Day 7

Today Nat's friend Ejaz took us to a cafe to smoke sheesha pipes. Having never encountered a hookah in my life (that's hookAH!) I wasn't sure what to expect but Ejaz talked me through it and I have to admit, after the first couple of chuffs, I was hooked. Gettit? See what I did there? Oh please yourselves!

Anyway, it was very nice to sit there puffing away on the flavoured tobacco (grape. It's the kind Ejaz always smokes so I thought I'd give it a go) and I think I really could have got very used to it. I wonder if the smoking ban in Scotland covers the places that were offering sheesha pipes? Oh probably. Ho hum. I do have some good pictures from the cafe but, again, they're still imprisoned on the digital camera.

After a very late lunch and sheesha smoking Ejaz kindly agreed to take us to the souq for some tourist tat shopping. We took a look at many, many jars of sand and wooden camels and I eventually picked up a couple of pashminas and some trinkets at one of the shops. I also got the piece of tourist tat I was hoping to get for the folks at work - the mosque-shaped alarm clock. It now has pride of place in the office but we can't get the alarm to go off. Goddamn cheap tourist tat! Ho hum, I got their batteries included because they didn't take them out again before putting in the box, and Ejaz haggled for me. You have to haggle!

Wandering through the souq I spotted the pillow in the picture above. Eh? I've since learned that you apparently have cervical bones in your spine but it did make us chuckle at the time.

Ejaz also took us to the hookah shop (stop with the hooker jokes!) and helped Nat pick out a shiny new pipe. I picked up some tobacco as well because Nat has left her old sheesha pipe with me in Edinburgh and, after chuffing away earlier, I was determined to get it out and dust it off on my return. We got kitted out with all the paraphenalia (pipe, tobacco, charcoal, fiddlers three...) and headed home to try it out...

One problem arose though. How on Earth were we going to get the charcoal lit? The house is equipped with a flipping electric hob and oven. Ah nuts! Prehistoric man could make fire, surely we could too? I've watched enough Ray Mears survival programmes, as well as having served times in the Girl Guides (surely for something evil I did in a previous life?) so I was not going to let a lack of flamage defeat me. We also had a lighter and a candle so it's not like we had to rub two sticks together or wait for lightning to strike. So, we found out holding charcoal over a candle doesn't work. Bumholes!

We were going to have to somehow build a fire to get the dang stuff lit. Barbara doesn't seem to own a BBQ so that was no help and the housemaid had tidied up the garden the day before so we were a little short on combustibles. Eventually we got a tiny little bonfire going in a tin can and ended up with 4 little bits of charcoal glowing away merrily (after much cursing and swearing and blowing on them). They were enough to get the pipe going and bubbling away for a good 20 minutes or so. Hoorah! We both had a great sense of achievement and very much enjoyed the mint tobacco. Again - more photos of this momentous event are trapped on the camera. I'll get them downloaded eventually.

I hope Nat will have her sheesha pipe out lots from now on, once she's picked herself up one of those little blow torches for making creme brulee with of course! Luckily, I have a gas hob at home so as long as I can get my sticky mitts (literally if you're dealing with sheesha tobacco) on some untreated charcoal I should be able to arrange sheehsa evenings to my heart's content. I don't have a pool to lounge beside though. Boo!