Bringing Oil to the Middle East

When Nana Shirley stayed, she was put to work sewing hockey bibs for Leo and Robbie's hockey team. As maintenance isn't my strong point, it was noted that my sewing machine had a terrible squeak. Shirley went home and contacted Charles and Kris before they came over - repeatedly - to ensure that some sewing machine oil was brought over to remedy the problem. When Kris arrived she commented that it is probably the only time in history that oil has been brought To the Middle East.


Here's the evidence Nana!











And here's a bunch of cuzzie photos.

A studio shot of the girls:














Frostie really enjoying having his photo taken:
Charles and Shirley:

And just because somehow Leo hasn't had a photo of himself on here for a while, here's one of him too.

Dunestock

We are having such a lovely time with visitors staying at the moment. Right now, Shirley, my cousin, and Frostie her husband are staying with us. They leave tomorrow just as our Garrick arrives to live with us and work here for two months before going back to uni in Auckland. Other cousins Charles and Kristen arrived early this morning and will stay until Thursday. Ian and I and the cuzzies will all meet in the UK at the end of this week for a special wedding - Shirley's daughter Carlie is getting married in Tunbridge Wells. So we are going around the souq, sightseeing, hitting the malls and generally trying to show everybody a good time. It's such fun and we feel so blessed to be able to see people we love, even though we live so far away now.

Yesterday was the long-awaited yearly event "Dunestock" - a music festival out in the desert at - where else - the singing dunes where local musicians strut their stuff in a fund-raiser for Doha Players, the local theatre company. We arranged to meet our lovely group of friends there, and an advance party of blokes went out to set up gazebos, place carpet on the sand, place chairs and tables and generally have a prime spot looking ready to party in style for the more gorgeous half of the group when we arrived three hours later at 2pm.

It should have been a clue to us when we couldn't see very far in front of us driving out there - a sandstorm had started and it looks like dusty fog if you look out of a window. If you are in the midst of it, it feels like you are being sandblasted in a very warm and gritty hurricane. However, full of optimism we pressed on, past the cars that were leaving the festival, on through the more hardy partygoers to our site.

We made a valiant attempt. We drank arabic coffee that Leyla brought along, climbed the singing dunes, caught up with just about everyone we knew, watched Leo and Robbie and Robbie's friend Shamus making their way around in their rainbow wigs, bought the teeshirt and generally prepared ourselves to have a good time. But then it started to unravel. One of the gazebos blew in and caught Leyla on the back of her head. Sand blew in our eyes. Grit filled our ears and mouth. The chairs blew over. We beat a strategic retreat to Jenny and Rob's house who let the disreputable, sand-encrusted crowd spread our picnic food on their pristine table and socialise the evening away in their lovely house, where the only hot air was the sound of the guys telling each other lies as fast as they could.

When Frostie quietly let it be known that he was short of breath and his voice was 4 octaves lower than normal, we said our farewells and whisked him off to Doha Clinic to see a doctor. He was given a nebuliser and slowly came right. Apparently going out in a sandstorm is the worst thing you can do if you have asthma. Apparently the clinic had hordes of people coming through with breathing problems yesterday.

Clare the Bear came to stay

At the same time as Salim was being born, the Watts came to stay with us. Clare is my best friend. We have known each other since we nursed together in the Woolavington wing of the Central Middlesex Hospital in London in 1987. We've seen each other through babies, bereavements, marriages (in my case), house moves, and various big old messy life events. She's one of the rocks in my life, always to be relied on for an honest opinion and a good laugh, and to be totally on my side. Jon, her husband is similarly wonderful, as are their kids, Tom, Georgie and Harry. I plan to live next door to them one day.

They arrived for the school holidays, only some of which I was able to take off unfortunately, but no worries, I hired the school bus and a driver and off they went around Qatar to look at everything. Leo and Robbie were the tour guides, so they told me.

The time with them was deeply deeply satisfying. Ian and Clare and Jon got on very well together, as did all the kids.

Salim's Kharoof

Three weeks ago I had the great privilege to be with our friends Racha and Tarek when they had their first baby. Salim was born by caesarian section, safe and well in Doha Clinic. Racha went home after a couple of days. Tarek and Hana, Racha's mother, looked after her. Salim is well and thriving.

Two weeks later Tarek announced he was going to have a kharoof (lamb) feast to celebrate Salim's arrival and as we have more room in our courtyard than they do, it was held at our place. As well as Racha, Tarek, Hana and Salim, there were our Canadian-Armenian-Israeli friends Abkar, Mervat, Sevan and Maral, and Tarek's Canadian cousin Zainab and her husband Ranea.

The kharoof arrived on a tray of fragrant rice. The tray was a metre and a half in diameter - I kid you not. And talking about kid, it turned out not to be lamb at all, but baby goat. From Saudi Arabia. It was absolutely delicious - another new experience here. We ate with our hands, straight off the tray, and ate and ate and ate. And then had Arabic sweets. And chocolates.

We then ate goat shepherd's pie for a couple of days.

