Pottery and Palestine

It’s all about Palestine of late. The 60^th Anniversary of the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe”, the Arab term for the creation of Israel) has loomed large. Al Jazeera gave it 14 straight days of coverage. A friend of ours made a documentary about it for the English channel and got Darren Jordan, who used to be Mr 6 o’clock news, to do his voice-over – very smooth. The Qatar Red Crescent put on a ‘film festival’ which showed an unashamedly propagandist short film about East Jerusalem and a slightly better documentary called 9 Star Hotel about young Palestinians sneaking across the wall to work on new-build Israeli towns whilst camping in the mountains, occasionally being pursued by Israeli Army or Secret Police who send them back to the West Bank, where there are no jobs.

Fittingly we spent an evening last week with a Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist and his family at their house. We were thinking supper. We got there, sat around on the huge, dark velvet sofas that Arab families love so much (with very bright overhead lights on) and chatted in Arabic which was testing (for me) after so long of doing everything in English. After a little while the maid bought us all plates of fruit. Interesting, we thought. Not the usual starter, but let’s go with the flow. So we munched some melon, a few plums, thinking that we mustn’t eat too much because these things so often progress to you being offered enough food to feed Ethiopia. Fruit disappeared, but rather than the expected hummus, out come huge slabs of chocolate cake, with mint tea. Ah, so it’s not supper. We work our way through the cake, and move on to cups of coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I never have drunk coffee. But what can you do? Luckily this coffee had so much milk and sugar in it that it tasted more like hot chocolate, but unluckily a thick skin formed on the top of it and both Mr A and I flopped the skin all over our faces when we drank it. Later, Mr A said our host had sounded hesitant when he suggested 8pm - presumably they’d eaten their huge meal a couple of hours before we arrived. In the end we ate big bowls of chilli con carne at home at 11.30pm. Anyway, the 14 year old daughter of our host spent the evening showing me Palestinian Debki dancing and almost salivating over (admittedly quite hot) young Palestinian men.

The Qataris love a bit of Middle-East peace process action too: only last month the Israeli foreign minister was rather controversially here. But this week we got up close and personal with a co-founder of Hamas, at a BBC World “Doha Debate”. Interesting questions asked by the audience, a wide range of attitudes, but almost every answer he gave involved giving a lengthy description of what the Israelis had done first, before saying anything about Hamas. All a bit depressingly repetitive. So maybe that concludes our Palestinian focus for a while. Or maybe not – the Palestine/Israel issue is always around when living in the Arab world…

In less heavy news, we have been busy as bees. Since my last post, we had a friend to stay from London and took him to Dunestock – Qatar’s answer to Woodstock. Only it’s in a desert, solely attended by foreigners and the bands playing could charitably be described as enthusiastic. The set-up was actually pretty amazing, but sadly, it was also at the epicentre of a sandstorm which meant we were pelted by painful winds for an hour, listened to a dire man with a guitar and then left. I think we gave our guest a unique experience.

We celebrated HM Queen’s Birthday at a big party where only two guests accidentally submerged themselves to waist level in landscaped water features; otherwise it was a great success. At the end of the evening, we gave a lift in a taxi to two guests with no other transport. Since there five of us fitting in to a small car, I had to sit on Mr A’s lap, squashed in the back with these two men who I hadn’t yet met. As I attempted to look as small as possible so we weren’t stopped by police, I turned to them and asked ‘so, are you guys journalists?’. Reply from older gentleman on other side of back seat: ‘um, no, actually I’m an obscure backbench MP’. Argh…

Continuing my education in the ways of the establishment, I’ve now also been to a cocktail party on a British Navy ship, a slightly bizarre event – so many sailors, all in their white uniforms which just always look a little teensy bit camp. We drank gin and tonics, advised them on the best drinking places in Doha, and admired the helicopter on deck. Someone blew a loud whistle whenever anyone important came onboard. Weird shit.

Then we went to Muscat for a couple of days for my very late Christmas present. We stayed at the Chedi hotel which is THE most amazing hotel (and the most expensive) we have ever stayed in. Everything about it was beautiful – the buildings, the food, the pools, the beach, the way they fold your towels on the sun loungers, the way they bring ice to your room at 6pm for Gin and Tonics, the dressing gowns, the massages. I could go on.

We went on a boat and saw loads of dolphins but the splendour of the hotel meant we found it quite difficult to leave. We were determined to visit the Grand Mosque, but left it too late and failed. We did get to the souq, and marvelled that we must have acclimatised since we found the 41 degree heat manageable.

