Dukhan

(photo is a closer view of the rocky outcrops). we went back to Dukhan. My things have changed...not! Still not much there. The McDonalds that was being built last time we were there was open. One thing you can be sure of is a Big Mac is a Big Mac wherever you are in the world. Although you can't get milkshakes at macers in Dukhan. Although you can get a MacArabia burger.

We found a great spot just past the private beach resort for a swim. Sandy bottom and clear water. After burning our feet on the sand the water in the shallows was in the high thirties with the temperature in 5 foot of water being around 33-34. Warm but fantastic. The water is very salty so you sit slightly higher in the water. We watched this couple (we decided they were English) bring their dog with them for a swim. Now the dog didn't like the sound of the waves breaking on the shore and was terrified of the water. But they tried to drag him in. The dog scarppered. So off rang the woman, then the man chased after the dog. There was a short game of hide and seek. Then we saw the man running down the road chasing the dog. Then he ran back and packed up the gear and got the car ( this is all done in mid 40s temperatures). The car turned up again and the comedy continued. In the end with a bit of care and common sense they were able to finally get the dog in the water for a swim.

Zakreet

Was a little flustered yesterday. Kim was back in hospital having a scan and I realised that I couldn't get out of the country that quickly. It is relatively easy to get in , a little harder getting out. So rather than sit around waiting in my hot little apartment I went with the others out to the west coast for a swim and a look around. Last time on their journey out this way they saw this sign to Zakreet, checked it out in the lonely planet and discovered that up that way were wild ostiches, gazelles and rocky outcrops. This is the best that we could do. Here is a photo of our gazelle like Julia standing next to the sign telling us about the ostriches and if you click on the photo to full size you may see one of the rocky outcrops in the background

I just need to fill my script!

Grabbed this photo of a pharmacy on the way out of town yesterday. Last time I went past here there were four blocks of shops. Not anymore. These too are halas. All that is left are partially demolished buildings and piles of rubble. It will be interesting to see what replaces them.

I finally got around to seeing a doctor about my blood pressure. Gave up on the fitness idea as Paul is super fit and he still takes meds. So I rocked in and gave him my brief history. ( 4 blood pressure checks since 2003 with two being in the last 4 months). So for the first time in my life I have to take a daily pill. So I've established a routine and last week (after three weeks on the meds) I bought a small home blood pressure kit. Taking a reading 3 -4 times a day and plotting a chart of my progress. The drug isn't making a difference so back to the doc's for a consult this week.

My Apartment

The apartment I'm living in is falling apart a little. It is sometimes hard to get things fixed as well. When the girls were here one of the taps to the hot water cylinder broke and water flooded the bathroom. The water here is very hard on the gear being desalinated. It tends to eat away at the metal and before you know it ...halas. That was fixed but since then the waste pipe under the kitchen sink has rusted away from the sink and so if I forget I turn the tap on and flood the cupboard underneath.

In the bathrooms and kitchen there are expelair fans. These try and keep the hotter outside air and dust out as well as vent the rooms. The one in the bathroom and the kitchen are also halas. This means the temperature starts to rise a bit. When I first arrived I could get the temperature down to 21 in the spare room and 24 in the living room. It now sits between 28 and 31 in the living room depending on time of day and if I leave the door to the bathroom or kitchen open. This photo is in my bathroom. Note the humidity. It doubles as a sauna.

Straightened Out

One thing you notice here is that your hair grows quickly. I had a haircut the day before Kim and the girls turned up and it has well and truly grown back. I popped down to the barbers for a cut today. It is where Damian had his shave and face massage. The guy got to work and did a very good job. I unexpectantly received a face massage. It was great until he did the same move he did on Damian with the neck click. He gave it a little tug to one side and my neck when click. He then gave it a big pull. There was a really loud click as three vertebrae. He gave me a nervous look then did it the other way. Same result he looked, smiled and we burst out laughing. I feel great, no damage done. In fact it may have done some good.

A bit of machinery

This is a building site near the souqs. It is a huge hole in the ground and I’m not quite sure what will be erected here (refer previous post). We drive or walk past it most days on the way to Rydges for a swim. I remembered to take my camera today to capture this image. I know last week there were twelve diggers working at the same time. There are only seven in the picture. Two were off to the side and one was being repaired over the back of the hill. Hopefully it gives you a sense of both the urgency and scale of construction in this country.

Lost in Translation

John found this one a week or so ago and as I was heading to the gym today I took a little detour so that I could catch the image. The English language is a difficult language to master. I have spent a bit of time here completing English to English translations. Lucky the crane was there to explain it!

