so to continue with Saturdays events,

i have developed in my wants of pets, i no longer am interested in a Siamese cat i now want an owl, seriously in the scouts camp they had birds of prey on show and i fell in love with the owl.

i have come to the conclusion they are the best bird of prey, and if i am unable to get hold of an owl then i will get a parrot and i will name it booma (owl in Arabic).

i thought owls where tiny, this dude was gigantic, i want one :) there was also a vulture and a raven that was so evil looking. i had to be dragged away from this section unfortunately the kids where not to interested, they where more interested in doing other stuff waaaaaaaa.

they really wanted to do archery but they where to young for that so we headed of to the RAF, now the army was there as well, recruiting from a young age, our kids where fascinated with the air fighter helmets.

when they wore it they just looked bug eyed, sooo cute mashallah, but don't be deceived by looks, children have annual meetings on how to annoy adults, i am a believer in this.

we then walked around for a bit and came across a big inflatable world and i made sure that they posed right next to Africa, now for those of you who made fun of my Africa drawing this is a much better version although i never drew it myself lol.

i want one of these inflatable worlds:

there where other activities they joined in such as trampolining as well as one of my fav child hood one, tug of war, yeh man that brought back memories:

it was nearing home time, and they managed to make badges for themselves as well as participating in the camp fire before the parents came to pick them up, our good deed for the day was over and just as me and ever sighed the biggest sigh of relief, some one pointed out to us that we had a flat tire aaaaaaaaaah.

well me and ever don't know the first thing about changing tyres, i proposed we drive to a petrol station and pump air into it but that idea went out the window.

one of the scouts guys actually 2 of them came over and offered there hands, they ended up doing everything, i went off and preyed in the woods, try it sometime, praying surrounded by nature is a nice feeling :)

they managed to change the tire in quick time and i pulled out a massive screw from the deflate done, how it got there no one knows.

45 minutes later we where home. over all nice day alhamdullilah and the weather behaved itself :)

it's already Tuesday :(

time flys when your having fun, it was a good bank holiday weekend, hope you guys enjoyed yourselves.

i had a day scouts observing camp on Saturday and myself and ever the idealist had to make our way to Linnet Clough scout camp on the outskirts of Manchester, ever was driving and she managed to get us there fully intact, so thanks hun.

we had to be there for 10am, we got there 10:20, that's actually perfect timing for Muslim timing so well done us yeeeeeeeeeeh.

i was having withdrawal symptoms as i haven't had my daily intake of coffee, so headache was kicking in, so as soon as we met up with the kids i turned into an eagle and looked for a coffee place and surprisingly we found one and they even sold carrot cake my absolute fav.

mmmmmm you seriously cant beat carrot cake, i used to be mega fan of cheesecake, but that relationship long broke off as soon as i was introduced to carrot cake.

the day started off with 2 of our scouts and for a while we thought it was only going to be 2 but then 2 more joined us, so it wasn't to bad, there was 4 of us to join the 1800 scouts and cubs who had come for the weekend, now that's allot of children aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

theres allot of activities to do and the kids had a wrist band thing with numbers which the activity leader would remove once they completed a certain activity, the first activity our kids wanted to do was the climbing frame, forget the kids i was desperate to try it out, but leaders where observers, not fair!!

the kids where not scared what so ever, they did really well mashallah,although i couldn't help making fun of one of them, telling him that i had seen tears running down his face and bless him he kept denying it lol.

they had to wait quite some time in the que to do the climbing activity and they where very patient, me and ever where more fidgety than they where, typical (rolls eyes).

after wards we decided to try out some circus skills, now this they couldn't stop us leaders from trying, all my life i wanted to be a clown (not really, but it gives me an excuse to try out the activities if i said that ), and it was great fun seriously guys you can spend all day trying to perfect juggling or in our case plate spinning

ever is desperately trying to control her plate, i have to say your not doing a great job there sis lol, me on the other hand, now every one say mashallah...

can i just point out that i had the camera in one hand so no excuses ever :)

as well as the plate was this weird cycling thing that looks easy but actually surprisingly difficult to manoeuvre but i again managed well so ha ha

the kids where getting hungry by now so lunch time it was, can i just say that i had provided the good old tuna and harisa sandwiches which i had made early in the morning, how good am i

i had another coffee, I'm allowed to people because working with children is an extremely dangerous business that requires an hourly intake of caffeine.

after lunch the kids really wanted to try out the quad bikes, so did i but again being a leader prevented me from trying it out sigh.. sometimes i wish i was a midget so i could get away pretending to be 3 years old.

but i'mnot a midget and i don't look like a 3 year old so i had to stop dreaming and instead give evil looks to the kids for stealing my fun :(

don't they look so cute, and only one of them crashed against the wall, (it was the one that i wanted to secretly crash hee hee).