Less beautiful was the major eye infection Mr A contracted, which meant a visit to the doctor and a huge white bandage over one eye – disabled-pirate-style – for 48 hours. Or the stomach bug and bladder infection that I developed, leading to a temperature over 100 and some strong antibiotics. Luckily, the infection didn’t really take hold until we returned to Doha and I went to see a doctor who gave me a magical injection in my bum which made everything better. My sister arrived as the fever was subsiding, just in time to make me numerous cups of tea and watch endless episodes of ER. This helped me to forget my frustration at having read 90% of a Boris Johnson novel before leaving it on the plane. I was going to ask for it at Lost Property, but then couldn’t bring myself to explain I was reading a book about Islamic terrorism called ’72 Virgins’. Serves me right for reading Boris in the first place.

Sister stayed for 10 whole days so got to experience Doha in it’s fullest – shopping malls, fast food restaurants, beach (taken there by Mr A who made her walk up and down rocky outcrops before finding a small cove adorned with rubbish and sandflies), drunken dhow trips (with Al Jazeera people where she failed to follow a single conversation about Middle East politics), swimming in the sea in her pants, brunches with men dressed as elephants. She was an awesome guest – getting shopping from the supermarket, cooking us supper (for some reason wearing a Lambeth Council recycling bag as an apron). She was here for my birthday, and I was allowed to drink champagne after speaking to Doctor Dad who advised ‘one or two glasses shouldn’t be a problem’. Hurrah. We went to an Italian restaurant where the Phillipino waiters (in white jump suits) sang Happy Birthday while a huge fire cracker on top of a slice of cheesecake burnt away. I took sister to the fabric souq where she tried to buy some of the ugliest fabric I’ve ever seen and we bartered away with the Qatari ladies. We bought keffiyehs as presents for people in London ( cheaper than Topshop - email me your orders) and she came for a drink with some friends of ours to be told she was ‘as cute as a button’. All in a days work for mini-Ajnabiya.

I’ve been taking a pottery class every weekend with a friend, where we’ve been very carefully making pots that look like the work of 5 year olds. It was fun though – the class was small, a mixture of British, American, Lebanese and Qatari. The Qataris are a lovely young couple: the husband got really into it and bought books on the internet about building your own kiln, which he may do later in the year on some of his ‘spare’ land.

On a more cultural note, we went to an exhibition of photographs of Yemen in a little-used Palace. It had almost no publicity and was only on for a month so we weren’t expecting much. The palace is a little worn down, and we were the only visitors when we went but, as is typical in Doha, when the authorities decide to do something, they do it properly. Stunning photographs were beautifully displayed in specially constructed rooms, with (expensive) lighting, projections, sound effects. It made us desperate to visit Yemen if only it was a little less unsafe at the moment. On our way out the security guard asked if we’d like to see some photos of Qatar, and led us across a deserted courtyard with abandoned pavilions to a specially built room with loads of historical photographs of Doha from the last 70 years, and presented us with specially printed books about the exhibition. Obviously barely touched since it was put together for the Asian Games in 2006, some of the photos are peeling off the wall. It’s so peculiar that places like this exist, ready to go, yet they aren’t open to visitors, in a city with NO museums.

We continue to observe the progess of the Pearl – the ‘rediscovered island’, about 20 multi storey towers being built on reclaimed land – from our balcony.

We went to the beach last weekend and, miraculously, managed to have a lovely afternoon with a light breeze and minimal jet skis racing past. A Phillipina and her husband Mike, who is possibly feeling a bit unloved, had obviously got there before us.

At work, I have realised that I shouldn’t visit sites mid-morning as all the workers have a nap, or sit in big circles eating their lunches out of tiffin boxes. I always come across little packages of food waiting to be eaten in side rooms. At one site, they seem to love writing on various building materials……

On a more immediate note, I’ve just come back from the hairdresser where my request for a quick trim has resulted in full-on Lebanese-style coiffure. The man spent at least half an hour blowdrying, hairspraying and titivating. I noted four different potions, at least half a can of hairspray, and a lot of backcombing. It now feels like a wig and the cloud of toxic hairspray encircling my face is making me feel nauseous. Better get in the shower……

We’ll be in London mid-July for a couple of weeks. Hope to see lots of you then…

Xx

P.S. My resolution for June is to write less, more often, so it hopefully won’t be almost two months before the next post…..

