Lamps, landlords and lounging around

Remember the huge lamp from a couple of days ago? Well, spurred on by the fact that I will be visiting Dublin for a couple of days later this month and travelling with a real airline (i.e. one that has a proper baggage allowance, i.e. not Ryanair), we bought it yesterday evening! Bargaining was relaxed but determined as we had researched our prices that day in Place des Ferblantiers, and despite an opening price of an outrageous 1600DH (€143) we eventually walked away with it for 700DH (€62). Now, admittedly, a Moroccan or long-time resident here could probably have done a bit better, but we were very pleased and now all I have to do is get it back to Ireland! It is chest-height...

The last couple of days have had their challenges increased by a persistent power cut. Hot breathless nights and computerless days... then yesterday morning a phone call announced the imminent arrival of our host and landlord, the famous stylist, Hugo Curletto. Within hours we had a fountain, buckets of roses, a fridge full of food and beer and probably the cleanest house in Marrakech. We waited with trepidation. Then got bored and went out for ice cream (you heard about that yesterday - it turns out that coffee ice cream in the evening *will* keep you awake all night, by the way). Finally, long after we had gone to bed, we heard him arrive. This morning we met him and all our fears have vanished. He is handsome (very), friendly and best of all, he is ringing Maroc Telecom today to get Wifi installed in the house immediately, which we will also be able to access when we move in next door! O glorious man! This will of course reduce our need to spend our mornings sitting in Jardins de la Koutoubia, and indeed potentially obviate the need to set foot outside our front door from one day to the next.

The picture above, incidentally, is the view from where I am sitting right now.

Slow days...

The heat brings on such ennui and Brie cravings. It is quite extraordinary. The Brie part, I mean. And of course, what better to have with Brie than white wine? Thank goodness we can buy half bottles of quite respectable Moroccan white for a mere two euros. The half bottles are to evade the inevitable temptation to finish off a whole bottle, you see, but that aside, we are discovering that Moroccan wine is surprisingly good - I will certainly be bringing a couple of bottles to my parents to show off when I visit them in a couple of weeks.

But the ennui... oh dear... I have so much work today and this morning I had just wasted my laptop's battery playing a wretched dinosaur computer game (don't ask - I'm embarrassed to be typing this at all) when our district was struck by another power cut which has been going strong for six hours now, leaving me with no computer but admittedly ample reading, certainly (perhaps even a little of Saplings, by Noel Streatfield). However, the lack of a fan coupled with a windless heat of 39 degrees, has made more than a couple of hours of reading slightly unwelcome, unfortunately, so here I am in our trusty internet cafe; we had initally wandered out just to see if the rest of the world was equally afflicted, but no, just our area, so after I hit "post" I am off to wean myself away from Brie with ice-cream.

ayearofshoppinginmarrakech.com?

The heat is increasing steadily and as work has become more difficult as a result, we have been venturing out of doors more, which, of course, is resulting in more to tell you about here.

On Sunday I ventured out alone. I wanted to go to the internet café to check for replies about our proposed trip to Essaouira later in the month. The streets were relatively quiet and emboldened by the absence of vulgar comments from passing youths (I have developed a sneer before which Caligula himself would quail), I opened the unassuming door of Beldi and stepped inside.



Beldi is spoken of in almost hushed tones on the internet as being the chicest and most upmarket of Moroccan textile shops. This reputation is further enhanced from my perspective by the fact that their prices are fixed, so no dreaded haggling lurks on the horizon inside those hallowed walls. Beldi is run by refreshingly severe and reserved men, utterly unsullied by those infernal cringeing smiles which many men in the service industry here affect for reasons best known to themselves. I flicked through the rack of clothing but beautiful as it all undoubtedly is, I asked to be shown their bedspeads instead. Oh my. I was far too shy to ask to take any photographs, so you must imagine the glories I was shown. Vast lengths of cashmere, bound in five inch deep woven silk borders for 450 euros, the softest paisley weaves and most extraordinary of all, a bedspread which they alleged was king size, but which would certainly have covered our entire bedroom in Ireland, in the softest ivory wool blend, embroidered in sunshine yellow almost in its entirety. It took two women two months to make and is for sale at a stunningly reasonable 650 euros. By local standards, their prices are astronomical, but for anyone interested in buying absolutely top quality textiles the place is a gem.