I'm sat in an Internet cafe at the moment, and i gotta go meet my friend so i will blog the rest tomorrow.

hope your Tuesday wasn't to bad people, mine was nothing to shout about alhamdullilah :0)

WHITE AFRICAN WANTS TO SHOUT OUT TO THE WORLD:

'THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY'

i need some cheering up as i had a few arguments at work today with certain individuals who excell in annoying me lol. this joke brought a smile to my face, hope it does the same to you.

i dedicate it to our fellow engineer bloggers brave and akak not forgetting wildkat, as well as other engineers.

Engineers beat lawyers!

Three lawyers and three engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, each of the three lawyers buys a ticket while the three engineers buy only one ticket."How can the three of you travel on one ticket?" asks a lawyer."Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.

Aboard the train the lawyers take their respective seats while all three engineers cram into the restroom and squeeze the door closed behind them.When the conductor comes around collecting tickets, he knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.The lawyers are impressed with this clever idea.

On the way home from the conference, they decide to copy the engineers' technique. At the station, they buy a single ticket for their return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy a ticket at all!"How in the hell are you going to pull this off?" asks a lawyer."Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.

They board the train. The three lawyers cram into one restroom and the three engineers cram into the other restroom.Shortly after the train departs, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and knocks on the other restroom door. "Ticket, please!"

yesterday i came home around 10:30pm and as soon as i hit my street i knew something wasn't right, and when i got to our doorstep, i noticed that the house next door was jam packed full of people outside, seriously there was like 20-25 people standing outside the house.

now its not that strange to see so many youth standing outside a persons house, apparently with guys its the 'in thing' to do, sitting inside the house in the living room is not 'cool' standing outside and just being in peoples way is 'cool', you can get up to 10 lads just sat on the wall or loitering around and all they seem to do is nod to each other, they don't even have a conversation, nod nod nod, the occasional cough will be heard from the weed that is being smoked and if your lucky you may just see a hint of face if the hood decides to get unstuck.

ok you might think me harsh in my words but seriously i always think what is the point, have they nothing better to do? sure enough they don't harm anyone, well they tend to ignore me but its irks me, the other day i was walking back from some place or other and one of the guys decides to throw a glass bottle across the road that hits the pavement and smashes into a thousand little pieces!!!

now I'm the type i wont shut up, the words will leave my mouth before i even have time to ponder over them, so i asked him 'so whats the point of that' to which he replied 'what?' so i asked him again 'whats the point of throwing that bottle?'.

the cheeky dude then laughs, shrugs and says 'i was trying to get it into the bin across the road' to which i replied ' well if you haven't noticed some of us live on this road and we don't take to throwing things on the road to kindly' to which he got up and said 'yeh well i live here as well your not the only one who does' to which i said' and do you see us throwing things the way monkeys do in a zoo?'

by then my little brother was dragging me away and the guy didn't say anything but stare.

well yesterday apparently what happened as my middle bro tells me is that the dude next door has certain issues with the wrong people, and he must have annoyed some one because whilst he was 'standing' outside his house, a certain young gentleman approached him and took out a gun as a threat towards him.

now this young gentleman did not expect that our neighbours older brother to be behind him, what ended up happening was the gun was knocked out of his hand and he was grabbed and taken into our neighbours house and held down, the police where contacted and so was every youth in the area, hence the welcoming committee when i arrived.

within moments of myself arriving home, the police also made an appearance, around 40 officer if not more surrounded the street, the whole streets was blocked, police cars, vans, dogs you name it where there, it was like a scene from the movies.

my dad tried to leave the house to get something from the car and a police officer told him to get back in.

