So, a very quick one from me today, before embarking on this morning’s final walking tour of Marrakesh (admittedly retracing my steps in part), before setting off into the desert of Agafay this afternoon…

In short, I have officially met up with the most of the group as of this evening, though “unofficially” a bunch of us found each other (and also managed to locate one of the few Ville Nouvelle drinking establishments for a pre-dinner tipple), before assembling at the meet-up “proper” site – a restaurant in the Medina for a delicious tagine meal later on that evening.

The group as it stands consists of mainly Brits, one Italian, one Indian, one Yank and a couple of latecomers as yet undetermined and, yes, as suspected, I am probably the oldest by a good decade or so. I’m not sure whether it was my great age, or the fact that I am so far the only French speaker of the group, or simply my innate instinct to bring order to chaos in each and every situation, but – in the absence of any group guide (a highly conspicuous no-show till the very last minute, more on which below…) – I currently find myself in definite in danger of unwittingly falling into the de facto mother hen role here.

That, or in-house drug dealer, given that fair to say pretty much everyone else in the group did not seem to get the memo on the alcohol (or rather lack thereof) front. Given I’m now in a very real position to supply that demand over the next few days, there is at present every possibility that I may end up divvying up and distributing my two bottles of wine and small bottle of duty-free rum at a tidy profit, in the process elevating myself to the temporary status of North African equivalent of Pablo Escobar here…

Still, the group so far (there a couple more still to join) has definitely proven a cool bunch, with ones to watch from the ten so far being:

1. Carmen^ – A very cool former travel coordinator turned HNW PA, who (like me) finds herself unexpectedly single and in despair at the sordid world that is online dating.

2. Joss – A very switched-on digital marketer with a shared penchant for early bedtimes.

3. Bryan – The one American of the group, so naturally friendly, exuberant and like me also into the whole health and fitness.

4. Ricky – Black Country lad who also aims at 10,000 steps a day (with me, him and Bryan being the big walkers of the group as a result).

As for the guide,  who we’ll call, “Lyle”, the groupwide current consensus is that he is, in short, something of a bellend. Quite unbelievably, this numpty turned up several hours too late to his own tour – not because of any flight delays or anything – just because he chose for whatever reason to book a flight that would get him in hours behind the rest of us, the actual paying customers. To make matters worse, to this point he also hadn’t shared any actual information beforehand on things like timings etc. for the next day (we eventually got these through coming up to midnight, so talk about last minute dot com). Putting it politely, as a result the whole group was raising a massive collective eyebrow at the serious lack of professionalism here.

An impression which was confirmed ten times over when the cocky bastard just strode nonchalantly in just as we were all leaving, just giving it the big “I am” and practically slapping his dick on the table on arrival – no context, explanation, apology or any kind of humility at all. Well, all I can say is that I expected a knobber or two in the mix, but certainly didn’t expect it to be the lead… Either way, fair to say that insouciant approach went down like a cup of cold sick with the group – not a great look if you’re guide is already a laughing stock before he even turns up, and is actually deemed even more so of one after the fact…

The group has agreed to give the guy the benefit of the doubt for now, and there is the chance he may yet redeem himself over the next few days. I for one, however, inwardly subscribe to the school of “no mercy, no forgiveness” once crossed, and have been known to hold persistent decades-long grudges for less. So in short, watch out for now motherfucker – I’m officially on to you, bitch.

^ Names changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent.