Anyway, Alison had the three scrolls framed when we returned to Edinburgh. They now adorn my study here in Gisbyland.
Cairo. The summer of 2002. Late morning. After a fascinating couple of hours spent in the gloom of the Egyptian Museum, we emerge blinking into the sunshine. While we stand there wondering where to go next, a skinny Egyptian guy approaches us. He happens to look a lot like Alison’s older brother. “Wanna buy some papyrus?” he asks. He’s carrying a papyrus scroll which he opens up to shows us. Alison is hooked. “Okay, let’s have a look,” she says. The skinny guy indicates that we should follow him. He leads us down from the museum to a main road. There are eight lanes of fairly fast moving bumper-to-bumper traffic. It’s a daunting sight. Suddenly, he plunges into the traffic. “Walk like an Egyptian,” he shouts with his back to us. We hurry to catch up with him. We copy his confident zig-zagging, skirting the oncoming vehicles by mere fractions of an inch. We reach the other side of the road, unscathed and oddly exhilarated. Further along the road, the skinny guy takes us down some steps and into a papyrus shop. He leaves us there to go look for more potential customers. We spend a while in the shop. Alison purchases three papyrus scrolls of different sizes. When we come back up the steps, we decide to walk like an Egyptian again. And again. And again. Crossing and re-crossing the road, experiencing a buzz every time. Until we figure it’s time to behave ourselves.
Anyway, Alison had the three scrolls framed when we returned to Edinburgh. They now adorn my study here in Gisbyland.
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