how crazy was yesterday? I'm starting to realise why Manchester's second name is 'gunchester' apparently a youth can buy a gun cheaper than an ipod, crazy!!! a persons life is worthless, recently a little 12 year old girl was shot in her head in her own home and later died in hospital, so sad.

for all you football fans, actually football players, i challenge you to try to play on this field.

whoever is able to then the prize is the fact that you where able to control the ball without having it rolling down the hill and straight into the lake.

don't ask me where this field is because have no idea, if you want the same affect then take a ton of paint (white, not green, we are not looking for the camouflage affect) you will not need a ruler, it can be slightly bent so long as the lines are touching. i forgot to mention you will need a park with a lake, so Londoners I'm afraid you will have to go up north to find such beauty lol.

tying the ball to your leg or foot will result in instant disqualification.

having no Internet at home really is annoying, just goes to show how much we rely on certain things baaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

anyway this weekend went really fast, amazingly fast, it was only Friday like a couple of seconds ago!!!!

Sunday was of course the thabit's birthday, how could we forget what with him announcing it every 2 seconds 'news just in thabit has turned 13' lol

i swear sat night he waited till midnight so he could say 'i am officially a teenager'.

so on Sunday i had promised him i would take him to the cinema to watch the film of his choice, he choose a film called 'bridge to tarabithia' never heard of it and didn't know what to expect, my bro kept saying 'it's the same people who made Narnia' well i have to say i think i enjoyed it more than he did, and not only that i cried buckets watching it, such a sad film, i looked around the cinema and no one else seemed to be crying.

thank god the cinema was dark, otherwise i would have been made fun of for the rest of the year lol.

so after the film, a friend of ours decides to take out a cake and gives it to thabet, he didn't know what to do with it, i did advise him to eat it but the kid had over stuffed himself on nachos and malteasers.

so i force fed him, i grabbed the fork, and stuffed it into his mouth twice ha ha ha, he had to eat some of it, she had brought it for him, it would have been 3ayb if he didn't show some appreciation lol.

after saying our good byes we headed home, and it was a chance for me to tease him about turning into a teenager, at one point he turns around to me and says 'white african have a grown taller?' so i asked him 'since when do you mean?' and he said 'since last night' loooool

funny thing was he was being serious bless..

later that evening, thabet, my mum and me went out for a meal in celebration of him turning into a monster ummm i mean teenager, we all wanted meat so it was going to be a case of the famous wilmslow road, some place called sizzler.

chicken and red meat mmmmmm nice, roasted and grilled even better, with a plate of chips.

you can see the steam coming out of that plate, it's sooo cool you hear the sizzling sound. the plate opposite thabet was the mixed grill and next to that was the roasted chicken, and there was plenty left over mashallah.

as a kid my mum used to call me 'gatusat la7am ' (basically translated to mean meat lover just like a cat), and it was true but then i kinda changed after going to Libya and seeing them slaughter a sheep, it put me off meat for a long time and i haven't been the same since sob sob.

but from this picture you could never tell, i was trying to eat with a fork and knife but no matter how hard i try i always end up tossing them to the side and using the good old fingers.

besides it tastes better that way :)

it was a good day, happy birthday thabet, may Allah grant you many more birthdays and may he bless you and guide you.

ok this story i had to post i found it hilarious especially the ladies reaction.

anglo remember your blog about the parking ticket, this guy took steps further in his own way loool

An Austin man who allegedly put his dog's feces in the same envelope he used for the payment of a parking ticket has now been charged with disorderly conduct.

Police ticketed the vehicle of this 22-year-old on April 18 while it was parked in front of his residence. To show his annoyance, the man put an envelope containing his payment and dog feces in a drop box at the law enforcement center.

AP reports that at first he was charged with the misdemeanor on May 11 after an office employee for the Austin Police Department smelled a bad odor as she collected envelopes from the box and then later fell ill.

As she opened the envelopes on April 25, the woman noticed one leaking brown fluid, which got onto her hands and her desk. The next morning the woman awoke with a headache and vomited repeatedly and had to be hospitalized for about two days with an undetermined illness.

According to the complaint, the man allegedly confessed putting his dog's feces in the envelope because he was annoyed for being ticketed. However, he also told police he immediately regretted doing it because he realized a secretary would probably open it.

