Weather

   When you tell people you're coming to a place like Doha, people think "hot, hot hot". After some seconds they think "Dry, dry, dry".  I thought the same thing.  When packing, I looked at the winter weather and thought "21-24 degrees - warmish".  I packed accordingly.

   And I was wrong.  I've been cold, cold cold since I got here.  Normally if you told me I'd be getting low 20 degree sunny days in winter I'd be rubbing my hands together thinking how lovely they are.  Here; oddly; I find the days pretty chilly.  I didn't pack a jacket other than a rain jacket. I've got two tops, one blazer and a couple suit jackets.  And 4 useless short sleeze casual shirts and 0 long sleeve casual shirts. Zero, none, nada.

    I'm begging for that container load of personal effects to get here more quickly.  But I bet it'll be hot, hot, hot , dry, dry, dry by the time it gets here!

   The other aspect I hadn't really thought or heard much about was the wind.  In late January the wind sprung up on the weekends - and besides blowing around some unpleasant sand, it was up there with Antarctic katabatic winds chilly.  When you were out in the wind - you froze.  Over the last few days the wind has been flying in again - it's not as chilly, but my good it's stirred up the sand.  Suddenly we've gone from bright sunny days to brown/white featureless days where you can barely make out features 100metres in front of you.  Fantastic for the women who've just arrived to cycle the Tour of Qatar - I'm not volunteering to clean their bike chains!

    Supposedly the sandstorms get worse - much worse. I've been told 10 metre visibility is on the cards for mid summer.

    Weather - so easy to write about!