Scans and Smoke

What this blog has been skilfully avoiding for the past months is that I’m five months pregnant.  This meant that whilst we were bashing dunes and getting dehydrated back in April, I was feeling a little fragile.  And upon our return from a trip to London, the combination of an overnight flight, tiredness and morning sickness meant I vomited at the side of the road at 7am directly in front of a line of surprised workers waiting for their bus.  I haven’t done that since an ill-advised night of drinking some years ago, and then my only audience at 2am was a drunk Irishman who expressed his disgust.

Anyway, whilst I will try to avoid the blog becoming a detailed diary of developing stretchmarks, birthing techniques and swollen feet, there are a couple of things about being pregnant in Doha which may be different to being pregnant in the UK.  Perhaps not, since I haven’t incubated a child anywhere else, but maybe…

• I have been going to a private hospital for scans, check-ups and tests which is more like a hotel or office than a medical establishment.  You can’t have a scan without having a check-up, and you have to pay for both of those, and then the Doctor sends you for blood-tests that of course mean handing over a credit card first.  An afternoon there can set you back about £200, and that doesn’t include the refreshments between appointments at the stylish hospital café (peach smoothie while we wait for the scan results, anybody?). Nothing has made me appreciate the NHS more.

• It is officially illegal to engage in “intimate relations” with members of the opposite sex in Qatar, let alone have babies, out of wedlock.  So it is assumed that you are married when you go to antenatal appointments (though we’ve never yet actually had to produce our wedding certificate) and therefore when the nurse wants to know how long you’ve been trying for a baby, she asks ‘how long have you been married?’.  Which reminds me of being in Syria where every taxi driver would ask whether you were married, how long for, and how many children you have.  Trying to explain that you hadn’t quite got round to kids yet elicited a look full of pity since you had presumably been focussing on nothing else since your wedding night.

• No-one warns you in advance that you’re not meant to drink too much caffeine when you’re pregnant.  That means no more endless cups of tea which is, in my view, a tragedy especially since any child of mine will be brought up on the stuff.  On the upside, if you haven’t had any alcohol for months then Holsten non-alcoholic beer tastes like the real thing.

• As I was lying on a bed waiting for the nurse to spread gel on my stomach for our 12-week scan (the one where we found out if everything looked normal), the doctor started telling Mr A and I that sometimes when she does this scan there isn’t a heartbeat and then the woman comes in bleeding a couple of days later.  She is UK- and American-trained but perhaps missed some classes on sensitivity. It may be a Doha thing: a friend of ours here told us that at the same stage their doctor clapped his hands and announced jovially, “…and now we shall see if the baby is alive!”.

• At a later ultrasound scan, a hijab-ed Arab doctor who didn’t have great English told us the ‘tallness’ of our baby and giggled at the size of the bun’s willy.  At the end, she thanked us for the beautiful baby, gave us some test results including how much ‘liquor’ was swilling around in my abdomen (apparently just the right amount) and a CD with lots of totally unfathomable pictures.

• Pregnant women aren’t meant to change cat litter trays which is obviously leaving a huge void in my life.

• Mr A’s employer doesn’t recommend giving birth here so will pay for me to return to London for my ‘confinement’.  I’m wondering whether an elaborate gown is supplied for this 19^thCentury style practice?

• I didn’t tell anyone at work I was pregnant for the first 3 months (though really it’s only two months since you’re already one month pregnant when you find out, what a cheat).  In order to stall impending conversations about career plans, I had made up a story about not knowing when we might leave Qatar.  In the end no-one minded about this subterfuge.  In fact the senior Qataris were uncharacteristically excited by the prospect of a child, and at one point threatened to buy cake for the whole department in celebration (I was incredibly relieved when this never in fact materialised).  Qatari ladies quiz me in the toilet about my birthing plans, and reveal that they are 28 and already have four children.

• When we were in Damascus, we told the man looking after the decrepit old-town house that I was expecting and he began ululating, imitating how the baby would be greeted in the Arab world. He was very clear that the little one should be born in the UK so that it is ‘white’ rather than ‘brown’.

• Syrians say that you can crave sleep rather than food. That’s what my pregnancy is all about.

• A Philippina woman at work who I’d only met once before was talking to me when she stopped to ask ‘Is there…?  I mean, is it….? Are you….?  Is there someone in there?’ before stroking my stomach for longer than was strictly necessary.