The man has been summoned to appear in court June 15.

the Internet at home isn't working waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

how annoying is that?

maybe this is a message to say stop relying on electronics so much and be one with paper and pen and the good old book.

anyway yesterday i had scouts, and i wasn't prepared in the least and to be honest i had a horrible time at work so the last thing i wanted was to spend Wednesday evening with a bunch of pre-teenagers.
i needed a chai latte to sooth away the stress of the morning so i grabbed my brother and headed to a nero, akak i didn't drink those 2 cups, one was mine the other was my brothers.

a nice muffin to go with it, and it hit home like magic, instantly making me feel better, half an hour later i was heading to scouts base.

scouts is soooo cool, i wish i was a kid again so i can be a little scout, last week we had a camp fire which they attended for the first time, it was our little group joined with other scout groups in Manchester, cool stuff.

i had the urge to jump over the fire, i never did though..

songs where sung, games where played, and snacks where given out, the kids really did enjoy themselves bless, but i think a confession is in order, me and ever enjoyed it more :)

funny thing was we kinda got lost trying to find the place, and all this time i thought it was being held in a park only to find it was being held being a parish church a few steps away from the park, so we got there eventually but slightly late, perfect Muslim timing :)

we kinda agreed to have our own camp fire before the summer break, now that will be cool, I'm imagining alot of marshmallows for some reason.

the scouts are collecting badges, its a sort of achievement, so far they have completed the health and safety badge, i have started the belief badge with them, I'm intending on taking them to visit a mosque, church and synagogue, i have started with Islam and yesterday i spoke to them about animals in Islam, and gave them examples from our history of how Islam has taught us to be kind to animals, and bless them they had soooo many stories to say about there own experiences with stray cats and birds falling from trees and how they helped etc..

its so hard to shut them up once they start but its a good sign, and they ended the day by making doves using a print out of there hands, soooo cute.

it was worth going, and i was glad i had gone.

cats vs dogs


even after reading this i still prefer cats, they have character, apparently when i was younger i used to swing my grandmothers cats by the tail lol, even now i sometimes have to remind myself not to do it.

11. Dogs come when you call them. Cats take a message and get back to you when they are good and ready.
10. Dogs look much better at the end of a leash.
9. Dogs will let you give them a bath without taking out a contract on your life.
8. Dogs will bark to wake you up if the house is on fire. Cats will quietly sneak out the back door.
7. Dogs will bring you your slippers or the evening newspaper. Cats might bring you a dead mouse.
6. Dogs will play Frisbee with you all afternoon. Cats will take a three-hour nap.
5. Dogs will sit on the car seat next to you. Cats have to have their own private box or they will not go at all.
4. Dogs will greet you and lick your face when you come home from work. Cats will be mad that you went to work at all.
3. Dogs will sit, lie down, and heel on command. Cats will smirk and walk away.
2. Dogs will tilt their heads and listen whenever you talk. Cats will yawn and close their eyes.
1. Dogs will give you unconditional love forever. Cats will make you pay for every mistake you've ever made since the day you were born.

a great friend of mine sent this out to me by email and it cracked me up, so i wanted to share it with you all.

Dear Systems Analyst,

I am desperate for some help! I recently upgraded my program from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that the new program began unexpected Child Processing and also took up a lot of space and valuable resources.This wasn't mentioned in the product brochure.

In addition Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during systems initialization and then it monitors all other system activities.Applications such as "Boys' Night out 2.5" and "Golf 5.3" no longer run, and crashes the system whenever selected. Attempting to operate selected "Saturday Rugby 6.3" always fails and "Saturday Shopping 7.1" runs instead.

I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background whilst attempting to run any of my favorite applications. Be it online or offline.I am thinking of going back to "Girlfriend 7.0", but uninstal doesn't work on this program. Can you please help?....

AND THIS IS WHAT OUR ANALYST SAID:

Dear Customer,This is a very common problem resulting from a basic misunderstanding of the functions of the Wife 1.0 program. Many customers upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 thinking that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITY AND ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM.

