There have been a couple of major leaps (or maybe hops) forward this week for the Hendrikse Lauchland Mercers. Firstly we have new cars - yahoo. It costs NZ$35 more per week to buy brand new cars than to rent as we have been doing. My car is a sensible 7-seater people-mover 4 wheel drive Hyundai Santa Fe. Colour: sand (if you ask me); champagne colour if you asked Ian. It is wonderful and I feel very grand sailing along in her. I can now eyeball the Toyota Landcruiser rocket drivers all around me. This eyeballing technique makes for a much easier time on the road, surprisingly enough. A technique that hasn't worked in the new car has unfortunately been my backing technique....I put a scratch on the back bumper on the First Day, which Ian has taken undue delight in telling everyone about.
The other car is Ian's. This is Hyundai coupe - colour vivid blue. Ian calls the car the Bluebird of Happiness, which has been quickly changed by me to the Skateboard of Happiness because it is so low it feels just like we are riding on a skateboard. The boys fit in the back ok. Here are the boys doing a car inspection.It is a zippy wee thing. Lots of fun to drive. No scratches on it.
The other event has been the purchase of the TV. It is up on the wall of the lounge. It is big. Ian chose. You can watch two different channels in the house at once; there is a second outlet for another TV in the room next to the lounge. This room will be the MTV room. The installation was done over a couple of hours by some very cheerful technicians - one exuberant Syrian ("from Old Damascus") and a quiet Indian guy. It seems geekiness transcends race and continent. We have 6 trillion channels to choose from. Our Syrian technician took us through an exhaustive selection of them but lingered on the BBC Food channel ("this channel is too much perfect").
Ian took the opportunity while the TV guys were on the roof to shinny up the ladder and take some photos of the compound and surrounds, so here is a bird's eye view of our little dusty corner of Doha.
This photo looks across the road over our neighbours place towards the Khalifa Stadium. This, and the tower next to it was built for the recent Asia Games which were held in Doha last December. The tower was where the flame was burning for the duration of the games.
This photo looks down the street along one of the rows of villas Just Like Ours. You can see the Skateboard of Happiness below. Across the road is a little playhouse in front of our neighbour's house, which we call the Committee Room. At dusk every night a collection of small girls gather in and around it like sparrows. They do a lot of running and screaming and occasionally you can see them riding their bikes wearing little dress- up high heels. The bikes are all pink. A couple of weeks ago an anonymous letter was left for Robbie by one of the girls.
Quote: "Dear Robbeiy, I love you so much I want to kiss you on the lips. From Britny Spiers xxx ooo". On the other side of the paper there were a lot of red lovehearts, three little pink lipstick kiss marks, "I love you" and a clue, "I live in America". It took the boys quite a while to work out which six year old had written the letter.
This photo looks in the same direction as the previous photo but from the other side of the house, over the outer perimeter wall of Al Faisaliya Compound. You can see twin minarets of one of the mosques close to us, and the flat expanse of dusty stony land behind us. It has just been levelled off ready to build on. 
This photo looks in the opposite direction towards the old part of the city, the sea and the airport. The digger has been resident outside the boy's bedrooms for a couple of weeks now, digging drains. There is no reticulated water supply where we are yet - all the water is trucked in to tanks in our compound...for a 210- house compound it must be a huge amount of water.
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