It appears that our tire is beyond repair and we need another one, so while waiting for this to be negotiated, we thought we would explore closer to home, in fact, on the edge of Doha. We went looking for Borj Barzan Fort in the Umm Slal Mohammed area. Barzan means "high place" in Arabic. These were lookout points in the late 19 century to protect a precious water reservoir. This is not very old, and it has been repaired quite a bit by the looks of it. Anyway, it has paths all around it and is well maintained. You can walk up the steps and look out from the top, so we spent a pleasant time until sunset.

The ubiquitous crescent moon on the top of the tower now has a great deal more significance to us after experiencing the anxious awaiting of the crescent moon for the start of Eid. It is very different for us not to know the exact date of a holiday and, if you have been fasting all day for the past month, it must be excrutiating having to wait one or two more days until the moon has been sighted by the official committee. I noticed in the shopping centre yesterday, the abeyas are much more colourful now, especially the ones the younger girls are wearing. Instead of the usual decorations of silver or black, or occasionally gold, I noticed lots of colourful trims. I will be interested to see how long the period of celebration is for, and when they return to the usual colours. A friend had told me to be particularly careful to wear conservative clothes during the Holy month of Ramadan as she had actually been told off by the clothes police in the mall saying she was not appropriately dessed. I am not sure whether there really are "clothes police" or just someone who was offended.

On the way back we went to a new grocery shop that we had driven by every time on our way out of town. Yesterday we had the time to stop and take a look. They certainly had gone "over the top" for their Eid decorations. I actually took a small video clip of this as it moves continuously!

Now this is what I call decorating with lights! The actual store was really nice and had great ethnic vegetables and in fact was nicer I think than our regular store. I thought this was a cheaper store, and yet they carried the "dutchy" line of products attributed to Prince Charles, as well as a huge cheese selection and quite a lot of different products from our usual store, things that I thought I couldn't get in Doha. This was definitely a "find". The night before we had finally tried out "Turkey Central" which is basically a fast food restaurant but with really tasty middle eastern food. You can eat in, rather cafeteria style, but we opted for schwarmas to take out with some tabouleh and babaganouch. The fellow making them was a going concern, he churned out a huge quantity of them in the time we waited for our order to be filled. A really good cheap meal - a far cry from the fancy french restaurant I had been hoping to be taken to at La Cigalle - oh well, another time. A few doors down from Turkey Central, we went to Patisserie Swiss, which we have seen all over town and is in fact a Lebanese bakery and nothing swiss about it. But they have a huge selection of pastries with pistachio nuts, dates etc. so we picked up a selection to try for desert. There always seems to be something new to find and experience. One more day, then it is Friday and hopefully we will have a new tire so we can go further afield.

A few more pictures from our trip yesterday. These are the main roads through the desert and you often encounter forks in the road where you have no clue where they will take you, one may go back miles and end up on the real highway, or it may just go round in a loop or end up at someone's palace, an abandoned fishing village or just a really nice beach. We usually find that taking the "one less travelled" is not necessarily a good idea as you run the risk of getting stuck in some deep sand in over 40 degree celcius heat - not a good idea. Anyway the point I wanted to get across is that this is a "main" road, what we get to after this is a lot less easy to follow. Next trip I will remember to take some photos of our usual roads. Often they are a barely defined track in the sand or well used but very rough and stoney as was the case today. Very sharp stones as it turned out!

As the sun was going down, we headed back to Al Ruwais area, near the docks where all the newer fishing boats are, these are some of the older more weathered Dhow's that I have seen, especially the one that looked like a dead fish! People were gathering on the docks to watch as the sun was starting to go down so we rushed to get further down the coast to an old fort and fishing village we wanted to see before it got too dark.

We seemed to miss the ones we were aiming for, the map reader was obviously sleeping, but this we reached just after the sun had gone down, we got to it over a very stony dirt track and as I got out of the car to take this picture, we hear the ominous whomp, whomp, whomp of the tire!

