Fishing Qatar Style

Aussie Dave rang yesterday morning with an offer to go fishing. We had been before but his was on a little (25ft) charter boat. It could take six people so organized for Damian and Colleen to come along and we teamed up with Dave, Greg and Nora, who work for other companies here in Qatar doing the same work. Now I really enjoy fishing and with the weather always fine here and the sea relatively calm I thought this would be a great way to spend a quiet Friday afternoon. So we meet down the wharf finally find out boat and skipper and we head off. We stop in at the coastguard barge to let them know of our plans. I should have been a little worried as the skipper didn’t know the name and number of his boat and the directions he gave the coastguard seemed to confuse him. We have to stop and get fuel first and this is a great little comedy show as well as there are only two fuel pumps and there is a bit of a queue. It is a bit like the driving on the roads. Finally sorted we head off out passed the airport and fly down the coast. The guy has twin 225 HP Johnson outboards on so we are going pretty quickly. Now before we started I asked him about lifejackets as I’m not a great swimmer. He said he had one for me if I wanted. I told him no I just wanted to make sure he had them on board. Turns out when he said he had one he literally had one and three little floating boys. Colleen found these and also noted the lack of a fire extinguisher, no marine radio or gps. As it turns out no fish finder either! This wasn’t a problem initially but when we started heading away from the coast out into the shipping lanes in the Arabian Sea on a course for Iran and our cellphones lost coverage I started to get a little worried. Now I did say this was a fishing trip didn’t I? When we pulled up to our first fishing spot it became obvious that fishing trips as a tourist exercise were new, novel and this was to become another adventure that we would add to the tapestry of life we call Qatar. No rods, no bait just five hand lines for six people with sibikis. After 2 and a half hours of cruising around looking for fishing spots for us to use these finely crafted fishing instruments we said “Halas” take us home. For the record the kiwis won 4-3 in fish catching competition with the largest fish being 3 inches long. And the next time Dave rings for a fishing trip I am going to be sick.

Quiet Times

Up until now we have had a very active time here. During the work week we are pretty busy and the weekends have been filled with various activities so finding time to do some things has been a challenge in some respects. We have often joked how difficult it is going to be when we move out of the hotel given our busy schedules to find time to cook and do washing. The middle of June looks like it will be our time now so we may have to start thinking about having to cook. Anyway yesterday, with nothing planned apart from dinner at an Italian restaurant and a look at some shop sales it looked like it was going to be a long quiet day which I wasn’t looking forward to. I had a number of tasks that I had to do for my NZ colleagues back home which I had been putting off so got up early and started working away. This was probably the first time I have felt alone in this place which is pretty good considering I have been here 12 weeks. Anyway Aussie Dave rang with a plan so my day was about to change. I suppose it is important when you are by yourself in a foreign place that you need to keep active and make connections with others or this type of experience could be quite difficult

Quiz night

We took part in a local quiz night at the hotel where we have joined the fitness centre. Every Monday night they have one and I feel it will become a regular event for us from now on. Now as my friends and family will tell you I like a bit of niggle a little bit of competition in these types of events. Trust me I pale in comparison to my esteemed team mates. We started well and were leading in the first 2 of the 3 round competition. You got 1 point per question for the first round, 2 for the second and 3 for the third. Unfortunately for us the quiz master obviously came from an English background and that led to our downfall. The NZ advantage went out the window when the only question that was about our part of the world was a map of New Zealand on a piece of paper asking contestants to name the country…really hard for those people who came from other parts of the world. Whereas we need to name the team who won the 1898 english football league.. Well my colleagues got a bit tictchy with the guy at the table next to ours who utilizing the technology available was googling away on his G3 mobile. I would of given him extra points fro creativity. Not my team after looks of disgust they went and complained to the judge. Come on guys, build a bridge, get over it. It’s just a game…. Does that sound like me??

The Workout

We joined the fitness centre at another of the local hotels recently. Our hotel is great and we could in all possibility spend our entire time here in Qatar in 5 star luxury –inshallah. But our hotel doesn’t have a pool which we felt we really needed. So we joined for three months. You get a swipe card, access to the pool, gym, steam room, sauna, a free tee shirt and a personal fitness developed by the personal trainer. So yesterday while the boys lay by the pool and worked on their tans and sleeping impressions I went to get my programme. The guy is great a small philopino man. He had me work through a muscle strengthening and flexibility programme for about 45-50 minutes. By the time I was finished I couldn’t move my arms. This morning I can really feel it. So I wandered back to the pool area where the lads had awoken and were cooling off. I tried to dive into the pool but I couldn’t lift my arms so sort of feel in sideways. That end of the pool is about 8 feet deep so I was grateful we only worked on the upper body as my legs were able to get me to safety. That was until by body erupted into spasims of cramp… gonna love the workouts.