• Last week I was at home when the fire alarm was going off intermittently.  I ignored it.  Then it started going off more insistently so I opened the door to our flat, smelt smoke, and headed out.  Grabbing keys and phone, I walked down 36 flights of stairs to the ground floor where there was predictable chaos with a few fire engines mixed in and lots of people with pet boxes which made me feel incredibly guilty for having abandoned the cats to impending smoke inhalation.  I walked around to the back of our building in order to be in the shade (midday, 40+ degrees, no sunglasses) and saw plumes of smoke coming out the second floor.  Luckily Mr A’s car was sitting in the car park so I sat in there with the air conditioning on full power, trying to ignore the aroma of his old Chicken Tikka sandwich which had been gentle warming for a while, awaiting his return.  Then we went straight to the hospital for a scan where the woman looked at me wearily when I explained that I didn’t have my appointment card because there was a fire in my building.  Apparently the men’s sauna went up in flames, which is probably divine retribution for anyone thinking they needed a sauna in Doha in the first place.  Our spare bedroom retains a faint whiff of barbecue.

• The American book I have about pregnancy began measuring progress in fruit and pulses.  A zygote the size of a pinto bean became a medium green olive, a large lime and then a peach.  Obviously they ran out of inspiration for large fruits at that point because disappointingly since then it’s been a fist and a softball. 
  

For now, the bump and I are expanding in the Doha heat and looking forward to returning to the UK for the NHS, long summer evenings and a larger selection of maternity trousers.  Meanwhile I made Mr A spend an evening reorganising all our books with me.  Apparently it’s called nesting.

Ms A

Seatbelts and Subtitles

As we head into summer we find ourselves struggling for daytime activities that won’t involve getting too hot, meaning weekends are mainly spent by the pool (with Mr A trying very hard to not let a single ray of sunshine hit his somewhat pasty skin), at a shopping mall or at home.  Within a mall one can obviously shop, or eat at a café (perhaps eating ‘outside’ in the piazza like thoroughfare of the mall – it’s almost the same as being in Italy), or go to the cinema.  A few weeks ago we went to watch The Reader in one of the thirteen screens of our local mall.  We presume that in the first half of the film, Kate Winslet must take her kit off a fair bit, but it was hard to tell. As a result of the stringent censorship, all we got was half an hour of confusing, disjointed scenes of her and her young lover getting dressed or undressed, out of or into bed, into or out of a bath.  Luckily she then kept her clothes on for a while so we were able to track the story of her history as a guard as Auschwitz, the lover growing up, Germany post-war, trials etc.  As you might expect, a key element of this was more than a few references to Jews and Judaism, which were, Mr A noticed, totally absent from the Arabic and French subtitles; slightly confusing for the non-English speaker. All things considered, a film with nudity and Judaism may not be one of the best film choices in a cinema in this part of the world.

We spent a long weekend in Damascus last week (where, talking of Jews, Israel doesn’t officially exist – but graffiti on a wall said ‘Death to Israel’ so I think it depends on your intent).  It was an opportunity to remember the crazy driving (though since we last were there the taxi-drivers have started making the front seat passengers put their seat belts on before pulling out without looking).  Such safety initiatives were slightly undermined by two fire-engines bringing the 3-lane motorway from the airport to a standstill by u-turning into the oncoming traffic of a sliproad. 

On arrival at the airport, a man in a surgical mask quizzed us on our swine flu symptoms.  While waiting for us to complete a questionnaire, he asked where we were from and then talked excitedly about the ‘six zones’ of London.  We were mystified and told him confidently him that there were far more than six areas in London.  Only as we picked up our bags did we realise that the poor guy must have meant the Underground zones. He was crestfallen – we have clearly been away too long.

Some friends from London were visiting Syria for a couple of days so had the pleasure of being shown around the Old Town by Mr A and me which distracted them a bit from thinking about their luggage languishing somewhere in an airport in Cyprus.  This involved me vaguely pointing out some things that I thought were interesting (ice-cream shops, women’s co-operatives with irresistibly expensive handmade goods, old buildings) while Mr A methodically quoted dates and expounded historical context (‘the oldest arch in Syria’).  We took them to mosques and courtyard houses, up Mount Qasioun for sunset and back to the Old Town for supper.  It was lovely wandering around relatively cool streets (a mere 38 degrees!) with smells of jasmine and abundant bougainvillea.  We restricted ourselves to buying huge amounts of mezze rather than any carpets, lamps, mother-of-pearl furniture or fabrics.

