is in North Africa. I discovered this quite quickly and was very excited, we were off on an African adventure.

A friendly stork- there are hundreds of them in Marrakesh.

Didn't see any carrying babies though- very disappointed.

Marrakesh is beautiful, it's a mad City. It's loud, busy, dusty and just generally an assault on the senses. But most of all it was hot.
Over 50 degrees hot. I was melting.

This is the main square where you can see the night market 

just getting set up- this was it quiet!

My smarty pants lives in a kitchen chef boyfriend was fine. He was used to the heat and assured me I would get used to the heat too. I didn't. It took 6 litres of water to get me to walk down a road.

But despite this, I loved Marrakesh. The people were lovely and the Souks (Markets) were incredible. You could literally get lost in them for hours (Craig on the other hand hated this, he likes to know where he is, I on the other hand am constantly lost so very much enjoyed it!)



I wont bore you with all the details of the holiday but here are a few of the highlights;

-The man who threw a snake over Craig's neck shouting picture. sadly, I couldn't see Craig's face cause I was running away!
-The night the power went out and (despite the near death experience of getting home in the dark past mopeds) we had a candle lit swim in the pool
- The Riad we stayed in, it was phenomenal!

This was our hotel- it was perfect.

- The food, tagine, cous cous and kebabs- those Moroccans can eat!
-The cascades of Ozoud, beautiful waterfalls, although the climb up from them almost killed me.

The cascades of Ozoud- totally worth the climb.

Marrakesh is an incredible place, I would love to go back maybe later in the year and not when I still felt a bit rubbish after surgery (I spent a-lot of my holiday napping I am afraid!).

I would suggest a visit to Marrakesh for anyone, it really is an incredible place. But just one work of advice- watch out for smelly camel leather.

Are you talking about me?

While I was there I bought a beautiful camel leather handbag (Yes, poor camel) it is beautiful, hand stitched with a gorgeous design. But when I got it home, I was wearing it and Craig was like: "What's that smell?" I could smell it too- but I didn't know what it was. Soon, I realised the smell was following me around. Then it clicked- it was my handbag. My camel handbag stinks. I mean proper stinks. I can't wear it. I Googled "smelly camel handbag" and guess what? This is quite a common thing. So I followed some advice from Google and have tried to make it less smelly. But so far I have been unsuccessful.


So my advice s if you are going to buy a beautiful Moroccan handbag- give it a sniff first.

Kisses
Fi
xxxxxxx

You won't like me when I'm angry

I am generally quite a calm person. Yes, I have my opinions and will tell you them if you ask, but generally I just get on with things. However, this week two men have said things which have made me very angry. And now I am going to have a rant at them because frankly, they have disgusted me.

First let me tell you what they did- t there was American Senate candidate Todd Akin who, with all the sensitivity and intelligence of a toilet brush, said that women could not get pregnant through "legitimate rape."
THEN MP George Galloway said that having sex with a woman while she is asleep, without a condom is not rape, it is merely bad sexual etiquette because she had agreed to sex the night before.

Wow, I mean wow. Now not only are these men extremely insensitive but also extremely uninformed. Dear Mr Akin, you can get pregnant through rape and yes I mean "legitimate rape" as opposed to "illegitimate rape" whatever the hell you think that is. In fact, in the US last year over 200,000 women fell pregnant as the result of rape. To be honest (and I do not condone violence) I hope if any of these women ever walk past you on the street they kick you between the legs.
Don't worry  Mr Akin said he "misspoke" now, I have no idea what that means and it doesn't sound like an apology to me, more a panic of "oh dear I will never get elected now everyone knows what a pig I am..."

So my suggestion to Mr Akin is that he withdraws his candidacy for the senate, donates any of his campaign money left (that is if anyone is still sponsoring him) to a rape support charity and then crawls back into whatever hole he came from so we never have to hear from this insensitive, ill-informed man again.

And then we have Mr Galloway, dear dear man. One thing your statement has made me wonder is about your sexual experiences. Do you often wake to find your partner having sex with you in your sleep? If so, I think you need to talk to someone. Does he think that any woman he has slept with before he can do it again because permission was given once?

After realising that what he said was upsetting a few people (I imagine at least half of planet earth if not many, many more) he clarified what he said: "No never means yes and non-consensual sex is rape. There's no doubt about it and that has always been my position."

So there you go, he is still saying non-consensual sex is not rape, he just seems unsure about how long consensus lasts for. And there is the whole no condom issue- surely if consensus was with protection then that is still in place if consensus does continue- which it does not.