It's getting hotter

The heat has picked up, actually the humidity. The car reading yesterday was 49 coming home. It was hot but not unbearable but as the day wore on the humidity increased. The actual temperature dropped by about 10 degrees but it was quite stifling. Roll on July-August where they saying just getting from your door to your car is a killer. Speaking of heat I was driving with Sue one of our team out to work and she was saying she had to give her new croc jandals away. She had only recently bought them and I’d been told they were incredibly comfortable. Turns out she left them in her car and the heat turned them from size 8 to 7s. She gave them away to Lyn who has smaller feet.

The Photos

Just a note for some of my not so techno savvy family and friends. You can click on the photos to get an enlarged version of the pictures if they are hard to see :-). But you knew that did you?

Family Connections

I was having a chat with Brian, a colleague who comes from the west coast,while watching the canes go down to the red and blacks. He is a friend of John's whom I have written about in an earlier post. He indicated that there was someone he knew in Doha who shared the same surname as mine and also came from the coast as my father's family had. A couple of emails home as well as a further conversation between Brian and Pip confirmed this connection. Pip's father was my dad's first cousin. This is all very exciting as I don't think dad has ever met Pip so I'm hopefully going to head out sometime this week armed with my camera to catch up with her and grab a photo. It feels incredibly strange finding a relative living in Qatar, it really does. The world is such a small place. It was interesting that as I was reading dad's emails as he was describing the family tree and the connections I saw my nana's name appear. She passed away when I was 15 but all these memories came flooding back. I have this image of her leaning on the kitchen bench of her little flat having a cigarette, the blue cheese and crackers, the glass of sherry. The dark furniture, her fox tail fur wrap. Always beautifully presented. She always used to sit in the same place when we went to church as kids. I think it was about the sixth or seventh row from the front, always on the right hand side. As young kids we would walk down to her place on Saturday mornings (before sport took over) to have a piece of cake or slice and wash her windows. She would tell us that my dad was her little baby boy. My grandfather was a lawyer on the coast and died rather tragically when my father was in his teens. His brother died in his teens also. I hadn't ever thought of the family having to live with the loss of both a child / brother and husband / father at a young age. The things you think of. Will follow up with a future post of the family reunion. Not sure what you call my relationship with Pip. Will have to find out

Doha at night

We went for a night crusie this week on one of the dhows to celebrate a couple of birthdays from people in the american crew who are in this part fo the world as well. We had met them via work and we received an invite so decided to join them. The city is stunning at night

Drive like a local, park like one

This little photo is of our car parked outside the hotel. Yes we parked it. Not me this time. But you can see how we have adapted to the local culture. This type of parking is a common occurrence across the city. I think there was an earlier photo of another car showing the owners creative parking ideas. Mind you we have come out of the hotel a couple of times now to find big scraps down the side of our car.

The tribal council has spoken

We have survived the next elimination round and are still in the hotel. The five spare apartments went to a couple of Aussies, an American and two other NZers who had been at the hotel less time than us. We don’t understand the rationale behind the thinking we just say Ahumdilallah to that. Means more time supporting the boys and their cricket.

Talk of the split for GR5 since early last week was part of my hitting the wall. I was talking with one of our group and they were trying to work out whether their feelings about the place were overshadowed by their feelings for our group… if you weren’t in this group would you see this place in the same positive light? He was making a fair comment as I’m sure it could be very lonely here without that sort of connection.

He's back!

I had my little moment and now I’m back. After a couple of emails from friends and family I’m sorted. So thanks very much for those. What was of more concern was the question regarding whose eye that was. Asked by two members of my family I might add. Faz is the sensitive travelling type, I’m quite happy to rough it so the eye is definitely not mine. And don’t worry, Faz eventually got his eye sorted. He doesn’t look like that now. His first-aid kit took up half his luggage so I think from memory he had five possible medications to treat the eye with. The photo by the way is the view from the McDonalds at Frankfurt airport. If you ever have a 13 hour layover in Frankfurt you need to know that the only comfortable seats available in the entire airport (that we could find after hours of wandering) were in Mac’ers. So grab a Big Mac or seven, if you’re there that long and enjoy the view. We got pretty good at identifying the differences between airbus 319s and 320s from 1500 metres… it’s all in the shape of the nose. I think that's a triple 777 by the way for you plane spotters.