Whilst making our way to Beit Ananias (where Saul/Paul was converted – and where we came across a group of Chinese pilgrims weeping and ululating to the strains of acoustic guitar. Weird) I spied a courtyard house in the process of restoration and invited myself in.  Within minutes a friendly man arrived, whose job it is to keep an eye on the house during the building works that, luckily for him, have so far taken seven years.  Full of original plasterwork and niches, the building is supposedly on the way to becoming a hotel/restaurant and you could see sections of newly carved mashrabiya screens amongst the timber scaffolding and detritus.  The caretaker seems to spend most of his time looking after the cats (‘you must meet Lulu’) and tortoises that live there.  It is traditional for each courtyard house to have at least one tortoise, but Mr Caretaker brought another from his farm and from the two impossibly tiny baby tortoises we were shown it seems they’ve been keeping themselves busy.  We 

spent the next ten minutes trying not to crush them with a misplaced foot and graciously refusing cups of tea. [It seems appropriate to update longstanding readers that the tortoises from our garden in Damascus were last seen in rude health, though not having procreated].

The rest of our time was spent with Damascus friends which was, as always, brilliant.  Mr A smoked more shisha than he should and I ate my weight in cherries.  We pottered around the ‘suburbs’ of Damascus and refused to go to the Embassy bar. I remembered how much Arabic I’ve forgotten while visiting Syrian friends and admired their live prawn in a tank, and then we watched typically Damascene Russell Brand DVDs.

So, all in all delightful.  Now we can spend the coming weekends watching the very expensive TV package that Mr A has procured which appears to show every sporting match in the whole world as well as Holby City.  Ah, a summer of rugby, tennis and cricket.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Nor could the cats – they LOVE tennis so much that we are slightly fearful for our TV screen.

Italians and Ibsen

So June has been keeping us busy-ish.  Not overwhelmingly so since there seems to have been plenty of time to sleep at weekends and watch excessive amounts of State of Play, but busy enough.

An Italian diplomat’s reception proved a mixed blessing.  He had emailed us an invite some time ago, mentioning a ‘dinner’ with some friends, many of whom Mr A knows.  We naively thought this might mean a sit-down supper, so were unprepared to walk in to a room with more people that an average dining table would accommodate, with clear evidence of buffet preparations and apparently no-one else who spoke English or that we knew.  There is only so far ‘arrivederci’ can get you when trying to get to know new people.  Luckily Mr A was wearing his new brown blazer and jeans so at least we were looking suitably Euro.  We stood around for a while smiling enthusiastically at the mother of the host who was entirely uni-lingual.  We chatted to a former Qatar Airways stewardess about the advantages (international shopping) and disadvantages (customers, curfews) of being an air hostess.  Then we noticed that only half an hour had gone past. Luckily salvation arrived in the form of the Dominican Republic Ambassador and his wife who were perched on the same sofa as us wrestling with pasta salad.  A thoroughly dapper man, complete in cravat and hounds-tooth blazer, he entertained us thoroughly for the next hour or so with anecdotes until it was a respectable time for us finally put our Italian to use and bid a fond farewell to the host and his mother.  For the record, there was a bowl of Ferrero Rocher in the corner, which probably tells you all you need to know.

Playing the role of host for the first time in a while we had Mr A’s cousin to stay for the weekend and took him straight from the plane into the glory of the Ritz Carlton brunch where in line with Qatari tradition we showed him how to eat and quaff more than necessary.  I think we managed to divert him from dwelling on the cost of this decadence by arranging for the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, and his wife Sheika Mozah to walk past our table.  I happened to be looking up at the time and had a split second of thinking ‘wow that woman looks a lot like Sheikha Mozah’, before thinking ‘ wow, and that guy behind her looks a lot like the Emir’ before whispering urgently to Mr A ‘look, LOOK’.  They had one very chilled-out security guy with them, and sat at a table for two looking extremely relaxed surrounded by merry ex-pats celebrating birthdays with requisite singing and drinking.  This is the equivalent of the Queen turning up to tea at the Ritz in London one afternoon, only without the sniffer dogs, armed guard, close-protection officers or other palaver.  Also, he doesn’t look nearly as large (in the waist department) in person as he might appear in photos.  And he was pulling off a pair of Aviator-style sunglasses inside.  Stylish.

We also took our visitor to the restored old bit of Doha where we discovered the Bird Souq i.e. a lot of brightly coloured birds trapped in cages looking less than satisfied, surrounded by a mild stench of canary droppings and a hideous cacophony of noise, ate Haagen Dazs and admired a policeman on his horse.

