Mystery Solved

Do you recall I was a bit mystified about how they determine the end of Ramadan? One of the Muslim pupils told me it was dependent on the sighting of the full moon. This intruiged me because I know there is no doubt about when the full moon will be and there is even less doubt that you will see it here in Bahrain because there are never any clouds. Last night we were out to dinner at a friends villa and we went for a pre-dinner dip in the bath, oops I mean pool. It was really like a bath, none of this easing yourself in gently nonsense. Even sheila just bailed straight in!. Anyway to get back to the story, I was in the pool and it was just getting dark when I noticed peeping over the top of the building a beautiful crescent moon. It was then I realised that it is the sighting of the NEW moon not the full moon that determines the end of Ramadan. (Physics lesson 2 coming up - ignore if knowledgeable). You can never see a NEW moon (except during an eclipse) because it is on the same side of earth as the sun and it sets with the sun. The next day it sets a little behind the sun and you MIGHT see it. Next day a little later and it appears as a crescent, each day setting a little later and getting a little bigger until it is full. So the moral of the story is that Ramadan ends after the first sighting of the new moon whichever day that occurs. End of physics lesson 2 and end of mystery. By the way dinner was absolutely delicious. Rachel's hubby is french and a bit of an amateur cordon blue chef. He called it beef Bourgigno... burgenio .... bourgi ... we would probably call it stew but it was fantastic. We'll have to do our level best when they came to us!
Cheers for now
David