We'll always have...

Hit the wall today with this place. They say it happens here after a couple of months. Lots of change happening and am a little unsettled. Life has been a bit of a roller coaster working funny hours and touching base with people at different times. Things like accommodation are up in the air and our stay here in the hotel is probably going to end in the next few days. Have been thinking about people a lot. With changes like these it is easy to lose what you have. Staff at the hotel are just one example. We see them everyday. We have seen them grow in confidence with us over the last ten weeks. One of our group noted that service has declined as they tend to hang round and talk with us rather than serve us quickly. I get texts if I don’t turn up to dinner, “where are you habibi? Sea food night come quick before all gone! Living in a hotel means we spend time 2-3 times a day sharing food and conversation. This is great both personally and professionally. I wonder if it will be the same in apartments? As my friend Faz says (after 84 hours in transit he had sore eyes!) we’ll always have Frankfurt!

Another lost in translation

Had an interesting situation the other morning where I received my usual greeting from my friend in the form of hand shake, hug and kiss on each cheek. A female associate who hasn’t been here as long as us said, “can I have one of those as well” and proceeded to do the same. Now my friend is confused by this behaviour and became quite excited by this. I have had to explain that she is married and was just being friendly and that where we come from it is a simple sign of friendship, nothing more. I don’t think he is convinced.

Belonging

There has been a slow change happening in the last fortnight. An acceptance by the Arabic men I spend time with. This kiwi is starting to belong, starting to feel part of the group. It is the little things that I try and do to support this. Sitting with them at prayers. Sharing a joke about my kiwi Arabic. The changes are now in the greetings I receive and give. The physical contact is greater, the formality of language is being lost. The sharing of information on a personal level is greater. I had my first “habibi” today which means my dear friend, my beloved.

It sort of makes sense

I was speaking with an aquaintance recently and found out that he has two wives. One he married in the mid 90’s and his second wife he married recently. This concept is foreign to me and so I was keen to find out some of the thinking behind it. He is expected to treat them equally in all ways so they each have a separate house and he spends alternate days with each family. He has children to each wife as well. We discussed why he took a second wife and he said that things weren’t going well in his first marriage and while divorce was an option he felt this was not good for the children. Taking a second wife stopped him from forming relationships with other woman as an outlet for his unhappiness, which would have been against his Islamic teachings. He said his relationship with his first wife improved after he took his second wife and things work well for everyone. I appreciate this is his perspective and their may be differing views. He can have up to four wives and I think this allows more flexibility to keep within the laws of Islam. It makes sense. Doesn’t it?

Life

We were at a session earlier this week and were waiting for an important speaker who was running late. This is not uncommon given the traffic at times. She arrived about 10 minutes late, apologised and explained she had been part of a terrible accident. She then proceeded to deliver her presentation in a very professional manner and left. We found out later that she was in her car and came to a roundabout so she stopped suddenly as the car in front had done so. The road laws are not as tough as they are at home. A truck carting steel pipes was following behind her. It braked suddenly and the loose piles flew forward over the top of the roof of her small car through the back window of the vehicle in front of her and killed the occupant in the car in front of her. While I have come to love the driving here as I think it must be a bit like what Sam gets out of flying choppers, constantly alert, a very sensory experience it probably pays to stay off the roads as much as you can.

The videos

Sorry to those of you without broadband as the videos probably won't work. Each pair is labelled part 1 and 2 so you need to watch part 1 first otherwise they might not make sense. Note: I did all my own stunts !!

Number 2 Driving Adenture Part 2

Number 2 Driving Adenture Part 1

Kiwis in Residence!

We had a bit of a discussion with Mazen about the flags that flew outside the hotel as there are usually five. Colleen had bought a New Zealand flag with her and so we asked if we could have our flag flying? He checked it out with the boss and when we woke up this morning there it was. Kiwis in residence. The GR5 has now expanded to about 9 with an extra John, Alison, Chris and now Lynne. So whenever a newbie arrives we'll see if we can get the flag hoisted in their honour. These guys are so good to us. They'll do anything if you ask.

