Cat hair and Curtains

It was my birthday last week, though the day itself was somewhat low-key.  There were apparently more important events taking place in Doha that day such as Sudanese peace talks and a forums to discuss Democracy (best not to mention that this is a country doesn’t really have any) and we had Mr A’s colleague staying with us, so I was pushed back a day.  This meant some toast and tea in the morning.  That’s it, since the convergence of the British Forces Post Office and a small lack of forward planning by family and friends, meant there was nothing else to open.  So I went to work, returning to find my one true friend in Doha had somehow noticed the date and delivered flowers, sweets and a bracelet to our flat!  Hurrah!  Thereby easily outdoing Mr A who tried to console me with birthday wishes from Sudanese Rebel leaders.  The next day Mr A sprang in to action.  More tea and toast, some presents and a small mortgage spent at a Ritz Carlton restaurant restored marital relations, and postal gifts have been arriving ever since.

 

Otherwise, we have been hawking ourselves around town a little less than usual.  The annual US Independence Day party was restrained this year (tent at Intercontinental Hotel rather than ballroom at Ritz Carlton) and dry to reflect the sober times in the States (boom boom).  This obviously also translated in to the snacks which were extremely hard to come by, and mainly involved greasy lumps of cheese.  The experience wasn’t hugely improved by the American Ambassador giving a rather dry formal speech in English (annual value of trade has increased x percent) and then a blatantly fascinating speech in Arabic (Obama’s statements about US relations with the Arab world and Islam).  At least we got to see good friends, and then we hopped in the car to eat burgers and fries.

 

We visited the Museum of Islamic Art again.  Mr A has been a million times with various visitors over the past couple of months and so has had a million tours around the highlights with the Director and various Curators.  He has vaunted this knowledge of many occasions: ‘my love, we should go to the Museum and I can take you on the tour that I’ve been on. I know loads of stuff about the best exhibits’.  So off we head, and it turns out that he can’t remember all that much about the first gallery we enter.  That one isn’t normally part of the VIP tour, better to head the other side.  Though his memory is a little vague on this one too.  A couple of bowls are definitely important, he just can’t quite remember why.  And a carpet is really significant, it was found in a Mosque where it had been covered by later, newer carpets only he can’t quite remember exactly which carpet it was.  Luckily there are enough beautiful things to distract from his aimless wittering.  I should have just taken the convenient guidebook given to us by the friends who wrote it.  Next time.

The cats continue to horrify and delight.  They are definitely substantially larger, and there are hints of improved behaviour such as not waking us up at 5.30am EVERY day.  They do, however, steal any food you may be really looking forward to eating, sleep on any dark clothing you might have and chairs which you will sit on in black trousers and then go to work with a bum covered in white hair.  We finally got round to replacing the printer that no longer really prints having lived in the cat room for a while, just in time for them to pull a curtain rail out of the ceiling.  Since we aren’t really meant to have cats in the building, this now means a complicated process where the maintenance men come to look at a curtain rail that we have pulled out of the ceiling for no reason, while the cats are relocated to another bedroom that they can slowly destroy.  We love them with all our hearts.  Most of the time.

 

And I am obsessed with mangoes.  The supermarkets have huge mounds of various varieties of them, ranging from the most expensive from Brazil (left of picture, £1.80 each) to the cheapest from India (right of picture, 35p each).  I’m working my way through the taste test.  Next week I’ll move on to melons, or kumquats, or any of the other fruits that I don’t recognise in the Philipino section.