Who turned out the lights?

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." Lewis Carrol

There once was a LuLu who lived in Australia, Germany, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka and Egypt, which was where we last heard from her good little self. Many tales of gross exaggeration were conjured to entertain the fawning masses. But one sunny day, Mr Dear Husband came home and said "Pack your bags, oh most beautiful of all wives....", (ain't he just a charmer). And LuLu did just that. Unfortunately, on this particular occasion she neglected to enquire as to the destination, and before you could say Camels and Pyramids, she was whisked off to the unknown.

At about the same time, all over the world, families were sitting down to dinner, tucking into their meat and three veg. As they were digging into their neopolitan icecream scoop, the gentle and merciful father at the head of the table tapped his spoon against his plate and annouced:

"Due to the current financial crisis gripping the world, it is with great difficulty that your mother and I have decided that we are going to have to let one of you go."

As the panic erupted across the shiny mahogany tables, and the children scrambled to assert their right to stay, there was one quiet child (the one that had been furiously mixing the chocolate/strawberry/vanilla combo to create a dirty milkshake) that stayed still ...and waited for the storm to pass. That was LuLu.

Promises of Aladdin's treasure and great glass palaces in the sky did not appear. Calls were left unanswered and emails disappeared into the great ether that is the net. Let's call this the *Mushroom Period, shall we?

One day, a quiet little man, with an accent that could cut through soap scum on a shower screen, knocked on the door and asked "Would you like to come play with us?". There was much discussing and debating... many questions and not many answers. Could this work? Oh what the heck. What we now know to be true is that all life is relative i.e. Maadi, Cairo was a great place to live....if you had just spent two years in Bombay.

And so it was, before you could say "Faltenwegcollagenauffüllergesichtscremes", all the visions of wild sand dunes were replaced by green forests. World's largest Shopping Mall replaced by Thursday and Saturday Farmers' Market. Jimmy Choo by Deichmann. Hmmm reading that back makes me wonder if this is a good thing, certainly doesn't sound like I will be getting out of cattle-class anytime soon.

At least the view from my (albeit temporary) Kitchen Window has dramatically improved! What do you think...we have come a long way from the satellite dishes and the dust.

*The Mushroom... kept in the dark and fed on bullshit!