Driving Adventure Part 2

Driving Adventure Part 1

You need to watch them in order!

The Zoo

Our first experience wasn’t a great one. It was closed! Pays to read the information book. Makes sense as it was closed between 12 and 3, the hottest part of the day. Got there this weekend and was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. There was a large range of animals. No polar bears or seals mind. It reminded me of our zoo back home as a child. The cages appeared to initially be designed to keep animals in and not designed for viewing, if that makes sense. They have since added this walkway above the animals so you get uninterrupted views of many of the them. The animals looked healthy and in good condition. The idea of stimulating caged animals hasn’t arrived here yet, so you get the pacing up and down the cages particularly with the big cats. You could get very close to the animals and I wondered if there had been any accidents as I watched the young child able to hand feed the grumpy ostrich. I was waiting for her hand to be snapped. Or the chimpanzee, grabbing the hand of the woman feeding it. Still very pleased I went as I had been told it wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience . Turned out to be a good day and I got some great photos.

More on Zubara

When we met the old man he must have sized up Damian so he came wandering across and wanted us to get up on the roof of the fort. It turned out that the flag was a bit tatty and he wanted it changed. The knots on the rope of the flag pole were beggared so the flagpole needed to come down. So Damian was able to get the pole down. I helped him get the old flag off and the rope sorted for the new flag. Then came the challenge of getting the new flag up. The pole was probably 5 metres in length and it had to be placed into a steel sleeve. Not too challenging apart from the fact that we are 3 storeys up with a nice sea breeze blowing. I held the end of the pole at the sleeve end while Damian (being taller of course) had to walk along the edge of the parapet moving the pole into a vertical position until it would slide down into the sleeve. Damian was in his kiwi workboots (jandals) on the edge of the parapet which was about 400mm wide. There was some edging on the outside of about 300mm and then a 3 storey drop. We did it without loss of life and the old man was grateful. We put it down to community service.

Fort Zubara

This was a classic fort built in the 1930s. Fantastic. It looks like it could have come out of the movies with the foreign legion. This was to be the highlight of our sightseeing trip until Julia read more detail in the Explorer where it stated that it was closed Fridays and Saturdays… that’s the weekend by the way.. So we rock on up start snapping through the fence and thinking this was as good as it was going to get until an old man came out of the house nearby, had a conversation with me in Arabic and handed me the keys. I think the gist of the conversation was,” you can go in if you like, have a look in the rooms and make sure you lock up when you are finished”.

Trip North

Well this was a bit of an adventure. The country hasn’t quite set up the tourism infrastructure you may be use to back home. We had a map, 4 wheel drive and a Qatar explorer guide. We were looking for ruins, forts and ancient drawings. We discovered that the roads on the map clearly didn’t define their quality. While we were in the 4wd, Stu, Sue and Lynne and Kerry from the early years team were in a car. I think their vehicle took a hammering as some of the secondary roads were…interesting. We had lunch in a family park and then went looking for ruins and rock piles. Didn’t find all that we were looking for. Must have driven past 10-15 sites without realizing. Finally found the site in this photo. There was a man there who talked with Colleen about its history and how as the town up the road developed and had better services people just moved away.

Watch out for Camels!

I suppose this was to be expected here given that they are the most logical animal to be seen crossing the road. Something else you take for granted in our euro centric world is the shape of images on signs. The sign for people crossing of course shows a man in a thobe, not the classic people sign you would see back home. These signs are often seen close to mosques on busy roads.

Not lost in translation

One of the dangers of trying to use a language you don’t really understand or don’t have the mouth shape to create words can be errors in pronunciation. Now if you are lucky you may get away with it in a safe setting. Always be careful. A great example of this was when I was at the exhibition centre with the hotel boys. The man from the Saeco coffee stand made us some real cappuccinos. Mazen thanked him and added a term of endearment to the thank you. So the phrase went something like, shukhran al khamar. Which means something like, you are like the moon which is apparently a nice saying. I asked him about this and as we were walking out I was practicing this phrase. Now because of the guttural way in which words are pronounced you end up with an h sound if you’re not careful. The boys started cracking up to which I enquired as to what was funny. My slight change of sound now made the phrase mean, thank you, you donkey!