But of course, you have heard me talk before about lamps, and I promised pictures, did I not? Well here you are:





Yesterday we went on a bit of lamp reconaissance and although we haven’t bought anything yet, I had sufficient presence of mind to take a couple of pictures. See the first one? See the great big silver lamp in the middle? Now look at the large dark lamp immediately to its right. That one. And probably the dark one on the far right, too. We also went to Place des Ferblantiers, the tinsmith’s square (also home to the fabulous Kosybar), and they had some more lamps for us to gaze at – and sinks too, it would seem.

Right beside Ferblantiers lies the Bahia palace, and we might have wandered in there for a little while afterwards….

Let me tell you about my boat

Well, I have been very lax in showing you photographs of where I am living, apart from a few shots of our very elegant abode. Morocco being a country of interior space, the gorgeousness of our riad and our riad-to-be is not at all representative of the street on which we walk every day. There are three types of street in the Medina. The first ones the traveller encounters are the upmarket tourist-oriented ones, all expensive craft shops selling pottery, leather, carpets and metalwork of varying price and quality. Then there are the Moroccan-oriented shopping streets, which are just that – lined with kiosk-like groceries, cafes, dressmakers and mechanics (all run by men). Finally there are the derbs, which is where most people live. They are little neighbourhood-lanes, all twisty and confusing, awash with children and cats. And us, for it is in a derb that we also live. We have quite elevated neighbours; Moroccan families, French expats and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Today we took a walk to the tanneries. It seemed like the longest walk in the world but was acutally an embarrasingly short 1.5km round trip. However, we did finally take some pictures, of a street around the corner from us, a fondouk filled with lamps and finally a couple of our derb (perhaps even one with me in it).

Quiet, but not bored

Our days have been rather quiet lately, hence the silence on here. It has been getting hotter (33 degrees today, going up to 38 by Tuesday) and we have been hiding in the cool downstairs salon and working with interludes of conversation with Moulaid, our housekeeper and surrogate mother.

When we walk around the souks I stare at everything with greedy but sideways eyes, for although I avoid fatal eyecontact with the shopkeepers or even looking too directly at their wares, I do have some shopping planning. We decided before we got here that we would rather return to Europe with five very good things than twenty-five mediocre things, but it is difficult to be steadfast in such decisions. Admittedly, we have dropped the carpet from our shopping list after we realised that Moroccan carpets are not quite to our taste - if you go to http://www.rugcompany.co.uk/ and go to Rug Designs and Woven Classics you will see the sort of thing on which my heart is set for our house in England (our next home after Marrakech). However, I have fallen in love with the embroidery which we have seen in some of the shops here, in particular Darkoum in Gueliz and must now lie awake at night wondering how to work monochrome geometric patterns into my interiors taste (think Longbourne in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice). Whether or not I can work through my embroidery crisis, I will most certainly be bringing home at least five chocolate-brown tooled leather pouffes, quite plain - no embroidery or patchwork, just dark brown with a geometric pattern on the top.

Finally, I want some lamps. Big ones. Big fancy, ornate ones with curves and points and general excessiveness. I will do my best to photograph the sort of thing I am after later on today or tomorrow and post some pictures. In the unlikely event that you do not know the sort of thing I mean then do a google images search and find the wildest and most extravagant.

In the meantime, I am off home again to rewatch PandP 2005 and try to imagine that embroidery in such a setting. All advice and justifications gratefully received.

As an aside, I have all sorts of regular readers whose identities are quite unknown to me! Naturally I have not the slightest objection to strangers reading about my adventures, but do feel free to leave a comment just to say hello.

We have been the reverse of most Europeans in Marrakech it seems. Content to hide in the Medina, we cross into the Ville Nouvelle only with the greatest trepidation and anxiety. Unfortunately it is frequently necessary as our supermarket is there and twice we have endured the greed of taxi drivers (Us: 50DH? For a three minute drive? 10DH! *he sneers and walks off to find some less well-informed tourists to steal from instead*) but today, oh today, all was different. We got a bus. This changes everything – fixed, low prices, no asking to go to one place and being brought to a completely different one because our poor accents were misunderstood – it was wonderful. Admittedly I committed the apparent faux pas of ringing the bell as the bus came to our stop – old ladies jumped, men stared, girls giggled – but that aside, we arrived at the exact place we wished to visit. This place was Rue de la Liberte.

