Appearances

It was -2⁰c when I went for breakfast at 8am. It was 16⁰c when I fell asleep in the sun by the pool about 3pm.

In between I did some forward planning for tomorrow - I’m leaving Ouarzazate to drive 100 miles southeast to Zagora - further into the desert. (What pretentious nonsense - truth is I remembered I need to get cash and fill up the car with petrol.) I have 3 nights there, and then I have to start heading back.

I also visited Atlas Studios - they offer guided tours so that you can walk around the sets used for the likes of Gladiator and The Mummy. Apparently filmmakers like Atlas Studios for any desert type scenes because the weather is guaranteed to be good and costs are low. One set (a temple) for Kundun was only used for 2 hours of filming, and the makers flew in 300 Chinese extras for it. The mind boggles.

I’ve never done anything like that before, so I enjoyed it. I used to go to the cinema quite often, but it’s one of the things which fell by the wayside when parenting combined with career to put the big squeeze on leisure time.

I got a t-shirt there too, so that’s Junior’s present sorted.

The Blip is one of the Egyptian sets. So realistic looking but so fake when you see it close up.