Actually, Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM designed by its Creator to run everything on your currentplatform. You are unlikely to be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0, as Wife 1.0 wasnot designed to do this and it is impossible to uninstall, delete or purge the program files from theSystem once it is installed.Some people have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but have ended up with even more problems. (See manual under Alimony/Child Support and Solicitors' Fees).

Having Wife 1.0 installed, I recommend you keep it Installed and deal with the difficulties as best as you can. When any faults or problems occur, whatever you think has caused them, you must run the.........C:\ APOLOGIZE\ FORGIVE ME.EXE Program and avoid attempting to use the *Esc-Key for it will freeze theentire system.It may be necessary to run C:\ APOLOGIZE\ FORGIVE ME.EXE a number of times, and eventually hope that theoperating system will return to normal. Wife 1.0, although a very high maintenance programme, can be very rewarding.To get the most out of it, consider buying additional Software such as "Flowers 2.0" and "Chocolates 5.0" or "HUGS\ KISSES 600.0" or "TENDERNESS\ UNDERSTANDING 1000.0" or even Eating out without the Kids 7.2.1" (ifChild processing has already started).

DO NOT under any circumstances install "Secretary 2.1" (Short Skirt Version) or "One Nightstand 3.2" (Any Mood Version), as this is not a supported Application for Wife 1.0 and the system will almost certainly CRASH and you will be the loser.BEST WISHES AND HAVE A PLEASANT WORKING DAY

mathematics was never my favourite subject, in fact i couldn't stand it, i never could see the point of it all, and it used to annoy me when we would get questions that we had to answer without the calculator, why else was it invented then ????????

i remember when i was doing my final year exams, i cried before the maths exam, most people cry after an exam, i had to be different and cried before we even sat down for the exam, i had to be excused until i had calmed down, see that's the affect maths has on me aaaaaaaaaaaah.

i used to wish that my leg would break so that i can have an excuse not to enter a mathematics examination

so when i was sent this by a friend i had to share it, i find these answers hilarious, pretty clever kids lol:

and finally this is my favourite:

today as part of my counselling training course i had to attend a full day of personal development, i went really not knowing what to expect, we all had to bring a dish each to share at lunch.

i had planned on making something from scratch, but i didn't have the time last night and this morning was a mad rush of getting ready and leaving the house, so instead i fried some samosas and put some cheese and onion pasties in the oven, better than nothing :)

when i arrived, we where told that the theme for the day is 'who am i?' and we where to have time to ourselves to ponder and be creative with whatever and however we liked and to then share with the group.

where to begin or even how to begin?

i love paint so i instantly zoomed for the paint and massive paper and sat staring at it for some time not knowing how to begin, eventually i drew (or tried to draw) Africa, i began with my roots, but that wasn't enough because as part of 'who i am' is my britishness so instead of colouring Africa 'green or yellow' i drew the British flag within it, representing me.

but I'm part of a bigger picture, i have a whole humanity of brothers and sisters, a whole 'ummah' that i am a member of and so i added the world to symbolise that but also to remind me that although i have my roots i should never be arrogant and big headed because i am an individual amongst billions and we all share the same universe and we all come from the Creator.

my faith is a big part of 'who i am' and so i drew a mosque to symbolise my faith and i described it as being more than a religion and instead a way of life, as religion is still segregated from life where as my life is based around my faith if that makes sense :)

i wrote my name in Arabic at the top because our name plays a major role to who we are, and i chose to write it in Arabic because i will be explaining myself in English but i acknowledge the fact that i am bi-lingual and that both languages enable me to communicate with more than one community.

before i could add any thing else time had run out and it was time to gather round and share our thoughts.

i liked today's experience it was refreshing and a reminder to myself.

yesterday the nurse came up to me and asked:

'white african, you know in your Arabic religion, does it say anything about opposite genders not being allowed to touch?'

to which i asked her:

'what happened?'

to which she said:

'well this Arabic guy came in to see me for a blood test, and when he saw me he asked me to put gloves on, not the normal ones but the thick gloves because he didn't want me to touch him, is that true?'

now, we rarely get cases like this, but occasionally some one will come in and make peoples lives more difficult including there own life.

one time this guy came in and saw the nurse for a travel vaccination, it was a different nurse, and when she tried to inject him, he jumped back and said to her:

'could you please not touch me'

now how in the world was she going to inject him without touching him, i think he expected her to use some sort of sling back device or one of those tranquilizer guns.

