Connected

Tonight's the night, I am connected again. I can now catch up on those emails I haven't been able to lately. I have had a holiday from writing my blog and miss that, although I got some other things done. 

Sarah quietly slipped me a DVD on the weekend and I watched that Tuesday night. Wow what a movie, she knows me so well and knew this would be my sort of movie. August Rush is the story of a boy seeking to find his family, a love story and a story of faith all tied together with music. Special music that touches the soul. Enough said, easy to spoil a movie by telling you too much about it, suffice to say I recommend it for when you have some alone time to spare. 

Another tick or two off the to do list, I got my thesis off to be hard bound and copies posted out to my research participants. My thesis has been a  bit of a mission. Conducting the research and writing this, even all the reading, was not a drama. Getting said thesis marked and back from the university was. It got lost in the system somehow, markers disagreed on some contentious aspects and so the moderation process kicked in. It has taken from early January until mid October, lots of calls, emails and apologies from the university for me to have to change one word in the abstract. Well, changing the word meant changing the sentence, no worries I can do that. There were also a couple of apostrophes missing, now found. I hope to have my grade soon and the piece of paper I should have had in April. 

I laughed when I read my weekend horoscope. It said time to do some spring cleaning, to sort out and get rid of the old stuff that was holding me back. I read this after I had cleaned out my boxes and boxes of study stuff that's been renting a space in my head and the study. It's empowering to send all I won't need again to be recycled, bags of paper. It was also good to find some treasures amongst the dross, photos I thought I had lost jumbled in with research reports. 

I am also closer to returning to the Middle East, the UAE to be more precise. The job interview went well, other doors are opening and I have put out to the universe that traveling is the plan for 2009. Watch this space, more travel stories to come I suspect. 

The photo is of Keri and Helen connecting on our weekend together. Amazing how connected we all felt after five months of being back in the real world, back to our old lives. Strong friendships build out of challenging and enlightening times together, united by our common philosophies and passions. The next get together is in the pipeline, Taranaki in the summer. Sounds good to me. 

No Internet!

I always have a feel of dread when the boys in my house come up with a good idea. This often happens when Nick comes to visit and this time the idea was about rationalising our telecommunication needs. With all the precision of an up and coming project manager, Nick listed all the steps required to change our current bundle to more meet our needs.

Now the thing with lists is that the jobs need to be completed then ticked off. The first was to cancel our Sky account. Sky turned off the sport channels last weekend, just in time for a friend to come around and watch the semi finals of the rugby. Imagine the blokes faces when, after they had settled on the couch complete with beer and chips, the blue screen with the no service message appeared. I told them pubs were where you watched rugby, so off they went leaving me in peace.

The long weekend was approaching fast and by Wednesday we had no TV at all. Some of the tick boxes remained unticked. No TV doesn't bother me too much. I had none the whole time I was in Qatar and I found other more amusing ways to amuse myself. No Internet, however, is a whole different story.

The Internet was shaky all week, constantly going off line and needing reconfiguring. It's a temperamental beast anyway and once you start mucking about with it, it can bite. It bit in the middle of a download of photos, almost there then halas. It bit in a final way on Friday, yes Friday of said long weekend.

I arrived home from a meal out to find Muzz sitting with the phone on speaker trying to get through to our provider. He had the good grace to look sheepish, he was being punished for riling the beast by having to wait 42 minutes for the first call and he was at 30 minutes on the second call when I found him. I could hear the quiet impatience in his voice as he talked to the overseas help desk. There was a problem apparently, one he had to call another provider to fix. And it went on like this until quite late.

So the upshot of this is that it's Sunday and we still have no Internet. Yes, someone will do what they need to do and it will all go faster and better than ever before. We did get the TV sorted later on Saturday, nothing to watch of course. At the moment I am sitting in my cold office doing some work and catching up on email. Sorry to those I haven't got to yet. I am hoping to have Internet at home tomorrow, yeah right!

More of the trip north photos

The first photo is the minaret of the old mosque. I have another photo with Helen playing Rapunzel form the top window. In the interests of decorum, I will refrain from adding that one.

The second photo is of some interesting pillars. The light is very washed out but the sea can be seen behind the pillars.

The trip north

We ventured north on a hot day with Gaye and Kelly driving us. I have written about this in a much earlier post but didn't have the photos then so here are some to add to the story.

Up north it's very hot, dry, dusty and starkly barren, a white barren that defies description so I am hoping the photos show what I mean. We had a great day out, a respite from the city, actually a respite from everything as there was little out in the hinterland, not a loo in sight and no bushes either. We visited some old abandoned village sites with some interesting ruins.

The last time I had headed north, on a previous trip to Qatar, I was surprised by a rather large scorpion sunning itself on a wall in one of the ruins. I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or the scorpion. As I fumbled in fright to get my camera sorted for a photo, he beat a hasty retreat meaning I had no proof of our encounter. Scorpions are like that apparently. I could, however, tell the story of our brief encounter and of course he was much larger in the story than in real life, a fishing story from the desert, how ironic.