Now, as you can see these two men have upset me. Not because I am a woman, I don't want to hear about how this is a feminist thing, rape is not a feminism thing. This upsets me because I am a human being and rape is a horrific thing which happens to people and the mere fact that these two are so ill-informed and absolutely incapable of considering the feelings of victims genuinely terrifies me.

They are both politicians, one elected and the other trying to get elected. They are suppose to run our countries. Yet they genuinely believe things like this. It's disgusting and has this week, made me very very mad.


Anyway, I feel better now that is off my chest.
Kisses
Fi 
xxxxxxx

Little Miracles

I promise that later this week I will tell you all about my adventures in Morocco but something amazing has happened which I want to tell you all about!

My friends are some of the most important people in the world to me, many of them i have known since school and even those who I haven't known since School know pretty much EVERYTHING about me (I love to over-share). In fact, you know how they say if you can count your good friends on one hand you are blessed? I must be beyond blessed because genuinely I have a number of incredibly wonderful people who I know that whatever happens I can call them and they will make things better.

I have been through a-lot with my friends and we have grown-up(ish) together. This week we have gone through something new together. One of my best friends had a baby- yes, a BABY. A real life- ten fingers, ten toes cutest little person I have ever seen- baby.

Now you are probably thinking that I seem surprised I mean, surely if it is a close friend I have known for some time that she was making another little human- and yes I did. But there is something different to watching a bump grow to actually meeting the little guy (sorry I should have said that earlier he is a little bouncing baby boy, 7lbs 7oz).

I knew I would love the kid the moment I met it (we didn't know gender prior to Saturday) what I didn't expect to feel is the overwhelming sense of pride I feel for my friends that they made this wonderful little person.

Now these two friends I have known them both for a long time and watched them fall in love and get married, so to now see what there love turned into has me speechless- I am beyond delighted for them and overly emotional about the whole ting. In fact, as you can probably see from this post- I am gushing!

Babies truly are a little miracle, they grow inside you ad then through pain and a-lot of effort, they come into the world and suddenly your life has changed forever. They are so small yet they are such an incredible force of life and love.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the good news with you and welcome little James Thomas into the world. Now I am going to stop staring at pictures of him and try to do something useful.

Kisses
Fi
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Angry Appendix part 2

So, I was lying there with lots of drugs in my system and the surgeon came over.
He explained that my appendix had been very angry and they had to chop it out. So I asked what anyone would ask in such a situation I asked- "Where is my appendix?"  I mean, I didn't want to lose track of any of my body parts, so I felt it was important to know where it was.
"Oh," said the surgeon, "Here it is..." and he held up a specimen jar which had in it my rather disgusting appendix.
I am not going to describe it in detail I think it is suffice to say that once you see something you can't un-see it, and that sometimes I lay awake at night unable to sleep knowing that thing had been inside me....
So my appendix was out. I was rolled back up to the ward and left to sleep of the anaesthetic.
I ended up spending a further three days in hospital after the op as I needed IV antibiotics and also due to the fact that I kept vomiting- lovely.
During my time on the ward I learned a two things.
1. There is no privacy in hospital. Everyone knows your business. Yes, they pull a curtain round you but it is just a curtain and everyone can still hear everything! This means that I can now tell you the medical histories of the three women who were in the ward with me. But don't worry I wont because that would be boring, unethical and possible illegal.
2. Nurses are worth their weight in gold. Don't get me wrong the drs are great too. But they kind of swoop in and stand around you, then they talk about you and then they disappear. But saying that, they did fix me so I cant complain. But the nurses, they are incredible. Despite being overstaffed they would do anything for you. One night I was feeling particularly sad and rather embarrassingly I was sitting in my bed sobbing. I was tired, sore and lonely. (Tiny violin anyone?) So I was trying to be sly about it. Don't get me wrong, my room-mates were lovely but I felt a bit daft blubbing in front of strangers. So I was trying to be sly. But then, one of the nurses noticed and she came over. Said: "Come here sweetheart," gave me a hug and got me a cup of tea. She then sat with me for 20 minutes (during which I am sure she had lots of other things to do) and made sure I felt better and then left me in the care of my room-mates who had gathered round my bed with gossip magazines so we could play find the worst fake tan. (I did mention they were lovely).
Anyway, the nurses were brilliant. They took wonderful care of me and I cannot say enough about them.
Finally on the Tuesday afternoon I was discharged and with scores of drugs and painkillers I was allowed home to recover- hopefully in time for my holiday to Morocco in t-minus 16 days.....

Kisses
Fi
xxxxx