Later that day we found our way to a nightclub in a new hotel which is VERY exclusive but we were able to walk right in with a well-connected friend, only pausing to hand over our ID (since a new law means you must show your Qatari ID card every time you enter a place that serves alcohol).  And then we were able to walk right out again as soon as we realised that, however exclusive, a dark, smoky club full of slimy Lebanese men groping semi-naked ladies may have lost its appeal some time in our mid-20s.  At least we can say we’ve been.  We just won’t mention that we didn’t even buy a (no doubt obscenely expensive) drink.

Whilst not hanging out at hotels, we have been to the screening of a film outside the Museum of Islamic Art which, incidentally, was cited as Prince Charles as one of his favourite modern buildings in a clear attempt to appease the Qataris since he’s screwed up their planning application for Chelsea Barracks.  Anyway, the screening was a ‘grand cinematic experience’ where a play by Henrik Ibsen and a poem by Mahmoud Darwish (very famous Palestinian poet) were set to images and music, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.  It truly was as grand a cinematic experience as we have ever been to – utterly beautiful images over five huge screens set to hauntingly apt music, sounds and words with the Museum in the background on a beautiful warm evening.  It reminded me why art exists, and that I don’t see or experience nearly enough of it here. 

Talking of architecture, there has been much coverage here of a new Heart of Doha scheme which is a masterplan for a large swathe of central Doha by a British practice, involving a lot of demolition, a lot of new buildings and a lot of Culture apparently.  There’s an amusing piss-take of such masterplans here.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has been touring the region giving friendly speeches to Muslims.  I was pleased to see that even (or perhaps especially) the President of the United States has to remove his shoes at the Mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo which is one of my favourite mosques in the world.  His security guys in the background kept their shoes on, so had to wear the little booties.  At least Hilary didn’t have to wear the usual ewok cloak.  That really would have been mean.

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.

Power steering and Pork dubbing

Last weekend we went ‘dune bashing’ in the desert.  We have been before ('Dolls and Dunes' here) but, sensibly, were driven by an experienced Qatari ex-body builder in his car.  This time we drove ourselves (in a Chevrolet) so set off on a sunny Saturday with two friends in convoy – one who had been before and was our guide for this particular jaunt (in a Nissan), and one who was a fellow bashing novice and, importantly, was driving his brand new 4x4 (maybe 6 months old) which is really his wife’s car (a Honda).  We drove south towards the end of the tarmac-ed road, stopped to let down our tyres, and then set off for the Inland Sea (or Khor Al Udaid). 

It must be mentioned at this point that this is a popular destination for Qatar residents and people drive there all the time.  It is, as its name suggests, a body of sea water almost totally surrounded by sandy land, close to the Saudi Arabian border (one can also just peek the United Arab Emirates over the barren landscape).  There are two ways of getting there – either to follow the reasonably flat salt flats compacted by the tyres of hundreds of 4x4s, or to ‘bash’ the dunes that surround the flats i.e. driving up and down piles of sand.  We, of course, followed the latter strategy and happily drove up and over a couple of dunes.  Not very far in we approached a larger, sandier patch and, brought to a slow behind our struggling Honda friend, promptly sank in to deep, very sandy, sand with friend sunk in same sand nearby.  Alighting from the vehicle it became obvious that the wheels were sunk up to the underside of the chassis which was firmly banked.  Luckily we’d inherited some spades from some friends last year, and had remembered to bring one so the boys took turns to dig the wheels out (note: next time take more than one spade) as I administered sun cream and water in the 40 degree heat and escaped to the air conditioning of the Honda (which had been extracted from the sand by now.  By driving.).  We tried the tow rope that someone had remembered to bring, which snapped as soon as any force was applied.  We tried a rope that we’d inherited from the spade-friends, which snapped too.  We tried both broken ropes together, which both snapped again long before there was any danger of our car moving.  

At this point a friendly and very bearded Qatari in shell suit trousers cruised past in his Toyota Landcruiser (there is a very valid reason why all Qataris drive Landcruisers) and stopped to consult.  Ah, you’ve driven right in to the most notorious sand patch in the whole of Qatar – people always get stuck here, he told us in Arabic, managing not to smile.  He pottered off to procure a decent rope (advising that the one we had was meant for towing motorbikes), returning to supervise tying of knots, depth of digging, placement of sunbathing mat beneath tyres, and direction of towing.  Within minutes we were off, with our Qatari friend clearly unable to believe we could get anywhere unaided so offering to lead us to the sea and off we went in our convoy of four.  He took us to the spot where he was fishing with his friends surrounded by litter, asking whether we needed any water (clearly thinking we were stupid enough to have not thought of bringing any with us), and advising that we might want to stop here rather than carrying on to the more popular spot further around the water’s edge (called the ‘Sheraton’ by Qataris because of the large number of ex-pats that go there).  A very nice man – shows that you shouldn’t judge men who look exactly like Osama Bin Laden.

