Pool: The Final Frontier: Part I...

The final county game of the season was a few weeks ago and I ended it on a high note by becoming the most capped county A Team player in Surrey history. I also won three out of four games to take my end-of-season tally to 26/40 and qualify for the trials for the England team.

The latter, of course, presents something of an issue as I'd already told everybody involved that I was taking a break for a year or maybe even two to focus on my writing and work with my theatre group in Guildford.

Even worse, after a trying start to 2013 I've sort of fallen back in love with the game... but I'm sensible enough to know that if I don't take a break from playing local league, interleague and county pool and all the regular practice sessions that entails then l won't be able to give the opportunities I now have the focus and the time they need.

But with the England Trials and the Inter-county Finals to come, plus a last national event in Yarmouth in April to, I guess the cue won't be getting put in the loft just yet.

It's not bad problem to have, though, and I'm doing well if it's the biggest thing I have to worry about...

Egypt: Part III...

After the Nile Cruise from Luxor to Aswan and back again, we returned to Aswan to start a four-day cruise exploring the temples of Lake Nasser, ending with the two stunning temples at Abu Simbel.

If life along the Nile was agricultural with crops growing and farm animals bathing and the odd town or city dotted along it, then life on Lake Nasser was a totally different experience. The Nile is no wider than the Thames in most places and was populated along its length on both sides, while Lake Nasser is about 40km wide in some places with very little but rocky outcrops and desert either side.

At times it felt like you were in one of the most remote places on Earth and, indeed, for two days of the trip we had no mobile of wi-fi connection of any type and saw nobody else apart from the people on the ship.

The temples on Lake Nasser were all removed from what used to be the banks of the Nile and placed on much higher ground before the area was flooded and it became Lake Nasser. The other thing about Lake Nasser is that the north of Egypt is very much Arabian while the south of the country around Lake Nasser is seen as Nubian.

The artwork and colours on many of these rescued temples is stunningly well preserved and there was some great stuff to see, but one of the most amazing things about the cruise was the chance to look up and see the stars as there's hardly any pollution and you could actually see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

The two temples at Abu Simbel, the Temple of Ramesses II and the smaller temple of his wife Neferteri, were simply breath-taking and sailing up to them in the cruise ship was an amazing way to see them. Even better, when we were on the ground exploring them we again had very few fellow visitors so we pretty much had them to ourselves at time.

We stuck around to see the light and sound show, which was OK, but the temples themselves were the stars of the show. And the job of moving Abu Simbel from it's former home to its current one is worth a blog post on its own...