Sure enough, the tire was flat as a pancake. I had the manual in hand reading out directions while Derek did the work, until the part where we had to lift this really heavy tire onto lugs, by which time the sun had pretty much gone! Anyway, the teamwork paid off and before too too long, we were on our way back to the highway and home. We wont be going too far afield today though as you wouldn't want to get caught without a spare tire. We phoned the number we had been given by the rental company for emergencies, but the answer was pretty much, it is a three day Eid holiday, call me at the end of it! Put very politely though! So, we will try to get it fixed or more likely, just stay and see things closer to home and on better roads! It certainly was a shocker though, these tires are really heavy duty, so dont know what we could have gone over that would made it go that flat. All part of the adventure I suppose!

Three days holiday for Eid means three days of exploring Qatar for us. Many people have gone away, but we thought we would take the opportunity to see a few more places. Today we went up to the far end of the island to Shamal, then went on to Ras al Shindwee which is the beach area nearby. We found this beach, completely deserted except for some young Qatari men who had got their Four wheel drive stuck in some soft sand on the other side of these rocks. We offered our assistance to try to get them out, but after handshakes and smiles all round they pointed to their cell phones as help was already on the way! So we went off exploring the beach for a while. There were some large birds on the salt lake where the boys were stuck, but once their friends had arrived, the revving of engines soon sent the birds on their way.

A little further up the coast were some more mangroves with the fruits turning yellow now.

This is the closest to a dinosaur we have seen in Qatar! Quite an interesting rock formation. There were signs in the area to make sure dogs were on a leash and we did not disturb the turtles. We saw no signs of sea turtles but presume we weren't looking in the right places or probably the right time of year. We will have to do some research to find out more about that.

Along this whole area of the coast were many abandoned ancient villages. Mostly they were fishing villages, some were pearl fishing villages. No sign of pearls on the beach unfortunately! This was an interesting shot Derek took with the beach umbrella perfectly framed in the window of the old house. I read in the paper just the other day that there has been quite an effort to put up a number of these umbrellas on the beaches up and down the coasts and to clean up the garbage washed up with the tide. The garbage is mostly plastic water bottles and plastic shopping bags. I really hope they continue with this as the beaches that have been cared for are really beautiful and the water is so clear. We had quite an eventful ending to the day which I will continue tomorrow.

Ramadan is fast coming to an end, so thought I had better get out and take a few pictures of how our local mall has been decorated. I had only heard of the fasting part of Ramadan before, but there is a lot of feasting and family get togethers, sharing food with neighbours and donations of food and money to the poor. Eid is celebrated with gifts and more food. The Malls right now are crazy, just like the few days before Christmas at home, with last minute shoppers. Things shut for three days for Eid and a lot of people are going away although we have elected to stay put and now the weather has cooled a little, spend some restful time on the beach.

These pictures are from the City Centre Mall, our nearest shopping centre, and are taken in an area over the skating rink. Yes, there is a circular skating rink at the bottom and then on all four levels, there have been swags and tassels hung and then in the centre, above the rink, there are these huge lantern like structures and moons and stars. Nearer the grocery store, there is a little tableau with old type buildings and moving models of Qatari people in the olden days with moving heads on camels etc. I had better go back and take pictures of that as well!

While the City Centre decorations are somewhat over the top, here are some decorations in a back alley in the souq. Just a few lights and a lamp. Still attractive at night.

Last night we went for a nice walk around the neighbourhood and tomorrow I will put up some pictures, but this is a picture of the new Movenpick hotel near us, with its Ramadan decorations. Again the moon and stars. I cant read the writing, but suspect it is Ramadan Kareem which is the Ramadan greeting. Of course the moon plays a huge part in Ramadan as it starts and ends on the sighting of the new moon. It was a lovely evening and although we were hot by the end of our walk, we had managed to walk quite a long way as things are definitely cooling down. There was very little humidity yesterday as well and from the gym you could see for miles.