Wish you were here!

After looking at Kim all cold and miserable on Skype and checking out the temperatures back in the 'umu I thought I would show you a photo of the car temperature gauge from last week. We think it is out by 3-4 degrees as the new car tends to show a more realistic temperature. If you do park the car in built up areas with high concrete content it does go up. If you don't believe in passive solar, spend time here. You'll be a convert. So read it and weep kiwis! It is very pleasant and we have adapted to the heat. We will suffer soon when it really cranks up. Apparently in can become very uncomfortable to breathe. Not looking forward to it. But in the meantime... 8-10 in NZ or 28-45 in Qatar too easy!

Cricket in the Carpark

The boys from the hotel were playing the Inter Continental Team. The match was to start at 6am on Friday morning as they had to be out of the carpark by 10. Damiian and I had said we would go and take more photos of them playing. We had caught up with some people from work the night before so had a very memorable night and were feeling very, very tired. So we drove out at 7 to take some pics and see how they were getting on. It's funny having your away match in a carpark! They get really excited and are very appreciative that we make the effort. We got some great photos but we unfortunately were not lucky omens. The boys lost. The first time in 15 games. I don't know if we'll get invited back

Winners

The team from the restaurant won the table dressing section of the competitions with the setting in the picture. The boys put a fair amount of work into their table and were justifibly proud of their efforts. I was really pleased they invited me to go and see the prizegiving. They were very creative and did some very clever things with design in simple ways.

Ice Sculptures

This was another section in the competitions. This particular piece stood out for me from one of the other hotels

Vegetable Carving

This is one of our chefs taking part in the vegetable carving. The final product reminded me of one of my dad's first wooden carvings, I think it was called sete.

I have just found out that we won the vegetable carving and ice sculpture competitions as well.

Hotel Staff

I’ve had lots of new and memorable experiences in the last week or so which I will take away with me from Qatar. Here are a few of them. There was a couple of major conventions on at the events centre this week. One was a major wedding convention and we had several of the models staying at the hotel with us. They made me feel decidedly short. The other was a hotel product expo. Part if this expo was a series of competitions which our hotel staff took part in. Mazen invited me along to see how the staff were going. I went as the hotel physio. That’s what it says on my badge.

Golf Highlight

Finally got to play the championship course yesterday. Fantastic. 42 degrees of heat made it a slog. Was a little excited to start with so fired double, double, double before bringing it back to a bogey then a long par streak. 8 pars, 1 birdie and several other scores.

No yardage book and no diagrams of layout so the play was a little difficult. It will be so much better second time around now that I know the layout. Found water on several occasions when I didn't know it was there. They have GPS on the carts so you get your yardage to objects, greens fronts, middles and centres.

Two highlights stand out. If you know the course from the European Tour the 16th hole is a drivable par four with that really large rock mound in front of the green. I think Cambo had it lucky with a great bounce a year or two back. Playing off the whites rather than the blues drove the green and had 20 foot putt for eagle. I was rapt. Took this photo to share my little milestone

Highlight number two. After 290 yards drive on par five 18 was able to hit my three wood into the front greenside bunker. 40 yards to pin I skunked it right over green and rough, missed putting green to hit large concrete area, high bounce last seen heading into clubhouse bar. Went for drink afterwards to check for broken windows. Love this game.

Local Workmanship

While we were on the way to our Thai meal I passed by a shop where this man was sitting in the window. He was making the rings which form part of the arabic head wear. I asked through the window if I could take a photo of him working and he was happy for me to do so. He was totally engrossed in his work and was totally oblivious to the world outside his shop window. Apart from the nosey westerner taking photos.

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

There's no getting away from it. It's people that make the experience. When I talk about the culture it is the actions of the people that create this. Colleen is taking this photo of the GR5 chilling out on a mild 42 degree afternoon by the pool after a day at the office. The heat makes you sleepy so a cold red bull keeps you awake for dinner. Here we are sharing a bit of love and singing Kumbya!

The Chocolate Fountain

Hi Ailish. In case you can't get the video to work, here it is the chocolate fountain! Our grpoup believes that brown food is good for you. Things like wholemeal bread, lentils and chocolate. The more you eat the healthier you become apparently.

