MOST people like to have a quiet time relaxing in the sun when they go on holiday. So would Kurt Edwards' wife, Nikki, but it never happens.

The Osbaldwick couple are back from a break in Egypt, staying less than 50 miles from the resort of Dahab where last week three terrorist bombs killed 23 - including two Britons - and wounded dozens of others.

"We had been planning a trip through Dahab to the site of the Burning Bush, but it kept being put off and put off," said Kurt.

"Thank goodness. There was a lot of police activity, but some holidaymakers near us were always playing bingo and they did not realise for three days that there had been a bombing."

Late last year, the Edwards couple were holidaying in Israel when terrorists blew up a hotel wedding party just across the border in Jordan.

Three years ago, they were in Cairo on the day the Americans and British invaded Iraq. Riot police filled the streets of Cairo as unrest spread among the population and again Kurt and Nikki's itinerary was disrupted. "None of it worries me, but Nikki is a bit more sensitive to it," said Kurt.

Finally, they had a disturbing holiday in Thailand two years ago. For one thing, they got married on a beach. And if that wasn't bad enough, they spent the whole time unable to eat poultry because of a bird flu outbreak.

So how are they always in the wrong place at the right time? Simple: "I choose risky areas because they are cheap. If no one else is going there, the prices come down," says our intrepid adventurer with a shrug.

CHRIS PETCH'S nostalgic musings in our readers' letters page recently got a lot of people going, not least a certain distinguished gentleman named JE Muldowney, education officer at York Minster.

Helmsley resident Chris, at only 54, got all nostalgic about his first day at school when he wrote his first words on a wooden-framed blackboard (he called it a chalk board to be politically correct) with a full stick of white chalk which, he recalls, didn't stay intact for very long.

He also remembered the nib pens (often used as darts) and the inkwell monitor who, on a daily basis, re-fuelled the "well" on the right-hand side of each desk.

JE Muldowney confided in the Diary about an amusing conversation he had with a school party in the Minster recently.

"I was trying to explain to some Year 5s that Tadcaster Limestone is almost soft enough to write with, but I wasn't sure if they'd encountered blackboards. When asked, the class became deeply divided over the issue - one boy in particular insisting that they have blackboards at school; most of the rest denying it emphatically.

"Then the headmaster intervened to explain that they do indeed have ONE blackboard, which is kept in a cupboard and brought out once a year when they 'do' the Victorians!"

Mr Muldowney claims to be younger than Christ Petch but admits he felt pretty ancient at that point.

Updated: 09:39 Tuesday, May 02, 2006