Here are a few more pictures from our day at the beach. We saw quite a few cormorants both on the beach and in the water. This one flew down the beach to join his friends and they all stretched out their wings to sun themselves but they were to far away to photograph. We saw them diving a little further out to sea as well.

This was a little further back from the beach. These trees are so graceful, the leaves are small and almost feathery and just blow in the wind. When they are a little taller, there is space to sit underneath the spreading branches which look rather like an umbrella.

After spending our afternoon on the beach, we drove along the beach on the "road" and came to the main part of the beach, which was the other side of a fairly high outcrop of rock. The rock is very porous and holey. There were lots of cars here and it looked like the water was deeper and no rocks. However this was a younger crowd and they had their seadoos and boards, we had seen a parasail as well. So I think we were better off on our quieter shallower beach. There is a large beach resort further along the beach. You have to pay for the privilege of sitting on the beach there, but it is well cared for with restaurants etc. There are several of these large resorts up and down the coasts but with many kilometers in between.

At the far end of the beach above there were some mangrove swamps back from the beach. There was not much water there, so a big of vegetation had grown inbetween the mangroves. These looked like the usual samphire type greenery, but this time there was some pinky coloured plants as well which are quite attractive. Well that's it for our pictures of the day out. I took various pictures during the week of the fabric souq and the shopping centre with Ramadan decorations so will put them up during the week. Can't believe that the end of our time here is fast approaching. It will be really sad to leave.

This was the view out of our window this week - the humidity had arrived! It looked just like rain on the windows, but in fact it was the warm humidity condensing on the airconditioned windows. When you went outside, it was like hitting a wall. Fortunately it didn't last very long and the next evening it was actually a lot cooler and it has been much cooler for the last few days with temperatures below 40. Wow, what a difference that makes. We decided it was cool enough to start venturing further afield which meant driving through the desert, which we had stopped doing during the really hot temperatures, as you could really get into trouble if your car broke down.

So today we took a trip up the coast on the east side of Qatar up to a place near Fuwairit beach. This beach just had a few people spotted along it. It was really nice and clean and there were garbage pails strategically placed along the beach so there was very little litter. Where the dark spot is at the end of the beach were some rocks going into the water. Several fellows were there digging for clams. Derek had a go and bought me back a couple to see - just like the ones we find at home. I just lay down on the beach and left him to it!

You just drive off the dirt or rather sand road and onto the beach to claim your spot.

This was the view behind us. It looked like there had been a village there once upon a time, but they were all crumbled down now. It looked really interesting though, they were made with rocks that were piled up with mud over top of them which baked in the sun. It was a really lovely afternoon and really relaxing. We came home very salty, sandy and windswept. I had a swim and it was almost refreshing instead of like a hot bath and Derek had dug for clams - a really good day. I will put some more pictures on tomorrow of some other things we saw.

A few more pictures from our beach trip. We came across a group of Herons that were wading in a pool beside the ocean. They wouldn't let me get any closer to take a picture before they flew off to join another group further down the coast. They are beautiful to see in flight with their large wings and long skinny body.

The place was absolutely full of shells and cuttle fish, and the sand itself seems to be made up of tiny shells. We really enjoyed wandering along the beach looking at all the different coloured shells

We stayed until sunset and turning the other direction, the moon was visible over the ocean. A really beautiful evening. The sunsets here never seem to last a really long time, but they have their own beauty with such a wide expanse of sky in the desert. Even though there are no clouds to bounce the colours off - there is a lovely warm glow over the whole sky which was beautiful , reflected in the tide pools.