Dolls and Dunes

Hello,

Well, we all remember the bad patch in November / December last year when I drove into the back of a pick-up unprovoked. You wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the past couple of weeks make that look like a fun time. Firstly, we went for supper with Mr A’s parents in an unbelievably expensive restaurant on their last night here. I ordered the chicken consommé with truffles and posh mushrooms. It arrived. Tasty, I thought, I know what, I’ll take a photo of the soup, with the table, all the glasses, the candles. So pretty. And then I dropped my camera in to the bowl, totally submerging it in consommé. I don’t think the waiters training had prepared them for this. The (expensive) camera seems to have recovered but is a little creaky and still smells of chicken.

Then I decided to finally hang up some pictures in our flat. Moving a small table out the way, one of the legs snapped off and the clock on top smashed on to the tiled floor, into a million very expensive pieces. And then to top it all off, I moved my arm while sitting at the computer, and threw a picture frame on the floor. Once again, a million pieces. Luckily I worked my way down in price-order rather than up. Fingers crossed, these things happen in threes and I can now go back to my pre-bull-in-china-shop days.

Mr A’s parents were with us for a week during March, our first visitors. We managed to clear the junk out of one of our bedrooms (how can we have enough junk to fill three bedrooms?) and bought new bed linen to fit the giant-size bed. All very elegant and grown-up, apart from the stench of stagnant water coming from the en-suite bidet which we tried and failed to get fixed until their penultimate day. The man who came to fix it almost didn’t get anything done as he (like others have) walked in to the flat and ground to a halt on seeing our books (of which there are rather a lot). He stood, staring from side to side, saying ‘it’s like a library’. I stood there slightly lamely spewing niceties in inner turmoil. Should I give him a book, because he probably doesn’t have any in his labour camp? Or would that draw attention to the fact that he may not be literate, and is certainly unlikely to be able to read in English? Argh. Luckily, he took the initiative and headed towards the offending bidet.

We went for brunch with the in-laws (a Doha institution, as anyone who lives in Doha will tell you within a hour of talking about what to do on Fridays) and were particularly pleased with the man in the elephant suit who was pursued by small children.

It was actually Good Friday (another glass of Cava, anyone?) and the hotel had put up an Easter-themed display for all to enjoy.

We also went in to the desert on a ‘desert safari’. Mr A had arranged it, and suspected his mum may not enjoy parts, so didn’t tell her anything in advance. Which meant she was unprepared when we drove off the side of a very high, very steep sand dune in a Landcruiser. To be fair, heading at an almost 90 degree angle down some sand, where the Landcruiser is more like a snowboard than a large car, is quite alarming. But also extremely fun. We also went to Khor Al Adaid (the Inland Sea) where you can see Saudi Arabia, and your mobile network thinks you’re already there. The United Arab Emirates mobile networks also think you’re there simultaneously, which is a bit confusing. Our driver was a young Qatari who competed in weight-lifting championships in his youth, but retired because he didn’t want to take huge amounts of steroids any more.

I finally rode on a camel somewhere in the desert, having held out against camels for over a year, because this particular one wasn’t quite as ugly or smelly as most. Then the camel-trainer stood on the back of the camel for ages and made my little adrenaline-filled camel-walk look utterly lame.

In between brunch and deserts we drove to the North-West of the country with Mr A’s parents to find the ‘historic’ Zubara fort – this version built in 1938 no less. It was recently refurbished and is quite a beautiful structure. It’s such a shame that they haven’t kept more old buildings….

In mid March, we went to Damascus for a whistle-stop 48 hours. We are very lucky to have friends who are still there, and they basically organised our whole trip for us – picking us up from the airport, briefing other friends on our movements, organising a barbeque and inviting other friends, giving us their car – the best travel agency you could hope for. Our Syrian friends came round for the barbecue with their 2 year old son who is the most edible small child ever. We all sat around for hours, eating, drinking (I joined them in NOT drinking Arak, they because they’re Muslims, me because it’s disgusting), smoking, playing chess, talking Arabic, drinking tea. R wanted to pray late-afternoon but didn’t know which direction Mecca was so someone found a street map and we tried to work out where was East, while her husband seemed far more focussed on the next cigarette and winning Chess.