The photos are of a cool window, a partially derelict building, Helen and Keri in pursuit of a good camel photo and our picnic outside the gates of a park that was surprisingly locked. The park looked very inviting, the picnic outside with good friends and lots of laughs was much more inviting.

Dressing for winter

I learnt my lesson today about listening to the weather forecast at this time of of year. Christchurch is well known as a city that can have four seasons in one day. Usually I dress for the coldest of those seasons because I feel the cold and have half a wardrobe in my car, just in case. Last night the weather person said it was going to be 14C.

In honour of the cold day and being in the office, I dragged out my pink wool suit from the dark recesses of my wardrobe where it had recently been consigned to make way for the summer collection. Actually it's more of a darkish pink and black than a nipple pink suit, that would look plain hideous on me. I grumbled about this of course. I like to wear light summer clothing much more than the wool suit and I had just changed the seasons after all. I did put on a fetching pair of fish nets and my Spanish shoes which made the look a little lighter.

There are several great things about fish nets. The first one is that men leer at your legs, any man, anywhere, especially when the said fish nets are accompanied by a fetching pair of heels. What is it about men and fish nets? I was even told one day by one of my colleagues, a man of advanced years, that fish nets were not work attire, unless of course I wanted my legs leered at. We laughed about this later after we both got over the shock. Another great thing about fish nets is that if you get a hole or several, thats OK. Holes add to the character of this already holey garment. The final and most excellent thing about fish nets is that if the 14C day turns into a 24C day, there is plenty of ventilation for hot legs.

That was the moral of the story of today, dress for winter and if turns into a heat wave as it did, make sure you are wearing fish nets or you might just expire. Another lesson about fish nets, if you take off your heels when you get home, don't go outside to get in the washing in your fish nets. Holes on the soles are not good in fish nets, perhaps I need to invest in a new pair after todays adventures, maybe I'll wait until next winter.

The neighbourhood

The neighbourhood around Al Hitme where we lived was an interesting one. We could walk to the Corniche, the mall, the Souks and to many restaurants. There were many different ethnic restaurants within walking distance, Turkish, an English cafe, Indian, Italian, several franchises such as Costas coffee and the ever present McDs.

Ras Alnasaa was one of the more traditional Middle Eastern restaurants. We liked to show the new people this restaurant because of the surroundings, very ornate and plush with lovely big chairs to sink into. It was respectfully referred to as the brick restaurant. I enjoyed the food, some fo the meat eaters did not so much. There is a photo of Lyn, Kerry and I eating there on her blog. Imagine our dismay when we saw that they were pulling down our restaurant.

The diggers were at work pulling down the neighbour so as far as I know the Ras Alnasaa is still standing. The building pulled down wasn't that old, it just was in the way of the new airport somehow. The removal of the building caused heaps of dust in the area and lots of noise at night as the hammers on the diggers banged away at the concrete. Construction noise at night, a fact of life in Doha in general and Al Hitme in particular.

The photos are of the Ras and the pearl on the Corniche in the early evening.

Al Sultan Resort

One of the places Lyn and I visited regularly was Al Khor, a bit less than an hours drive north of Doha. We went back one weekend for some peace and quite away from the city. Doha is a noisy and dusty place to live at times so getting into the country was wonderful, a peaceful respite.

The Al Sultan resort was a lovely place and for around $45nz, we could use the facilities for the day and have a buffet lunch. The pool was lovely, big enough to do rounds and feel like you had had a workout. This swimmer stayed in for ages, even when it got a little cool. The water is cooled, not heated, as the air temperature means the water is luke warm if left. We also found that in our local pool where it was like swimming in bath water unless we went early in the day.

The surroundings of the Al Sultan are luxurious and we contemplated staying for a weekend until we saw the cost, above my budget. There were a few guests and the locals also enjoyed the buffet. The buffet was wonderful, lots of food, lots of variety and we all ate far more than we should have, no swimming after lunch. I would have sunk.

Lyn and I wondered if we had been spotted by any teachers but no one reported seeing the two of in our swim suits, a sight not easily forgotten. The photos are of Lyn and Kerry on their thrones, the girls relaxing in the deck chairs and the lovely pool.

It feels strange to be writing about our Qatar adventures retrospectively and I am sitting here in Christchurch enjoying the photos and the memories they envoke, happy memories of a wonderful group of people, some fun times and some challenging times. Getting together last weekend motivated me to get the photos sorted and some entries made, a good start made tonight.

I will leave the final word in this post to Paulo Coelho. This is from the Alchemist, appropriate given our surroundings this day.

I do not know if the desert can be loved,

but it is in the desert that my treasure lies hidden.

Paulo Coelho