Sorry, sorry, sorry!

48 hours without a update, I know! I have tried putting my hands on my hips and telling my router quite curtly that the day that mum and Jane cross into Africa is NOT the time to to stop working, but will it listen? No. Maybe it's trying to tell it with a heavy cold, it just isn't taking me seriously. In any case I am at a friend's house borrowing his machine.

So, where were we? The decision had been taken to stay in Gibraltar for an extra day, which they used for a trip up the Rock where the new Irish ex-army friends' influence became evident with a text message from mum that read "How big are the feckin monkeys?! Feck I am not kicking that!", with a crazy Gibraltar-born Spanish-hating guide named Keith who encouraged them to scramble round security fences and take a peek across the water for their first look at Africa, while he stopped for a brandy. And they needed to get the starter motor repaired. Well, that repair was successful, but it turns out mum wasn't joking when she described Peg in the profile for this blog as 'temperamental'. No sooner was one problem sorted than another arose - now they are driving with only first, third and occasionally fourth gears. Fun, especially now they are in Morocco where the word 'motorway' is something of a misnomer and actually just means that tarmac isn't at as much of a premium as on the normal 'roads', so the potholes are few enough that you can engage in fun games like passing sweeties from one car in the convoy to another at 70mph!

At 8am yesterday morning, they got on the Ferry to Ceuta, dresses and tiaras bought for the tea party they're going to have in the desert, looking mad in the queue in all the stickered British cars with four other teams: Bob Mali, Birmingham Irish, Are We There Yet and Dynamo Dysart. A quick half hour crossing, so by 10 o'clock they were... passing the port for the fourth time. Ace. Like the Italian job, only reset in Morocco with three gears. I would love to have been listening in on the radio conversations! They did eventually find their way out of Ceuta and made for Rabat through surprisingly verdant scenery, stopping en route for a pizza with chilli oil that they had no idea how much they were being charged for, and to partake in a little car roof surfing as suggested by Ken. Started seeing all those bizarre things that you see on 'rough guide' type programmes on television and never believe; like three people to one moped, and people carrying huge bundles on their backs, flocks of storks, cork trees, donkeys everywhere and locals wearing strange hats that look like a sombrero with a point and tassels, like a standard lamp disguise!

The boys have insisted on camping from now on apart from the one night they spend in Marrakesh, so there was no need to set an alarm for this morning's early start as mum's back woke her up with a spasm that threatened to stop her moving at all, never mind driving, at 4 o'clock. I shall leave it to her to make any comment about camping at her time of life! Downtown Rabat in the morning is enough of an adrenaline shot to have made her forget about that pretty fast though- all colour and movement, much of it made up of cars heading in all directions at once very fast! Today they are heading for Marrakesh, so they get to stay in a real hotel for the last time in a week. They have somewhat given up on glamour, resorting to covering their unruly hair with hats and behaving as though they have won the lottery when they found a garage with clean toilets this morning. It's getting hotter as they head south(ish) and there is yet more for them to see, like the man grazing his sheep on both sides of the motorway (I did say it wasn't quite a motorway as we know them, didn't I?), cactus fences, and the view of the snow-capped Atlas mountains ahead despite the heat as they approached Marrakesh. As I write they have just arrived in the city, heading for their hotel, and the traffic is 'mad' - and I take that to mean something quite different from when one says it about the trip to work in the school run traffic in Haverfordwest...

The plan for today is to find a mechanic to have a look at Peg, and to meander around the spice markets. It's hot there now (hard to imagine from Britain, which is cold, grey, and half underwater)and the local people are nice, though they seem to find mum and Jane funny.. can't imagine why. Maybe the fact that they haven't quite adjusted to the cars, donkeys and scooters from all sides tells on their faces, or in their screams. Who knows?