she explained to him that it was extremely difficult to do this as she has to pinch the skin in order to inject him, but he refused but at the same time he said he has to have this injection, and obviously a fight erupted.

the nurse was extremely offended and she took it personally, and she refused to ever see him again, and she genuinely believed that he had an issue with woman and in her eyes she took it to mean that she was dirty or offensive to him and that was why he didn't want her to touch him.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

well we sat her down and explained to her and the doctor even went as far as to say that the man didn't want her to touch him because he respects her greatly and only her husband has the right to touch her lol, she actually took it well and was even happy with this explanation loool.

this nurse was saying that she can understand the whole touchy touchy thing but in matters of medicine and when its necessary then why not? and she's right, its not even a hand shake or a pat on the head, or even a kiss on the cheek, its taking out blood, or injecting some sort of vaccination, and even then its a matter of seconds.

why is it when Islam gives us a rukhsa (licence) we still refuse it and make our lives more difficult when there is no need whatsoever.

with all this talk of cooking and eating, i offer you this device, i think this will suite students the most, the all in one cutlery, pretty cool.

although it does look like it could easily break, plastic just isn't good enough....

A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death.

"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it," he said.

Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill.
Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country's largest telecommunications company.

A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya’s case and would address it. She did not provide further details.

my god???????? did they really expect him to pay it?

yesterday i had a treat in the form of food, something i haven't had in a long time, now some of you may not be impressed, some of you may be disgusted, but all i can say is that it was sooooooooooo delicious.

a family friend invited me and mum over to hers to eat 3isban (stuffed intestines), we got there for the afternoon around 4, i wasn't going to go because i was still bruised up from the other days fall, but the word 3isban soon changed my mind.
when we got t our cousins house we found the table full of kusbar and ma3danoos (coriander and i always forget the other ones name)

it was a field of green and there was soooooo much to chop, so on we got with the chopping, chop chop chop, kosbar and ma3danoos are a vital ingredient in all Libyan dishes, it just wouldn't be the same with out it, it gives food that extra kick, i personally cant tell the difference and when i go shopping for my mother i always have to take a sample with me to be able to tell the difference.

i have to confess i didn't actually chop anything, i watched though and observed so that's something at least, and i did entertain them with my stories while they where chopping so that's a good contribution isn't it?

whilst my mum was chopping the green stuff my cousin was chopping the meat into little cubes, she was in-charge of the red stuff, i have to say the only time i eat liver is in this case other wise i don't go anywhere near liver, not my favourite to be honest,

as a child i would always pick out the liver from the rooz bil khalta (mixed rice) so by the end of the meal there would be a small pyramid of liver.

after a while another family friend joined us and seriously within seconds of entering the kitchen she was chopping something, wow they move fast, I'm thinking of entering certain ladies into the Guinness records for the fastest time it takes to join in the ritual of kitchen life, fascinating stuff.

she started of with chopping spring onions, a vital ingredient in this delicacy, i love spring onions, it's enough to just look at them, they look like stretched out anorexic onions, and they are powerful on the taste buds.

and then came the regular onions and every one began to cry as onions have that affect on people, i remember there was a Kleenex advert when i was growing up as a child where a European mother was chopping up onions and crying her eyes out when all of a sudden her little boy came running up to her with a box of tissues, how cute, i always remember that advert whenever i see some one chopping onions, i didn't hand out any tissues though.
the chopped onions where added ontop of the green stuff but then more green stuff was being chopped, something called shibit (dilweed) pretty cool stuff, again it adds flavour apparently, so cool how every thing works together in a blend of different flavours to make one dish.

i was getting really peckish and it was really difficult not to pick out things and eat them although at this point there really wasn't anything to pick out, it was all green stuff and i don't eat raw meat, but things changed after the tomatoes came out, now that's something i can eat especially with salt and lemons niceeeeeee.

after every couple of chops of tomatoes my fingers would find there way to a lonely tomato and would disappear into the pits of my stomach, come onnnnnn i was hungry, it was torture seeing all that food being chopped up.

as a kid i didn't particularly like tomatoes, they where bearable but that about it, but after growing up i find myself loving tomatoes, isn't it strange how that happens, you hate something for a long time then you find yourself actually liking it instead, we humans are weird.