We also went to St Patrick’s night celebrations in the Embassy bar and watched Irish dancers (as you do when you’re in the Arab Capital of Culture 2008) and later got very drunk at a friends old-town courtyard house. It was so enjoyable to be back in a city we know really well and we did some high-quality wandering around the old town, bought an Iranian carpet, and tried to store up memories of beautiful old buildings.

We were heartened to see that Assad is still keeping the makers of patriotic banners in business.

Mr A has been busy busy at work. His new building was officially opened by a Minister and he has now been on Al Jazeera twice, as well as entertaining various visitors from the UK, meeting some royal types and going to his first Qatari wedding – lots of handshaking and tea drinking by the men, with the women in an entirely separate (and apparently wild) event in a different building. He’s also having at attack of clumsiness having driven in to a streetlight at work – scratching the car, but more importantly breaking the brand new light, which he eventually confessed to and found out that someone had already already dobbed him in. Then he pulled off a doorhandle to a secure door. Unfortunately, in financial terms, I’m still winning the clumsiness competition.

I’m still working as many hours in 4 days here as I used to work in 5 in the UK. I also continue to bring construction sites to a halt as I attempt to inspect the work in a low-key way. One site I visited last month was still very much under construction so I asked if they had a hard hat I could borrow. The Lebanese manager said he did, but it had been worn by South Asian ‘workers’, implying that it was therefore not suitable. I said I’d prefer a pre-worn hard hat than a major head injury, but his Indian assistant refused to get it for me because it was dirty. I am getting used to attending meetings where the invite email is addressed to ‘Gents’. Luckily the male-bias is balanced out by working with two female architects on a new Church which is good. A site has been identified for it – it’s in Church City of course. The language of building here is also interesting – everything official is done in English, most of the construction managers are Lebanese so speak to each other in Arabic, but the day-to-day instructions are often done in Hindi or Urdu.

Doha had its annual Cultural Festival last month. We visited an exhibition where the Photographic Society put up a load of amateur photos with no labelling of where or when any of them were taken. They also had a display of various old books, with explanatory labelling which enlightened us all.

I continue to have Arabic lessons with my slightly bonkers Lebanese teacher who can’t quite decide whether she loves my colloquial Syrian vocab or is utterly horrified at my inability to speak ‘proper’ Arabic. She didn’t believe me when I said that Mr A spoke good Arabic, so she gave him an oral ‘exam’ when he was unfortunate enough to come home during my lesson. He passed and she declared his Arabic ‘excellent’: phew. On the theme of Arab culture, we headed to the Souq again, where there’s some genuine Qatari dancing on Friday nights. It’s actually fascinating, not least because it’s one of the few times we see anything (apart from abaya-ed women shopping) that equates to local culture. It involves young Qataris (in their long white robes with head scarves) dancing on one leg and spinning around in an almost hip-hop stylee while their head-dresses fall to the floor in the excitement. The other highlight of Souq people-watching is seeing young men greet each other in the street by rubbing noses. Honestly.

The other great news is that I have a new toy – Arab Barbie. Her name’s Jamila (‘beautiful’ in Arabic). She wears an abaya and has henna-ed hands and feet. Curiously her skin is dark until her mid-thigh and then she become pink. Mr A says I shouldn’t be investigating her nether regions.

Until next time… Maa Salame …

x

Abayas and avocados

Assalaam aleiykum,

Greetings from Doha. I hope this finds you all well.

We continue to settle in to Doha. Perhaps we are now settled, but in the absence of any definable criteria it’s difficult to tell. I have been working away on an interior design project with a client who wants the building finished as soon as possible but never makes a decision about anything. I went to a meeting with a Qatari gentleman who is building a new house for himself, his wife and his youngest daughter. It’s on a new development – the ‘rediscovered island’ called The Pearl. ‘Rediscovered’ seems to be stretching the definition of the word – it’s a brand new series of islands much like the World or the Palm in Dubai. It’s going to be Doha’s ‘premier address’, so it’s lucky there will be plenty of place for people to revel in being premier – they’re building at least 20 identical multi-storey towers. Anyway, this guy is building this enormous villa for himself (8 bedrooms, multiple reception rooms, servant quarters etc) and has bought the 5 adjacent plots so his married sons and daughters can build their homes nearby. His house will include an outside swimming pool, and an underground ‘den’ which has a big window opening on to the swimming pool so you can see people swimming underwater. Is that a bit weird?