I have no idea what this bird is - we will have to do some research, but it is absolutely stunning and nothing like we had ever seen before. We had a great day, just exploring and will definitely go back. Next time we will take a beach barbecue and stay and have supper on the beach. This time, we drove back and had dinner at Al Bandar in the souq, Derek had a hankering for a tray of hors d'oevres of the usual humous, moutabal, babaganoush etc. folowed by a mixed grill and washed down with lemon-mint drink. While we were sitting at the table outside, a parade of children all dressed in national costume came by singing the equivalent of "halloween apples"! It was the festival of Garangao where the children celebrate the 14th day of Ramadan and go around collecting chocolates and gifts. They all looked wonderful in their colourful dress and we saw a proud father taking a picture of his young son, probably not much more than 1 1/2 years old, the little fellow was dressed in the white outfit complete with headgear and he looked so cute. The same scene could be played out in many countries with many cultures. I always like to see the similarities rather than the differences.

It has started to get a little cooler, so we thought it was time to go exploring on a beach. This beach is near Wakra which is a small town about half way on the drive from Doha to Messaid, to the jobsite. Doha is of course like a thumb sticking out into the ocean so you dont have to go very far to find a beach. As you can see, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. You did see other cars going along - but everyone spreads out, so you have lots of room. There are no facilities of any kind - just water and sand - oh and quite a bit of garbage. I think it all washes up on shore from the ocean. There are huge garbage containers back from the beach, so I think that there must be an effort to clean the beaches.

Now, I have seen lots of footprints on a beach before, people, birds, crabs etc. but never before have I seen camel footprints!

The idea of driving to this particular area was that there were mangrove swamps not too far away and there was supposed to be great birdwatching there. We did in fact see lots of birds, ones we had never seen before. I will put some pictures on the blog tomorrow of some we saw.

Ah! these were where the footprints came from! They were just sauntering along in a line when you looked away from the beach, back in the direction of the main road. There are no real roads there, you take a reasonably well travelled looking track off the main road in Wakra, and just head out in the direction of the ocean. There are many tracks just heading along the sea shore and you just stop anywhere you think looks interesting. There were certain places where the sand was quite soft and you had to be careful not to get stuck, but generally it was fairly hard packed and was made up of tiny shells and pieces of shells. I will put some more pictures up tomorrow.

A few more pictures of our trip to England. We went to stay a few days at the house in Budleigh, the weather wasn't the greatest but we managed to fit in a few trips to the beach. The above picture was taken in Sidmouth, a place we had gone to for years as children. The picture was taken from Connaught gardens, which are even more beautifully kept now than they were went we went there as children. They have a theatre there in amongst the flowers where I remember Morris Dancers performing. There is also a nice tea place for a clotted cream tea. The beauty of the place is when the tide is out there is a huge sandy beach and the water is shallow, so it is a great place for kids. Many a sandcastle was made there and shrimping in the rock pools.

Now he is finally relaxed! Shades of the retirement time to come.

This is a picture of Budleigh beach and the reason it is quieter than the seaside places on either side of the town. The whole beach is made up of pebbles and there is a fairly steep drop off into the sea, so it is a great beach for fishing, you see lots of fishermen down here in the evening with their lines in the sea. Lots of crab pots are usually out in the bay and you can always gets fresh crab and fish at the little local fish shop. The walk along the front is about the only flat spot in Budleigh, the rest is hills which probably accounts for the ages reached by most of the residents from walking up and down them to the village. Two neighbours lived until 102 and 80 is still pretty spry in these parts.