Black Gold

When John's Kay came over she brought gifts of little pots of black gold. You're a gem Kay!!. I don't eat lots of vegemite at home, but when you can't have something you tend to miss it. This 220 gram beauty has pride of place in my room. I have been prepared to share it as some people here have been without since Janurary. I tend just to have a little spoonful every now and again. I think I'll take it down to brekkie, toast my bread and have lashings of butter , vegemite and topped it off with a bit of buffalo mossarella

A look at dinner

All the video is on my digital camera so apologies for the quality. How can I maintain my svelt figure here you ask? I'm not quite sure myself.

Wedding Performers

Wedding is on!

We went out to dinner to celebrate 8 weeks in Doha. A genuine Thai restaurant up Salwa Road was just the ticket. The parking was interesting!The Tom Yum Soup bought tears to John's eyes, literally as did my Thai Green Curry.

Wedding in a Carpark

You may remember an earlier post about the workers playing cricket in the carpark behind the hotel. Late last week this construction appeared which meant there was no cricket last friday. This is a common site in vacant lots across Doha. They tend to be for weddings

More on Camel Racing

As mentioned in previous posts we have been very lucky. When we get out to the camel track for some reason there is a race just about to start. Apparently it is very difficult for people to get clear information as to when these events are on. It is a bit vague so the chances of turning up at that time of the day and seeing a race were highly unlikely. Our guide has a word with security and gets us onto the track. He told me later that that has never happened to him before where they have turned up for their normal tour and found a race happening. This would only happen if they took a special tour early in the morning. Anyway our guide has a word with security and he gets us onto the track. The track is 5 kms long and is no different to a horse racing track. On the inside is a sealed road with two lanes. The camels are released from the gates is a very non mechanical way. You see this mass of helpers run for cover as the camels come thundering out of the start area. Then we’re off, our bus and a fleet of land cruisers. There is a tv crew on top of a land cruiser who takes the inside lane to record the race. The kiwi tourists are hanging out the windows of the bus taking photos like crazy and cheering on the camels much to the delight of some of the Qatari men driving in vehicles around us. I don’t know if the video captures the mayhem. It is quite exhilarating the whole event, much more fun than sitting in a grand stand with binoculars. The camels have little robots on their backs which are controlled by their owners with remote controls who are in the land cruisers. We followed the lead camels all the way around. It was fantastic. You just have to experience it t appreciate it. I have tried to capture it with these little videos and images. Prizes for winning races…. You win a land cruiser !!. racing camels sell for between 500,000 – million riyal.

Trip to the Races

Some of the photos below have come from our trip out to the camel racing. We hop on the tour bus (have it entirely to ourselves) and the guide tells us that today is the last day of the camel racing season. That the races run from 6-30 -9-30 in the morning. It is 9-00am and it takes 45 minutes to get out to the track so we were pretty disappointed. But we were going to get to have a look around and visit a camel and Arabic horse stable. We rock on out there and there are some wonderful photo opportunities, which I will have to go back and capture. We have this community which has developed over 1000s of years and we see lots of examples of globalization / westernization creeping in. As we scream around a roundabout there is this old concrete wall with a Macdonald’s golden arches plastered on it framed with a mosque tower. A couple of the photos below are of camel riders. I should have captured the context but had the camera settings on email size rather than 7meg so wasn’t able to get the pictures I wanted. I was trying to capture them taking part in this age old traditional of camel racing with one talking on his cell and the other chilling out to his ipod. One of my friends has this great photo of a man standing at the top of an ancient fort with his yashmagh blowing in the wind under a Qatari flag. I think he is talking on his cell. You’re right Emma, I/we must get a better camera.

Weight Loss

Have picked up some sort of virus or something and shed 4 kgs in the last 10 days. Had it to lose of course and was hopeful I could get the bug to last another 2-3 weeks to get me back to a weight and BMI I’d be happy to share. Things have settled now so its back to 3 buffets a day. I heard I have picked up another name from back home. Marc’s Julie thinks I should be renamed little podge…. What would that make Faz then ? or Marc ? bigger biggest ?

Anyway with doing a bit of exercise (this fills up the time in between being with other people) combined with the virus, the body shape is starting to change and I have had to put extra holes in my belt. I had bought a couple of extra suits here as the material is so much lighter than at home. As a seldom suit wearer I was pretty happy with how I scrubbed up. This isn’t quite the case now. Trousers are starting to sag. May have to go back to Pierre Cardin and get him to whip me up a couple more.