Otherwise, I’ve been working on an office-refurbishment which is on site at the moment. I visited last week to check construction progress. Visiting sites in the UK was always a pretty male affair, but here you would have thought a wild animal had just walked in judging by the look of awe/surprise on the face of builders. I think the clients find it a bit strange too – an Egyptian guy swore (mildly) in front of me last week during a meeting before apologising profusely and saying it’s just because he’s not used to working around women.

Mr A has been busy too. His office has moved to a spanking new building where the air conditioning works and it’s not a national disgrace to invite someone to a meeting. He’s realising the lack of work/life separation when living in post, as everyone we ever meet asks his opinion about the latest political issue, hoping they’ll get some titbit from him that they haven’t yet read in the press. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they get the longest, most diplomatic explanation. That’ll teach them to ask questions.

The day-to-day reality of living in Qatar continues to amaze/ divert/ amuse. I sat next to a Qatari family having lunch in a shopping mall where the mother was wearing a full-black abaya, with a huge diamante ‘DIOR’ on the back. You can bet that it was probably genuine. Her daughter were all eating Café Paul cakes, or not eating them because the portion of cake was huge and the girls were tiny, so the Philipina maid (who was about the same size as the 7 year old) was eating the cake remains. Driving around, I have got used to seeing at least one Hummer a day. Generally being driven by a Qatari man on his own, stopping off to buy some chicken shwarma. I’m sure that’s exactly what the military designers had in mind when they finalised the bullet-proof exterior. In the local press, they are careful to keep astride of breaking news. Page 3: Brigadier Honours Young Qatari National (who handed a wallet he found in the street).

The weather here is a total mystery. Some days it is beautifully sunny and if you go outside in the middle of the day, it’s hot. Mid-February, it was truly appalling (ah, the shimaal wind, the old-timers say knowingly). It was really windy, cold and there was yet more fog. Leaving work one day Mr A warned me to be careful of the fog. I said I would, thinking to myself that he really was a bit worrisome since there was near-perfect visibility outside my office. I merrily started driving home, and steadily saw less and less. I can’t remember ever being in such visible, thick clouds, only they are around your car rather than up in the sky. I could see the clouds being blown by the wind, and could literally only see about 1m in front. On the corniche, usually fast moving, everyone was driving at 30km/hr with their hazards on. The only time I’ve been followed by a Hummer, rather than seeing the back of it as it overtakes on the inside. (photos show the view from our balcony before- and after- superfog).

We chose the beginning of this weather-phenomenon to go to a beach in the North. It wasn’t at all warm, so we walked along it rather than sunbathing on it. This gave us the opportunity to see what a well-liked Qatari beach is all about – a long line of tents and portaloos on the sand with the odd abandoned vintage car.

Some of them have installed 3-piece suites to ensure a sea-side view in a comfortable seat.

You also walk along the 4x4 and dune-buggy tracks, but luckily the wind had scared off the drivers and it was brilliant to be in open air.

We had brought a picnic with us, and the new car came into its own as we put the boot up and camped out in the back, sheltered from the gales. Suitably sated, we went to find the infamous Qatar rock carvings. ‘Head right in to the desert’. Admittedly they may not be prime examples, but we did find at least 5 small circles carved in a line. And a lot of camels. All in a landscape which resembles the moon.

Of course, we celebrated Valentine’s day as the anniversary of us first getting together all those years ago. All of the alcohol-licensed restaurants were advertising hideous romantic meals, only four billion riyals each, including every sickly love-inspired trinket a girl could want. We decided to cook supper at home. Mr A was in charge of the starters. A lengthy phone call to Mum resulted in an idea for Avocado Surprise. A surprise it was when he realised that all of the 8 avocados he had bought were so unripe they were inedible. Abandoning that plan, we got stuck in to the champagne before starting on the main course of fish pie. I had bought some unbelievably expensive mussels and was geared up to cook Nigel Slater’s finest. Opening up the packet unleashed a foul smell but determined to get value for money, I steamed them anyway. The warm smell made Mr A feel so nauseous that he had to leave the kitchen and light every candle we own. I threw the mussels away. Ploughing on with the remaining ingredients, I realised fish pie takes a really long time to cook and so by the time we ate our romantic meal at 11pm, we were quite drunk, not very hungry, and certainly had no room for the delicious apple tarts I was going to whip up as the finale. Next year we might be tempted by the overpriced Italian….