This is the next beach to Budleigh, called Ladram bay. There are some interesting rock formations in the ocean and at low tide you can go around the point and there is a fantastic collection of rock pools - you have to keep an eye open for the tide though as it is very easy to get trapped when the tide is in. I think it is possible to climb up the cliffs in a pinch, but not something I would like to do. I ended up not joining the rest of the gang for this day as I took the opportunity to go to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. It was rather a lot of travelling for one day and my foot hadn't recovered fully. Still, I had a really fun day and worth the travelling. It was interesting to see what kinds of things people in England were making and they had displays from the European Quilt guild as well. It was actually quite overwhelming, almost as bad as the one in Houston. It was held in the NEC in Birmingham, the exhibition centre. There was a direct train from Exeter to Birmingham every hour and then you went one stop on a local train to the Exhibition Centre, so it was very easy. Train travel is so great - you have a comfortable seat and lots of windows to see the countryside. They have a trolley with sandwhiches and snacks that comes along and the coffee actually was not bad. They even serve beer. There are lots of plugs for computers and the like and even have "quiet" carriages where no cell phones are allowed. I managed to get stocked up on a few things I couldn't find in Qatar and also bought a few books to learn a few tricks. The others had a great day in Ladram Bay and I got home to a great meal already prepared for me at the house. We managed to squeeze in quite a bit during our few days at the house and of course managed a cream tea at the mill in the next village. We also seemed to polish off the tub of clotted cream we bought at the grocery store. Time to get back up to the gym and the weather is cool enough now that I might actually venture out onto the Corniche for a walk. It should be nice and quiet during the day as last night around midnight, when I couldn't sleep, I looked out the window at the corniche and it was packed with cars and traffic - night becomes day during Ramadan.

Trip to England

We got back from England on Sunday where we had a wonderful family time with my daughter and her family and we also met up with my nephew and family who were visiting from the States. So, it was all a little chaotic, but lots of fun, all planned around baby naptimes with lots of sticky hugs. We were wined and dined royally.

I had never spent much time in the Oxford area, so enjoyed trips to various places. The picture above is from Buscot Park. It is a National Trust garden and they had a really interesting mixture of gardens. This picture is showing the paths that went off for ages, very straight, but intersected by other paths and water gardens, there was really a long way you could walk around with interesting statues, ponds and water features. There was also a walled garden where they had an interesting mixture of fruit trees trained up the walls and flowering shrubs mixed together with runner beans and cabages amongst other things. Really, mixtures of plants and vegetables I would not have thought of mixing, but they actually looked quite interesting and sculptural together. Something to think of in future garden plans.

Another day we went to see the Uffington White Horse, which you can barely make out in this picture, but it was visible for miles around as it was cut into the chalk hills. We walked up the hill to see it close up and see the spectacular view of the countryside from the top of the hill. It was so lovely to see the green of the countryside and we even enjoyed the clouds and sprinkles of rain - something we have not seen since April in Doha. In fact, I dont even think there were clouds when it sprinked with rain there - it just seemed to come out of the blue sky. I took lots of pictures of clouds while I was in England and lots of pictures of green fields and trees!

Another place we went to in the area was Avebury, where they have huge stone circles made out of smaller rocks than Stonehenge. They are really spread over a wide area and we walked around quite a bit of it. Interesting to see a few stones missing where there was a lovely stone house nearby - I gather the same thing happens near the great wall of China! I had wanted to visit Avebury for a long time and was well worth the visit. It is certainly a very historic area with excavations that looked like it might have been a moat and barrows in various places in the countryside. A very ancient place.

We also went to Oxford. I had been there a very long time ago and had gone to the Ball there with an old boyfriend. I really could barely remember it although I am sure it hasn't changed much. The buildings are just as old and lovely as always. One place I hadn't been to before was the Pitt Rivers museum which is the picture above. You get to it through the natural history museum. The Pitt Rivers is mostly about different cultures, but it is arranged in an interesting way with like items together, so you will have a case full of baskets from N. America, Africa, etc. then the next case will be pottery from different places. An interesting way to display it. It was the complete opposite of our museum in Doha, here there was so much stuff, everthing was crammed together. It was so dark you took flashlights with you to shine on things to see them. We had very little time before they closed, so plan to go back. The Natural history museum was also crammed full with tons of dinosaurs and rocks and various bits and pieces, stuffed animals, you name it - even a dodo bird. Definitely a place you could spend days in. The Ashmolean museum unfortunately was closed for renovations, so look forward to going there when it opens again. It was really interesting to explore a different part of the country as we usually just go straight to Devon. However, we spent some time at the house there and tomorrow I will show some pictures.