This is for real

Full credit to Damian for finding this one. He picked Colleen and myself up from work and spied this vehicle on the side of the road. It had been pulled over by the traffic police when he went by the first time. When we came back and captured the image the police had finished their discussions and the two men were about to head on their way. This is the sort of image you often find in emails and you wonder if they are real. Trust me this one is. Not sure where they came from or where they were heading but I hope they were using their mirrors and indicators!

A little lost

The family shipped out last night along with 72kgs of luggage. They came with 19 and I think I still have a good 20 I'm not sure where the rest has come from. (it can't all be my new suits, ties and shoes) There are a few interesting gifts that are heading home which I hope you enjoy whanau. It has been an interesting few weeks and I must say I felt a little lost this morning with a quiet and empty house. I woke up expecting them to be here and they were gone. I could smell Kim on the pillows and I knew Ailish had been here as the lolly papers were on the floor by her bed. My sweet Emma left with an expectation of an SLR. I'll see what I can do my "only hope". I chose to ignore the arabic as I couldn't read it. ( it said passengers only beyond this point in English underneath) when I took them to the airport. Sorted their bags and got them started on their long journey at 3.45am local time. They'll be home in 10 or so hours.Got up and went to work this morning after chatting with Faz on Skype to sort out Sam and staying up for fajr. A little tired and a little lost.

More Henna

Henna

Given that summer is here and many people leave the country the marketers around here have developed a summer festival in the malls and convention centre to keep retailers happy and getting shoppers to leave their homes. We went down to the convention centre to look at the trade fair and the historic village. The village had been moved from the park it usually resides in to indoors in the convention centre. At one of the stall was a woman applying henna. Henna is a form of body adornment used by many woman in the middle east. The girls had their arms done. It goes hard and crusty after about 20-30 minutes and then it slowly falls off leaving the dying on the skin for a week or two.

Dinner

Headed down to the souqs for more shopping. It was a lovely 38 degrees and low humidity but still too hot to sit outside to eat. We’ve learnt the hard way in the last week or so not to order appetisers and mains as the meza plates are meals in themselves. This one had a green salad, olives, salsa, hummus, babaghanoush, thabouleh. This little plate was all we decided to eat (although Kim and the girls did have a side order of lobster to supplement the meal for us).

The Swimming Comp

The swimming has continued and Ailish has lived up to her name fish bait. We try and get there each afternoon for a dip. I was getting her to push the number of lengths she was doing and had told her I’d knocked off 100. She did 115 widths which we agreed was more than what I’d done. A few days later I decided to push it a little more and knocked off 160 lengths which was 2kms. This week I dropped her off with the lads and took Kim and Em to the shopping mall before heading back to the pool. Aussie Graeme was there to give her a few pointers. Well the little fish knocked off 240 lengths in just over an hour and half. That was 3kms. She was a little sore that night but is keen to crack 300 before she leaves.

Flash Wheels

When we were heading to Rydges Ailish wanted her photo taken next to the lamborghini to show her teacher. This little white number had a three digit number plate unlike the six digits plates of most vehicles. Someone suggested that three digit plates are in indication that the car belongs to the ruling family. A bit like diplomatic plates in NZ.

This is for you Hani!

Emma wanted you to see this Hani.

Back to the Grand

Decided to head back to the Grand Regency for seafood night. This gave us a chance for the GR team to meet our families who were up visiting. Aussie Graeme and his crew helped organise the meal (and paid for some of it as well as a thank you to our team for helping them out in settling in up here). The staff from GR were really pleased to see us. It was a bit like going home. The chef organised a few special treats for us (giant prawns, hot smoked salmon fillets as well as jelly for dessert. It is possible I could be up here working from October – January so it would be good to end up back at the Grand. Barry or shoud a say bazza couldn't help to get one over on the kiwis with the rabbit ears!

Day Trip

Went for a trip up north to have a look at the country side. The girls were sick of sandy vistas after five minutes so couldn’t get them enthusiastic about rocky outcrops and ruins. For the record we saw several herds of camels, a lizard, a buried township, a deserted village, several forts and lots of sand. I was on the phone to the Aussie team who were also out sightseeing and missed the turn off to Dukhan which was a bit of a relief to the girls as this shortened the big day out considerably.

Zoo #2

Ailish was keen for a look around the zoo. Had been once before so knew the layout. It was very hot. A lot hotter than my last visit and the animals were definitely feeling it. Judging by the fact hat there was only one other person visiting the zoo it was probably too hot for people as well. We persevered and wandered around the covered areas. We decided not to go out and look out in the pens in the outer areas as they were uncovered. The smell of animals was very strong in the heat. The animals looked well cared for, just hot and bored.

The Heat is On

The humidity has just started to climb a little here. I have been working in a new space for the last two days doing a little stocktaking and checking out buildings. This has been done with little air conditioning so even I have started to really feel the heat. Even the inside temperature has increased a little. I had been able to keep the apartment at about 24 degrees. With extra bodies plus the outside air temperature and humidity increasing the temp now tends to sit between 26 and 28 degrees. While that is pretty warm it feels like a fridge when you come in from the hallway. This is Kim after we came back from a walk down to the souqs. I think coming from 10 degrees to 45 degrees is a little tough.