In order to be good sports (hee hee), we participated in a sports day organised by the Qatari Olympic organisation. It was at a ‘camp’ in the desert – go to the resort and turn right in the desert, we’d been told. And that is literally what the meant – we got to the resort, and turned right across sand dunes and plains, in order to find a random assortment of tents and (very small) pitches surrounded by sand dunes. Unfortunately no-one seemed to have told the coach driver that you really need a 4x4 to drive through sand as we passed the 70-seater coach stranded 2 metres in.

Mr A marshalled the troops and there were full teams for football, volleyball, and ping –pong, which were all duly knocked-out in the first round. Mr A scored the team’s only goal in the football match, but failed to get his penalty in. He did better than his somewhat podgy team-mate who had a cigarette as a warm-up and lasted 5 minutes. The volleyball team hadn’t quite got round to training and the 17-3 score didn’t accurately reflect the effort they put in. I, of course, stayed well clear of any actual sport and only exerted myself in order to climb up a big sand dune.

Which was really quite exhausting. We had to go and have a boozy lunch looking out over the sea to recover.

On the sport theme, we went to watch some women’s tennis. We saw two Eastern Europeans play in the quarter-finals (I can’t remember what their names were. I think that gives away my marginal lack of interest in tennis) which was so packed (mostly men, can’t think what interest they had in two women in very short skirts) that we had to stand at the back. This was during the aforementioned windy spell and it was so bloody cold we had to leave as Sharapova came on. We then tried to go to the final. We had tickets, which you may think meant we might get in to the stadium. Silly you. Of course, they close the doors before the match starts and don’t tell you why. We met the Al Jazeera sports correspondent who couldn’t get in either. We went to eat Moroccan food instead and so missed Sharapova being presented with her Harley Davidson….

Finally, we have met lots of lovely people in the past month which confirms that enjoying a place is mostly about chatting / drinking / eating with interesting people. We’ve been honing our socialising skills at suppers with millionaires, and rating receptions (I’m going to start refusing to go unless they’re at the Four Seasons and have free sushi). We have also come across people who are unlikely to be our friends, but make up for it by being unfeasibly entertaining. We went for a swim yesterday and were next to a middle-aged European man. On approach, we’d seen him slip a plastic carton out of his bag and pour a clear liquid into his orange juice. Ah, suspicious. As we sunbathed and read papers, relaxing into our weekend, he put in his earphones (connected to a really old-school walkman the like of which you haven’t seen since the eighties) and began his karaoke…. ‘miles and miles…… miiiiyllles and mi-i-i-i-i-iles…… head wouuunnd…… on the magic buuuuus.’ This went on for about 25 minutes. I think he proved that some people are driven mad by Doha. And that drinking very strong vodka-oranges doesn’t improve one’s singing.

Very best wishes for March

x

Hangovers, hard-hats and helipads

Hello! Remember me? I know it’s been a very long time since I last sent one of these. Somehow December disappeared in work, weddings, Christmas and general coldness/fog in the UK. Then January disappeared in work, laziness and general coldness/fog in Qatar.

Before we went ‘home’ over Christmas, we went to some more Al Jazeera parties and drank far too much. In fact, neither of us have felt that bad the following morning for an incredibly long time (probably not since the day after our leaving party in London) and did that thing of waking up quite early because your dehydrated brain hurts so much you can’t even sleep. After some Nurofen, we passed out again and didn’t wake until 3.30pm. Considering we had a load of people from Mr A’s office coming round for drinks at 5.30pm, and we didn’t have any drinks, this was less than ideal. We sprang in to action and while I manically cleaned the flat, Mr A went to purchase said drinks and snacks. Of course, everyone else in Doha had been up for hours and there is nothing the average Doha-ite likes better than to do a spot of shopping/mooching at the Mall on a Friday afternoon. So he sat in a traffic jam for half an hour and failed to get a parking place so failed to get into the supermarket. He then went to the other, slightly rubbish, smaller supermarket which didn’t sell half the things we needed. Colleagues arrived just as we had made ourselves look human and our flat presentable, and asked innocent questions like ‘what have you been up to today?’….’Um, you know, hanging out. Not much really.’ I didn’t touch anything but orange juice and water until 11pm. The smell of serving wine to others almost made me vomit, and both of us had to keep disappearing in to the kitchen for some bites of an emergency sandwich.