Of course, we didn’t stop there.  We had more exploring to do.  So off we went further south which, apart from a bit of a jolt as Mr A approached a dune on the speedier side, passed off without hitch and was a lot of fun.  

We found ourselves a perfect spot between sand dune and water and rewarded ourselves with some sandwiches, beers and a swim, ignoring the occasional wafts of sulphur (from the sea bed or the nearby gas works?). 

All too soon, it was time to head back so we packed up, got in to the cars, and turned on the ignition.  Ours came to life with a worryingly loud rattling noise.  The kind of noise that, as much as you tell yourselves it’s nothing serious, sounds like your car is about to keel over.  Perhaps that earlier jolt had been more significant than we’d hoped. The only member of the group who knew anything about cars got on his back under the engine and fiddled with the various tools and gloves (that it turns out were nestled with our spare wheel) when we heard an almighty crash from behind us.

It turns out that Mr Honda didn’t feel he’d bashed enough dunes on the way so was taking advantage of the break to launch himself and his car, fast, over the picnicking dune. Although he looked impressive, getting clear air between the bottom of his car and the ground (Mr A is the only person to have seen this and laughs every time it is mentioned to him), the landing didn’t go so well and resulted in a bonnet that wouldn’t close, a plastic section hanging off the front, a deployed airbag that filled the car with smoke, and some funny noises, though we were still winning on that front. 

So, feeling somewhat chastened by the noises and having tied the front of the other car back on, we headed back to the road minimising the number of dunes though loving the ones we just couldn’t drive round, only delayed briefly by digging Nissan out after an over-keen dune run (hee hee). 

Reaching the small garage back at the road in order to pump tyres, Mr A said he was pretty sure the power steering had gone and made a 24 point turn to get in to the space in front of the garage where a disinterested man said we’d broken the power steering fluid hose which, since it was high-pressure, couldn’t be fixed by anyone outside Doha.  Meanwhile, the Nissan was producing small clouds of burnt rubber as a result of being driven over dunes with the hand brake on, and the Honda seemed to be leaking whilst its owner contemplated the future of his marriage when he told his wife what he’d done to her car.  It was all pretty professional. We ended up eating some shortbread before driving back to Doha with Mr A using all his muscles to steer. 

Someone invited us down to the Inland Sea tomorrow.  I think we’ll give it a bit of time before we head down there again, and perhaps buy a different car.

 

Whilst not destroying our car, we went to a quiz at the Marines Bar of the American Embassy.  Once past the security (which at one stage involved them dapping your car with a pad to check if there are any traces of explosives - I can’t believe they’d pick up anything through the layers and layers of dirt on our car) we gamely participated in a quiz as the only non-Americans, and with limited knowledge of US College sports mascots or 1980s American hurdlers.  In fact I didn’t answer a single question, but our very focussed team-mate did and we continued our tradition of not bothering to turn up to quizzes unless we’re going to win which meant we left with a fishing rod for Mr A and Celine sunglasses for me.  Not a bad evening’s work, especially since I hadn’t been to a bar before where an AK47 sits above the bar and you walk past a pistol to get to the loo.

 

Yesterday I was watching Rachael Ray (America’s girl next door who prepares easy, cheap dishes whilst doing make-overs for podgy housewives) where Tonight’s Dish was fried steak with a tomato sauce.  She helpfully said you could make this dish with either chicken, or…  well her mouth said ‘pork’ but her voice said ‘steak’ which, apart from not making any sense, shows that someone’s job is to screen television programmes for references to pig foodstuffs and dub accordingly.  In the days of swine flu perhaps not such a bad idea.  The whole thing was slightly undermined by Rachael adding white wine to the sauce which she was able to pronounce, say and show without disruption.

 

Doha is now heating up and the sinking feeling of knowing time is limited until it’s too humid to go outside is hard to ignore.  This is only helped by thinking about London in the rain (wet feet, no umbrella, buses that smell of swamp) and trying not to remember the lovely wedding and beautiful blossom in the UK when we were there two weeks ago….