....not what you think. On Friday morning I drove from Doha to Dukhan, an oil/gas town about 60km west, to try to locate a rendezvous point for the following day. On the way there, for a distance of several kilometres, I was the only car in either direction on a four lane motorway; repeat the ONLY car. I had a slight out-of-body experience thinking that I had either by accident turned onto a major section of motorway that wasn't officially opened yet or some sort of zombie Apocalypse was about to befall me. Neither of which was true. It was just very large road, that led to nowhere in particular, on a Friday (think Sunday) morning. Not something you are very likely to experience in crowded old blighty.
Friday afternoon I went on a tour of the State Mosque. It was organised by the main centre for Islamic Studies in Doha called the Fanar. We had an excellent guided tour delivered by a British convert, which was both enlightening and entertaining. Unfortunately I had another engagement and had to book a taxi to take me back to the city centre, and missed out on the buffet featuring camel that had been laid on for us.
We then had a very good night being entertained by some of Cath's work colleagues, Christine & Mark, at their villa in West Bay. Rosie, a Kiwi teacher from Cath's school, and her husband, Fred, were also there and they were, as our son would say, "Good value!" as well. Excellent!
Saturday morning saw me heading back toward Dukhan to meet-up with Khalid Al-Suwaidi, a Qatari beekeeper I had contacted via the Qatar Natural History Group. He took me to his cousins farm near Shahaniya and gave me a very knowledgeable account of beekeeping in this part of the world. As you can imagine it is not the easiest place to rear bees what with the arid conditions and lack of flower bearing plants. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when Khakid took me on a tour of the small enclosed farm and showed by possibly twenty hives in three different locations. All the hives contained very placid bees but not great numbers - in the UK a good hive might have twenty thousand bees at a minimum I suspect Khalids hives held much less than half of that. But the bees he did have seemed very productive, bringing in nectar and pollen from the stands of Sidra and Eucalyptus trees.
Khalid was hoping to develop a business selling Qatar honey, as the market for honey imported from other Arab countries was very large. He did concede that it would be an uphill struggle as the climate was no ideally suited to large scale production. He did however managed to produce enough to sell to friends and neighbours from his home.
Saturday evening saw me watching the last night of the Doha Players production of Hot Mikado a 1940's rendition of the Gilbert & Sullivan favourite. It was directed by a colleague of mine, Christopher Churchouse, and was excellent. I'd heard differing, and wide ranging, reports from others who'd been previously but, given that it was an amateur production, I thought it was very good.
That's all for now I'm off to bed for a rest......
Friday afternoon I went on a tour of the State Mosque. It was organised by the main centre for Islamic Studies in Doha called the Fanar. We had an excellent guided tour delivered by a British convert, which was both enlightening and entertaining. Unfortunately I had another engagement and had to book a taxi to take me back to the city centre, and missed out on the buffet featuring camel that had been laid on for us.
We then had a very good night being entertained by some of Cath's work colleagues, Christine & Mark, at their villa in West Bay. Rosie, a Kiwi teacher from Cath's school, and her husband, Fred, were also there and they were, as our son would say, "Good value!" as well. Excellent!
Saturday morning saw me heading back toward Dukhan to meet-up with Khalid Al-Suwaidi, a Qatari beekeeper I had contacted via the Qatar Natural History Group. He took me to his cousins farm near Shahaniya and gave me a very knowledgeable account of beekeeping in this part of the world. As you can imagine it is not the easiest place to rear bees what with the arid conditions and lack of flower bearing plants. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when Khakid took me on a tour of the small enclosed farm and showed by possibly twenty hives in three different locations. All the hives contained very placid bees but not great numbers - in the UK a good hive might have twenty thousand bees at a minimum I suspect Khalids hives held much less than half of that. But the bees he did have seemed very productive, bringing in nectar and pollen from the stands of Sidra and Eucalyptus trees.
Khalid was hoping to develop a business selling Qatar honey, as the market for honey imported from other Arab countries was very large. He did concede that it would be an uphill struggle as the climate was no ideally suited to large scale production. He did however managed to produce enough to sell to friends and neighbours from his home.
Saturday evening saw me watching the last night of the Doha Players production of Hot Mikado a 1940's rendition of the Gilbert & Sullivan favourite. It was directed by a colleague of mine, Christopher Churchouse, and was excellent. I'd heard differing, and wide ranging, reports from others who'd been previously but, given that it was an amateur production, I thought it was very good.
That's all for now I'm off to bed for a rest......
No comments:
Post a Comment