In the UK, we realised we were not in any way prepared for the cold. Mr A almost left Doha with one jumper and no coat. We went to a beautiful Lebanese/British wedding and, almost as good, went for a huge fry-up the next morning with LOADS of bacon and sausages. We then went to Debenhams and bought as many hats, gloves and scarves as we could realistically fit on ourselves. All this made us late for Aladdin the panto, but luckily we snuck in and apart from my sister very loudly asking what time we thought it was, no-one noticed. Especially not my sister’s boyfriend who was far too busy belting out catchy panto songs and throwing sweets at children to bother with us.

Christmas and New Year passed in a very pleasant blur of pork, potatoes and wine. We spent huge amounts of quality time with our families doing wholesome things like playing charades and walking the dog. My sister made me almost pee myself with laughter by hitting herself on the head with a muddy Wellington boot whilst trying to sort out her tangled sock in the middle of a wood. And she almost made me kill myself by singing Leona ‘I keep bleeding’ Lewis songs at us all. The other sister managed to do all her shouting whilst we were staying with Mr A’s parents which was lucky. And she gave me a Habitat mug which is making my tea drinking in Doha a simple but never-ending pleasure.

Since we’ve been back, we’ve been working hard. The joy of driving a brand-new car is yet to fade, though sitting at traffic lights is definitely boring. I continue to appreciate the subtle diversions Doha has to offer. Like the fact that barely any construction workers wear hard-hats when they’re welding huge pieces of steel or walking under moving cranes, but a gang of 50 of them were all wearing brand-new yellow hard-hats to sweep a road. Or that the only piece of abandoned furniture or rubbish I’ve seen is a huge, brown armchair neatly placed at a bus stop.

I’ve been spending many a lunchtime in Costa coffee, appreciating the genuinely Qatari experience of them not having had any hot chocolate for over two months – ‘sorry Madam, would you like an espresso instead’. It is an amazing place to people watch – I followed the progress of a young Qatari man pushing a trolley with two small shopping bags in it down a flight of stairs, along a half-build pavement, across a flower bed, across a grass lawn, down a kerb, along a road, through a trench, and up another kerb. Rather than just picking up the bags and carrying them to his Land Cruiser. I continue to be mystified by Qatari women wearing a full veil (with thin black fabric over their heads so you can’t see any facial features), and then sunglasses over the top. Inside shops. I also got to go up on to the helipad of a new building (about 35 stories up) where there are no side-rails or walls on the edge. Amazing views. Less amazing stories from the (Lebanese) Contractor who built it, earnestly telling me that when they were laying the concrete screed it was so windy that (Indian, Pakistani, and Nepali) workers were being blown from one side of the helipad to the other. But of course they were strapped to a harness, and he couldn’t stop them working because ‘once you show them you’re soft, they won’t have any respect for you’.

I can tell that I’ve been at my office for a while because the call to prayer that I can hear from my desk is a way of measuring the day, and I am highly discombobulated when it’s not the usual muezzin. Mr A can tell that he’s been at his office for a while because he had to clear up all the pieces of paper that he’s been putting on a big pile for 3 months in order to move to a new building.

We have been spending time to doing all sorts of things that would never occur to us in the UK, and appreciating the sporting diversions Qatar has to offer. Of course, not actually playing any of them, but watching Andy Murray win the Qatar Open, and lots of quite camp golfers not win the Qatar Masters. I found the tennis quite stressful because they’d obviously got some local kids to be ball boys and they permanently looked like they were going to take out a player with one of their balls. And old Murray is really quite aggressive with a split personality disorder where he shouts at himself between games: ‘you can do better than that Andy, you f***ing twat’.

We celebrated Australian National Day (and no-one mentioned that apparently the Aborigines call it Invasion Day) at a compound barbecue. We continue to walk along the corniche almost every week (us and a lot of women in black abayas and bright white trainers) and visit souq waqif, where if you’re lucky Qatari men are banging drums. We also visited the Islamic Cultural Centre where a very nice man wrote our names in Arabic calligraphy, and a very nice woman tried to convert me to Islam.

I went to meet Mr A in Cairo for the weekend mid-January, since he was already there for a conference. We spent a fantastic 48 hours visiting pyramids south of Cairo, looking around mosques (including Ibn Tulun – one of my favourites, though you do have to wear special foot covers which make you look quite silly but better than the ewok outfit in Damascus), climbing minarets, drinking in smoke-filled ‘pubs’, going to posh-British-Arabic-students parties and eating curry.

It was really enjoyable being in a bustling, chaotic, grubby city where there are people on the streets and everyone speaks Arabic. Almost as different to Doha as being in London.

Hope you all enjoyed January…
xx