Rue de la Liberte has been rather optimistically described as the Bond Street of Marrakech. While that might be a slight exagerration, it was indeed a successful visit. My main destination was Scenes du Lin, a textiles shop specialising in, mirabile dictu, linen. The shop is divine. It is slightly more for the person furnishing their elegant guesthouse than the casual shopper – their towels for instance (they do other household textiles besides linen, admittedly) are gorgeous, but as John pointed out, more for the bathroom that wants to be a hotel bathroom than anything else – gorgeously embroidered and edged, but yes, they try a little too hard for domestic use (and I am not a girl known for her economy when it comes to domestic use – I came to Marrakech armed with my own Frette sheets). Other than little quibbles like that, I will definitely return when we move into our house and we decide to buy table linen and the suchlike. Downstairs, though, I made the best discovery – a long rack of gorgeous linen dresses by a company called Bleu Majorelle. They are in the djellaba style, sleeveless, with little knobbly fabric buttons on the front and at the side slits and I confess that I was lured into buying two – one long white one and a deep red mid-thigh one. Alas, they had no Sarah-sized trousers in stock, but I’m sure I can pick some up elsewhere, and probably for less than they wanted anyway.

Our next stop was L’Orientaliste. Gorgeous shop, but nothing particularly original or impressive, except perhaps their sweet little bottles of perfume. Most of their stock, while very lovely indeed, is easily gettable elsewhere and for less, mostly in the Medina, although I grant you that if you are not in a mood or position to spend a few days or weeks drifting through the souks, bargaining as if your life depended on it, then L’Orientaliste is definitely a safe bet. Not all of their stock is Moroccan – I think they purport to be Indian in theme, but perhaps I am wrong, for I didn’t see anything especially Indian.

After that, we went to Darkoum. Well. Gosh. He has some absolutely stunning furniture there – really really stunning. A neo-colonialist’s dream really. He imports from all over the world, and had such treasures as a 19th century Indian baldaquin for 20,000 euros as well as some carved Moroccan doors of dubious antiquity but conceivable prices – if nothing else, they will provide a starting point for bargaining in the Medina antique markets. There is also a good range of L’Occitane products. But. Oh isn’t there always a but? Upstairs, in the “gallery” section, he had a pair of elephant’s tusks for sale. Oh dear. This is bad, surely? There was nothing to suggest that they were antique, I think, and even if there was, that wouldn’t really make it any better, would it? It’s hard to be consistent with such things – I wear leather, I think antique fur accessories are gorgeous (sometimes!), but never modern fur, and I object absolutely to ivory. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? But then I must admit that such trinkets as, say, an antique ivory comb, have an appeal, and when my mother was a little girl in the early 1940’s she was given an ivory-handled toothbrush and brush that had belonged to another little girl who had died of leukemia, and I’m certainly not going to get on my high horse about that. But (apparently modern) tusks today? They were real, by they way – the label stated that they were. We were interested in a carved door, but John felt that he might not be comfortable buying anything at all from someone who dealt in ivory. I don’t know what I think. What do you think?

From what I can gather their sale is definitely illegal: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12066-cites-deal-wins-reprieve-for-elephants.html

After that we had lunch in an ultra-modern café called Kechbar. It was fabulous. You know why? The bread basket. Bread is ubiquitous at meals here in Morocco, but it is always a particularly boring kind of round flattish white roll which tastes of nothing, but not in Kechbar! They had gorgeous light and crusty baguette to eat with their tasty goat’s cheese salad and Indian chai. What bliss!

Lastly, we made it to Acima, the supermarket and bought our own weight in spaghetti, coconut milk and white roses. Right now, I am wearing my new white linen dress, sitting in our courtyard under an orange tree with the roses on the table in a vase beside me. Life seems very pleasant just now.

(This was written yesterday and posted today)

Apologies and food

I am terribly sorry for my long silence - I have a long entry written about shopping in Gueliz, but our usual free wifi failed us today and it is temporarily stuck on my mac. Tomorrow, if the wifi is still down, I will put the entry on a memory stick and bring it here to the internet cafe to post - I will not fail you!

In the mean time, we have discovered a wonderful Thai restaurant right beside our house AND that most of the ingredients they used are freely available in our supermarket in Gueliz, if not the markets in the Medina so tonight instead of our usual Italian creations, we will be having a pink grapefruit and fried peanut/onion/chilli salad followed by a vegetarian green curry - what heaven!