so after eating nearly all the tomatoes, it was time to mix all the chopped up stuff together as well as adding spices which the dish would not taste the same with out, spices like filfil 7amar (red chilli), ibzar (that yellow stuff that stains your fingers), filfil ak7al (pepper), salt obviously, mixed spices, ni3na3 (mint), 7abag (basil).

also vital ingredients like rice (not cooked) as well as tomato puree (a Libyans best friend). and then began the mixing, it's important that it's mixed well so that there is an even distribution of flavours, our friend did a very good job of mixing while i took pictures, can i just say that they did find me strange in taking pictures, they didn't understand the fascination that i had, but then by the end of the evening the kept pointing things out to me and telling me to take a picture of it lol.

then came the part where they stuff the intestines, all 25 of them, that's alot, now they are washed extremely well with all sorts of stuff and soaked in lemons and scrubbed extremely well and washed again extremely well until your left with skinny long strings, that become fat long things after the stuffing, then there put into a pot of hot water that flavoured with more spices and tomato puree. ok ok so it doesn't look to appetizing but trust me the taste is amazing, there like sausages but 100 times better.

they are left to cook for an hour, i was starving and i was cold, so i wrapped myself in my cardigan and fell asleep on the gi3dal al 3arbeeyah (Arabic seating) for an hour all that hard work had tired me out lol.

when i woke up the food was ready and the men where getting grumpy because they where starving and my cousin shouted out 'mafee 7ad sayam rah (theres no one fasting by the way) cheek, it wasn't like we where playing or anything, but because the men where hungry every thing went to fast forwards, the speed of light could be witnessed in this small kitchen on Sunday evening, wow those ladies can move fast.

the end result was rice with 3isban mmmmmmmm.

i swear i was so hungry by the time i had sat down to eat, and it tasted sooo good, but then i got full pretty fast and i was so upset because i wanted to eat more but i couldnt sob sob sob.

i have never been put of the fact that they are intestines, to me they are delicious, and i invite you all to try it out.

can i just say that the me didnt finish there gas3a, tut tut tut, they should have finished evey last morsel especially because they where complaining. who knows when the next time will be when i eat 3isban again.

sa7a sa7a white african :@D

at this particular moment whilst typing away, i am experiencing alot of pain, my arm as well as wrist are calling out for pain killer and my leg and back are screaming.

i was climbing down the stairs with a cup of coffee in one hand and my mobile in the other when i suddenly slipped and fell all the way to the bottom of the stairs and where surprise surprise i manged to spill all the coffee over myself.

for such a small mug it managed to drench me and i still stink of coffee even though i washed myself and changed clothing.

i have to say this is not the first time nor will it be the last, i have many a memory of myself falling from stairs usually accompanied with coffee for some bizarre reason.

this time it was normal coffee, years ago i was around 12 or 13 and we where visiting a friends house, the men where sat upstairs and the woman where downstairs in the living room, i had the amazing job of transporting food and drinks to the men every second, for them not to have something to munch on or drink would have been the ultimate disaster of a life time so little me would balance all sorts of trays, cups, plates for the sheer enjoyment of people guzzling food down.

i was then of course expected to bring down the dishes to take to the kitchen where a que of ever so enthusiastic ladies would be waiting to fight over who would wash the dishes.

one tray will traumatise me for the rest of my life, i blame my phobia of holding trays filled with drinks on this tragic occasion.

i climbed the stairs and the man gave a big sufra (tray) filled with little Arabic coffee cups which thankfully had been emptied but still had the residue of Arabic coffee at the bottom of every cup.

it was a heavy tray and the man saw me struggling so asked me if i was 'ok' to which i replied 'yep fine' i wasn't going to look weak, no way (he should have forced me to give him the tray,)

so i managed to go down the first 2 stairs when all of a sudden i slipped and literally rolled down the stairs and plopped right at the bottom with a massive thud, the men upstairs obviously heard me and they all came out to witness my stupidity, the woman also heard me and popped out there heads from the door to witness my clumsiness, i had landed on my back and no lie i had coffee residue dripping from my head, i looked behind me and there was coffee residue all over the banister, walls, carpet and even some ones shoe in the corridor!!!

