Coffee (mornings) and (window) cleaners

Marhaba! I write this as the last missive from unemployed-wife since from Wednesday onwards I will be employed-as-an-architect-wife! So that’s exciting, but of course there are downsides. For one, it means I won’t be able to go to any more wives’ coffee mornings. There are more coffee mornings here than you can shake a stick at; in cafes, in hotels, in houses. Granted, I’m generally the youngest there by about 20 years but if you want chat about how you can’t do anything in the UK for ‘health and safety’ these days, or the bad driving of Arabs, then these are the place for you. You also meet some very amusing, very friendly people – one lady was explaining why she hasn’t made or decorated cakes for years – ‘I stopped making them when me and my daughters all got fat’.

I have finally found somewhere in Doha that teaches Arabic and went for a ‘placement test’ to find out what level I was. I had a chat with a woman, who despite me saying I had learnt Syrian Colloquial Arabic, wittered away to me in Fus-ha (very formal) and then told me I was Level 2 but it wasn’t ‘haram’ (forbidden/taboo) to go in at Level 1 (the lowest) if I felt more comfortable. Haram, my arse. I did not spend six months learning how to say ‘I liked Patrick Swayze’s bum in Dirty Dancing when I was 13’ in Arabic to then sit in a classroom learning the numbers. So, Level 2 it is and once she realises I can READ and WRITE (which her test didn’t bother to find out) she’ll be sorry.

Meanwhile, our flat is looking increasingly like ours rather than a hotel, and I’ve realised that you can’t walk around naked on the 18th floor because sometimes men appear at the windows unannounced to clean them. We have been taking advantage of the facilities, and are kicking ourselves for not having procreated so our kids could use the special children’s gym – complete with brightly coloured, mini rowing machines. We continue to attempt to walk around our area and are challenged by pavements-not-yet-built and piles of bricks.

We went to an 8 Hour Motorbike Endurance race. Yes, 8 hours, round and round a racetrack, on motorbikes. We stayed for an hour, eating puddings in the VIP room with no real clue what was going on. We’ve been visiting the malls some more, and discovered that all the drugs you need a prescription for in the UK you can just buy in a pharmacy here. I spent a day at an Islamic Art conference which, because it was ‘supported’ by the Emir, was not only free to anyone who wanted to go but involved a load of academics flown in from the UK, US, Lebanon and Egypt and an obscene number of freebies. We’ve also been strolling along the cornice, along with practically every other child in Qatar and their bikes. There’s a lovely café, and the Bahraini man there gave us tea AND spoke Arabic to us. What a result.

And I watched some French jets do some impressive stunts from our balcony. Mr A assures me that this is NOTHING compared to this weekend’s Red Arrows display.

Now we really need to sort out booze licenses and buying a car (or two). Both seem to be crucial. There is only one alcohol distributor in the country, and you need your special ‘infidel westerner’ card to buy anything. In terms of getting around, there is very little public transport and not many taxis so we really need some permanent wheels. We went to talk to a man about a car… ‘What kind of car are you looking for?’ … ‘Um, one with four wheels, maybe even this four-wheel-drive we’ve heard about, four doors, automatic…’ So that’s only half the cars in Qatar then……