Salim is the most adorable baby. We see him very regularly and fight over who will hold him. We're looking forward to seeing him get bigger and to be a part of his journey.

Robbie's 11th Birthday

Robbie had his 11th birthday party today with a bunch of friends; Seamus, Sean, Jared, Hassan, Ahmed, Rafiq, Madeleine, Erika and Huda. We had pass the parcel, a donut eating copetition, helium balloons with Mickey Mouse singing, lots of swimming in the pool (as it is 37*) and a movie at the end. And a birthday cake of course. And rainbow wigs, Robbie's own little quirky touch. He told us he was happy today. Doesn't he look cool?

Robbie's International Games

Last Thursday and Friday Robbie competed in an international school tournament - the British Schools of the Middle East tournament. There were fourteen schools competing, from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE and so forth; the tournament was held right here in Qatar in a place called Al Khor about an hour from home. The kids were a great mixture of all cultures, all of whom attend English-speaking schools. In Robbie's school there are 52 different nationalities represented; the other schools I saw look similar.

Robbie had been selected to play in three of the four codes, athletics, soccer and basketball. He has been training for weeks - we have been arriving at school for 7am three days a week, and some days he has had five little training sessions.

He came third in the standing triple jump, and his basketball team reached the final and had a thrilling and close match. Park House School came fourth overall, which was a huge improvement compared to previous years, due competely I am sure to Robbie's presence in the team.
Here they are getting ready for the basketball tournament(above) and playing (below).

The stamps and the security black mark

I've been having a week or two of irritating Doha bureaucracy lately. I thought I was used to it and could now face all bureaucratic moments with serene calm these days, but last weekend I proved myself wrong.

It started in November with getting a police clearance from New Zealand, so that I can be taken on as a staff member at Sidra, rather than on the current contract basis. The police clearance, due to an unfeasibly slow mail journey, took a month to arrive in New Zealand. It got there just before Christmas, and then had an unfeasibly slow journey back to Qatar. It arrived in early February after I had lost all hope of it ever arriving at all. I took it triumphantly to our Immigration Officer, Ahmed, and did a little victory dance in his office. Ahmed, an immensely dignified character, looked at it coolly.

"There is no stamp," he said.
"What do you mean, 'stamp'?" I naively asked.
"You need a stamp from your embassy."

Of course, a stamp. Silly me. I went off to find a suitable embassy to stamp my police clearance, as the closest NZ embassy is in Saudi Arabia. After a bit of scouting, I found that the British Embassy would do it for me for QR255. Unfortunately they were just about to move into new premises and would not be open for ten days. I waited. I got it attested and got my stamp. I went back to Ahmed, triumphant again.

"I am very sorry, but the rules at CID have just changed," he said, "the police clearance has to be translated into Arabic before the CID will process it."

I was cool, calm and serene at this news.

"No problem," I said sweetly, "I'll take to the souq. They have lots of people there who can do this for me."

A look of horror crossed his face. I was talking about a little street of men with typewriters in Souq Waqif, who work out of closet-sized offices. A wee industry has sprung up here to take care of just this kind of problem.

"Let us take care of the translation," he said. "That will be QR20".

After the translation was done, he then broke the news that the translation needed a further stamp. I told him I was not going back to the British Embassy again, once was quite enough. He told me that they would take care of it, no problem, but it would cost me another QR255. Perhaps I might like to go there myself, and see if they would stamp it again for me, two for the price of one. Off I went to the British Embassy, or was it Fort Knox. It cost another QR255.
I think the British Embassy must have taken pity on me though, it came back so festooned with ribbons and stamps that I'm sure the CID will give my police clearance a very rapid passage.

Anyway after all this, last Saturday Leo, Robbie and I went over to Education City, where I work, to take advantage of their magnificent staff amenities. The boys were to play football with the sons of some of my workmates in one of the gyms, and I was going to do pilates with some friends. We were late. The only park was a gap in a row of illegally-parked cars, all of which had a sticker of shame on them warning them of their illegal parking and of the dire consequences if they did that again. Reasoning that the security guy wouldn't possibly have time to come around and put a sticker on my car in the short time we had left, I parked defiantly along with the rest of the bad people.

When we came out I had a sticker of shame. And the security guy was standing next to my car. I had to brazen it out.

"You have parked in the wrong place," he opened.
"I know," I said, picking off the sticker.

I felt quite mad all of a sudden. All this bureaucracy. Even though he was right. I crumpled up the sticker and threw it disdainfully in the car.

"And," he said, warming up, "why does your parking permit have a different number to your registration?"

Oh no. Busted. My fake photocopied parking permit. Suddenly I was really mad.

"Well!" I said evilly, "If it didn't take you you guys SIX WEEKS to get around to giving me a proper one, I wouldn't have to do these things!"

"I am going report you to the gate security," he said, "They will write down your registration number."

"Do that! Do that!" I shouted. I was almost gesticulating by this stage. "I will tell them just the same thing!"

I tossed my head and gathered the boys into the car and roared off.

The only problem is that I have to go back soon. I wonder if my registration number will be in their little black book.