Sorry Sis

Got an email from my big sis today telling me she was sick of looking at another Petra meal!! Point taken. I had got into a series of routines around living here by myself and these were thrown out the window once the family arrived. With lost baggage, a sick wife and having to think of others in terms of feeding and seeing Qatar time has just disappeared. This is all good, it means that time to write on the blog has all but gone. When I think about it my “first audience” for the blog was Kim and the kids. I know that the extended family and mates check it out as well. Having checked out the stats I see that there are about 10 views of the site each day which suggests that the audience is a lot bigger and so will make an effort to keep things more regularly updated. With these guys heading home this coming weekend plus a month in Abu Dhabi coming up I’m sure I’ll pick up the pace again with entries.

Another Petra Meal

Splashed out big time and bought a chicken shwarma and a couple of meat and cheese filled breads. $3.50 for this meal. Alas, still no mac’ers mayo, it’s still the tahini spread. Knocked this off for lunch and headed down late afternoon for a swim after work. The wind is really picking up and it’s not pleasant by the pool. The others are fish when it comes to swimming and beached shashimi is a reflection of where I best sit near water. However I have persevered after a little niggle and competition. It started with swimming underwater as far as you can about three weeks ago. It then moved to 10 – 20 lengths of our little pool. Damian effortlessly knocked off 60 about a week ago so increased the ante considerably. Now I can’t swim (freestyle) more than 4 lengths of this monster pool (12metres) as have never mastered an appropriate breathing technique, but have stuck at the breast stroke. Late last week I did 60 lengths (51 continuous) but yesterday after my carbo load of shwarma I decided to have a go at the ton. Weather conditions were not great and it was more like swimming in the sea with the chop. So while the boys struggled with the last ten words to complete the crossword I struggled to knock off the 100 lengths. Got there in the end even with the repeating shwarma!

A Room With A View

Not sure if this was the usual gathering or there was a special guest. This was the midday prayer at the mosque across the road from my apartment. The mosque was full to the brim and so many of the men said their prayers outside on the road. It was a wonderful sight.

The Shave

Went down to capture Damian's haircut and shave with a cut throat razor on film. Have made a little powerpoint of the event and it will eventually end up on his blog. It included a haircut, razor close shave, a whole truckload of cream that was smeared over his face and then a head massage. The look in Damian's eyes when the guy gentle pushed his neck to one side a couple of times and then gave it a bit shove was classic. A day after he still has full head movement so no damage done.

Local Craftsman

A friend of mine had taken me to look in this shop 5 or 6 weeks ago. They sell pashminas and carpets. At the time the guy had just started the carpet on the loom. It was a good to see how he was going. He had made a lot of progress and had about six months to go to complete it. It would sell for 5-6 riyals. What was amazing was how he pulled the different threads into the right places. The pattern was in his head bit the detail was fantastic. Great to watch a craftman at work.

Local Conditions

The whanau have coped pretty well with the heat considering they have come from about 10 degrees and are having to deal with 38-49 degrees in the last week. When the wind blows the dust helps drop the temperature a little. I took them for a bit of a look around the souqs in the late afternoon. I have been really conscious of their clothing. Kim has got it sorted but Emma has to be reminded to cover up. I really felt it walking through the souqs and all the men would stare at Emma. Not sure how much she noticed. I explained to her that she was the only blond, teenage woman around with a relatively tight top hence the stares. Emma and Ailish are the only European kids in our entire block so they get a few stares when we walk down the road.

The Label

100 plus hours must be a rush job!

The Bag

Sorry to the followers of the blog. Have been off line for a little while. Work came to a bit of head with lots and lots to do before the summer arrives fully. Many of my middle eastern colleagues have left to travel home to their families for the break. But the other reason I haven't had time is this thing here. The bag! 105 hours and 32 minutes in transit. Beats our little transit trip Faz by a significant margin. Although Faz did get caught in the Christchurch Koro Club when Wellington airport was closed this week.

The bag wasn't on the plane when Kim and the girls arrived. They were told it was heading for Hong Kong (they went via Singapore). Then it wasn't in Hong Kong and it was somewhere else. Then it was... can you describe the bag please for us sir, what brand was it. Then there was my little visit to the airport and a couple of discussions with the airline and my need for compensation and surprise surprise they had found it and it would be here tomorrow. Well here it is on the apartment floor a little worse for wear but here all the same. I have finally been reunited with my special edition Cold Chisel album which I had ordered from Aussie and Kim has in the case as well as a further jar of vegemite to get me through till the end of August.