amazingly non of the cups where broken, and so began my years of clumsiness and trips of humiliation.

i swear my finger hurts, i may have fractured something, i should check it out...

you know with all this talk on obesity especially in children, some person has come up with a face mask thing that prevents you from being able to eat, a face guard of some sort with a lock???????

how funny is that, but whats even funnier is that people will actually try this out and not only that but parents will buy this for their children, seriously...

i think this is a drastic measure and when it comes to food i don't think this will be a deterrent, children as well as adults will find means to pass food through the metal on this thing even if it means shredding the food through a shredder.

i remember once my cousin was telling me that when she was younger she was slightly chubby and she didn't actually have a problem with it, it was external forces who kept pestering her about her weight so in the end she went and got her mouth wired, metaled, whatever it's called, its like braces but you cant open your mouth fully because your top teeth are stuck to your bottom teeth through the means of metal, scaryyyyyyyy.

she said she could only eat through a straw, basically sharaba (soup) and even then it didn't really affect her weight, poor thing.

some people put padlocks on their fridges and each time the kid wants something they have to go to the key holder (sounds like some lord of the rings story) and obtain permission to open the fridge and even then there will be an interrogation.

apparently according to figures obesity has reached a point where it is claiming 30,000 lives annually in England and it shortens a persons life by 9 years. the thing is we used to point at America for their obesity problem but here in the UK we have a problem as well.

the industry doesn't help whatsoever, its soooo much cheaper to buy junk fatty food than to be healthy, and when a person has a set income and you tell them that they must eat 5 portions of fruit a day, as well as eating other stuff like fish (not fried) etc.. there going to laugh at you because they have bills to pay, rent to pay, they have 5 kids to cloth and feed and for them its cheaper to buy chips from the local chippy.

Britain was much healthier during the war as everything was rationed now adays the lifestyle are totally different.

maybe this contraption isn't such a bad idea.

every Wednesday i have scouts, how i got myself into this is another story.
its cool, for like an hour and a half me and other leaders are in control of a bunch of kids, who surprisingly enough listen to us, i gotta say they are good bunch and I'm proud of them :)

yesterday before scouts one of the girls wanted to go the park as it was such a nice lovely day, and she really wanted to go on a boat ride, so we agreed we had over an hour until scouts started, we managed to find the lake and sure enough there where boats for hire, for half an hour it's four pounds fifty pence which you have to show a ticket which you buy from the ice cream van??????

so the four us who i have to mention are not experienced when it comes to handling boats, approached the boat and getting onto the boat was a tricky business and it took time to the extent that the dude handling the boat was getting annoyed by us and muttered 'come on girls i have work to do' yeh well we are newbies when it comes to boats rides so ha.

can i just point out that every so often one of my friends would say 'white african you are going to behave yourself?, white african your not going to do anything dangerous? white african you wont drown us? white african, white african white african blah blah looooool.

well.... would i ever....I'm shocked they would think such a thing of me.

i didn't row, i was being the bag lady, holding their bags as ever and sara rowed to there hearts content or let me re-phrase that tried rowing ha ha ha.

can i just point out that sarah wasn't actually rowing here she was on her phone tut tut tut.

also, ever the idealist who is sat on the left side managed to cut herself rowing, how is that even possible???

from where i was sat it was highly amusing to watch the many tries of rowing, at one point we where going round in a circle and we just kept turning for some bizarre reason, that song was in my head 'if you turn turn turn turn turn'

it was a lovely day though and enjoyable and the sun was out and ducks where going mad, there where so many of them, and after being bitten by a crazy duck in Egypt (there not supposed to bite they don't even have teeth) I'm slightly wary of ducks now.

so after the half an hour of trying to row we miraculously rowed ourselves to the shore where the grumpy man was waiting for us, so well done ever and sarah you guys did well and well done me for not sinking us or doing something, and faiza you where a great support although it was pretty funny of you to shout out 'guys can we stop rocking the boat i have a phobia of water' looool.

later we just sat on the grass and enjoyed global warming, i picked some daisy's, they remind me of my childhood i used to always make daisy chains out of them and hand them out to every one, my mum would always be the first to receive a daisy necklace from me, loads of fun to make.