Saturday and it’s raining.

 It’s been almost two weeks and we are almost settled Into a sleeping routine which is hard when the late WC match starts at 10 pm local time.  Fell asleep during the Argentina Netherlands match last night and missed all the drama.  Greg and Jenn left on Wednesday for a few nights in Istanbul after finally being clear of Covid and Jeff left the same day for Amsterdam and Düsseldorf Germany and it’s Famous Christmas market.  So the house is empty with us, Kathy and the three alarm clocks.  We have come to appreciate Monoprix, a French grocery store that has product from every corner of the world and some unique features that make shopping an interesting experience.  There is an ACE hardware store compete with the “ helpful hardware folks “. Had a lovely day at the Qatar Foundation where Kathy did a presentation for a group of foreign media people and then a swim in the Recreation Center pool and massages from the two masseuses who are working at the Center.  Took the three amigos to the beach for their Friday morning romp in the water.  The idea of an off leash dog park is somewhat foreign here, so a long stretch of sand along the Gulf is the weekend home to many expats and their dogs.  

On Thursday the air conditioning repair team showed up to replace one of the three units that operate in Kathy’s house.  Major operation with a dozen workers, a crane, and directions in several languages.  The worst part of the job was that the access to much of what they had to do was in our bathroom where 5 guys and scaffolding were working with the universal repair tools— a large hammer.  An OSHA a inspector would have had several heart attacks watching this operation.  8 hours latter it was almost done, except that the bathroom was still a semi usable mess.   Friday is not a work day in this part of the world, so today, Saturday, we are hoping for the crew to return and finish.  It’s almost noon and no workers in sight.  

It’s raining in Doha, putting photos up on this blog has become a technology challenge for us, but we will keep trying.  


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