Rural Egypt is completely different from rural England where I'd grown up so every day was a discovery for me.
There were several varieties of date palms which were harvested around September by fearless farm workers who climbed up the tree trunks supported by a sling and carrying a huge flat basket.
When the big bunches of dates were cut from the trees by large curved knives they were tossed into the basket which was lowered to the ground with a rope before the man himself came down.
One day I opened the front door to find the branches of freshly cut dates plus the old boots of the farm worker lying there in such a way that it shouted "painting" to me!
I made some quick sketches and "The Date Harvest" in watercolours was finished a couple of weeks later.
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