We've had a bit of a gardening flurry ahead of our going home for Xmas tomorrow. Some of the succulents are just flowering and others about to which is frustrating as we are only gone 25days but I bet they'll have finished when we get back. We had quite a bit of potting on to do which necessitated the purchase of additional pots and, for the globular cacti, thick gardening gloves. Still the comparison to when we first moved in and it was just bare roof with a washing line across is quite heartening.
The cushion came back from the upholsterer's. I think it came out very well. It looks like a completely symetrical design with a wallpaper repitition and it is only when you come to sew it that you realise that it isn't quite but that each iteration is very slightly different maybe by only 3 stitches, but just enough to put the symetry under tension so that it zings.
There are a number of possible places it could be used, the safest is in the guest room protected from sunlight,
but it goes very well on the green wicker chairs; the question being, his
or mine?
I had a wonderful penna arabbiata at the Rugantino, Agadir on Wednesday and wanted to try it myself. We are at that point in our stay when we are trying to eat up fresh food as we go back to Wales for 3 weeks on Tuesday so it got a bit transmogrified to use up what I had.
2 baby aubergines (in 1/2 cm batons)
1/4 large onion chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped or crushed
1/2 red pepper chopped
2 large tomatoes (beefsteak size in Brtain) roughly chopped
A large dollop say 2 tbsps fresh harissa (or tomato paste +dried chillies)
Can chopped tomatoes
good pinch black pepper and oregano
Doz pitted black olives
Olive oil
Mozzerela cheese
Pasta,say penne
Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan and fry/sweat the aubergines, onion, garlic and pepper. Add extra oil if necessary.
After about 10mins add the fresh tomatoes and cook another 5 mins. Add a little salt if neccessary to help the tomatoes fall.
Meanwhile put the pasta to cook
Add the harissa, tinned tomatoes and seasoning and cook for 5-10mins adding olives
When the pasta is cooked drain and add to the sauce and stir in.
Tear in the mozzerella.
We had it for lunch. It made enough sauce that I put half away to freeze before adding the pasta and mozzerella and there is enough left to bake for lunch tomorrow.
M'hamid is the end of the road for the Draa Valley. After, the roads to the border or east with the river are piste only. The road itself has been single track since Zagora.It is prone to sand-drifts and there are woven palm sandbreaks in diamonds at the side of the road to try and keep it clear.
The signs by the road remind you not to leave rubbish and to keep the desert clean and conserve water. Also not to leave the road in a car; i.e. use the pistes only with a 4wheel or camels. It is also the end of the road for the petty criminals serving internal exile rather than imprisonment (victim's election). There is a strong military presence this close to the border and little of touristic interest but it is the place to come for your desert trips to Chigaga. It used to be that Marrakesh was billed as the gateway to the desert, then Ouazazate, then Zagora, but now it is M'hamid.
Just north of the town is a pretty little 10km palmerie, Ouled Driss.
There are some nice Chamres D'Hotes and a really interesting little museum in a restored Ksar. It reminded us of similar museums in the Sakawatti. I was particularly taken with the triangular baby walker next to the cradle.
When we went up to the dam we noticed some enormous buildings being built to the north of the town. We could not understand what it was, steel frameworks for hangar-like buildings on a monster scale. Then when we got back from the Draa there were signs on the lamposts all round the town.
As they were trilingual, Arabic, Berber and French and French was the 3rd language buried in the middle we never were able to read them properly. (The arabic lessons are not progressing well).
It was publicity for a trade fair on cattle farming.
We went on the last day. The scale was almost up to the Royal Welch but cattle only. I couldn't tell if the cattle had been judged competitively but I think not. There were no rosettes and they didn't look quite groomed enough. The show was free and clearly set up to encourage the development of the industry, but it was very popular. The impression was that perhaps the major business had already been done with the VIPs early in the show but there was a stream of visitors.
The cattle displayed were overwhelmingly Holsteins.
There were a few Charlerois
and another similar French breed, but the animal attracting most interest and crowds 4 deep to see was the Aberdeen Angus bull.
There were no Fresians, Jerseys, Guernseys or Herefords; a french selection.
There was a hall of trade stands and an outdoor display of major league equipment.
This was all high capital investment, industrial scale farming, although one stand did have alongside the mega-equipment some of those old-fashioned milk churns you used to have in the days when the milk lorry came daily. I got the impression they were encouraging those 700-1000+ indoor farms where the cows decide when to be milked and they are fed silage all year. I found that rather confusing as one always thinks that Morocco's strengths are in labout intensive industry.
Many of the firms exhibiting are obviously multi-national but the general representaion seemd French and I was disappointed not to see more British firms, indeed there did not seem to be many Dutch or German either and, accepting in was a Francophone / Arabic exhibition it seems a bit of a lost opportunity if the state/King is encouraging a major growth in Cattle farming.
Nasrate is a small oasis palmerie on piste off the Tinfou - Mohammed road. It is gradually being absorbed by the Sahara in its move north and half is now buried in dunes. Despite this it has a spanking new Lycee.
The car got stuck in sand. Fritz the hotel owner had been encouraging us to go to the Erg Lihoudi Dunes which are accessed by a piste further down the road with a couple of sand patches so he had been instructing us in how to walk a car out of sand by getting out to lighten the weight and pushing it turning over on the starter motor. We were in the middle of Nasrate village when we got stuck in a 10m or so drift of sand which was deeper than we thought. We followed Fritz's instructions. The starter motor wasn't enough to keep turning over so Beloved had to get back in to press the accelerator. We were going nowhere and getting more stuck. A donkey cart arrived with 3 men and a boy. They left the boy to look after the donkey and the men got out, found straw to place under the wheels, pushed bounced the car out of the sand, and got back onto the cart and kept going before we could say "shukran". It is as though removing stuck tourists from the road is a normal part of life.
We did not go to the Erg Lihoudi Dunes.
