My OperaWhat the *?"^ am I doing here?
Thursday, January 15, 2009 7:58:04 PM
Yeah, well I know it's not a prime sailing destination, but hey.....
Pitched up here in Qatar a week ago after a rash decision to accept an offer of a job with Halcrow.
One couldn't, in all fairness, say that the country is scenically well endowed. The adjectives that most readily spring to mind are: brown, dusty etc. But on the positive side it feels very safe, actually quite civilized and mostly well organised. The most dangerous thing is the driving, as all Qataris (who make up only 20%of the population) own Land Cruisers and appear to be in something of a hurry.
The weather is pleasant. Blue skies and warm days, cool nights. But come the summer, it is hot..... I mean really hot. Like 120 degrees hot.... which I can't say I'm looking forward to.
The building is mostly modern and uninspiring, apart from some of the high rise blocks which are actually rather spectacular and imaginitive and about the only thing worth photographing.
As it happens, the job is pretty interesting. The scale of the work takes a bit of getting used to, with each of the various construction packages valued in hundreds of millions of pounds, and is a slight change from dealing with our cruising budget of 20 pounds a day. But it does have one or two....er......issues. Still, if it was all going smoothly I wouldn't be here. It must be said that coming back to a particularly intense project after 3 years of not doing any paid work has taken a little adjustment, but at the moment it's not without its excitement and stimulation.
Lucia is still at home sorting out the house and waiting for the visa paperwork to be finalised before coming out.
I'm just coming up to my first weekend here (actually Friday and Saturday) so looking forward to doing a little exploring....
Pitched up here in Qatar a week ago after a rash decision to accept an offer of a job with Halcrow.
One couldn't, in all fairness, say that the country is scenically well endowed. The adjectives that most readily spring to mind are: brown, dusty etc. But on the positive side it feels very safe, actually quite civilized and mostly well organised. The most dangerous thing is the driving, as all Qataris (who make up only 20%of the population) own Land Cruisers and appear to be in something of a hurry.
The weather is pleasant. Blue skies and warm days, cool nights. But come the summer, it is hot..... I mean really hot. Like 120 degrees hot.... which I can't say I'm looking forward to.
The building is mostly modern and uninspiring, apart from some of the high rise blocks which are actually rather spectacular and imaginitive and about the only thing worth photographing.
As it happens, the job is pretty interesting. The scale of the work takes a bit of getting used to, with each of the various construction packages valued in hundreds of millions of pounds, and is a slight change from dealing with our cruising budget of 20 pounds a day. But it does have one or two....er......issues. Still, if it was all going smoothly I wouldn't be here. It must be said that coming back to a particularly intense project after 3 years of not doing any paid work has taken a little adjustment, but at the moment it's not without its excitement and stimulation.
Lucia is still at home sorting out the house and waiting for the visa paperwork to be finalised before coming out.
I'm just coming up to my first weekend here (actually Friday and Saturday) so looking forward to doing a little exploring....
