Monday, April 21, 2008

Good news, bad news

The good news: finally, after about 5 weeks of hoop-jumping and the usual 2-steps-forward-1-step-back, we picked up our new car last night. It's only new to us as it's second-hand, but it's still the best car we've ever had. It's a 2005 new shape Land Rover Discovery, or LR3 as they're called here. It's amazing how much safer Doha's streets feel in a big 4x4. And the roads round our block are in such bad shape we've already off-roaded.

I went to do a bit more hoop-jumping at the traffic department this morning. Rob forgot (or didn't realise) that his letter giving me permission to drive(!) had to be in Arabic. Luckily there was a little office where we could get it retyped. Unfortunately it then needed his signature. So we now have a car but I still don't have a license. As I said, 2 steps forward...

The bad news is that Zinge has FIV (cat AIDS). Luckily as he's an indoor cat he won't pass it on to to other cats, but it does mean he won't be accepted by boarding catteries and we won't be able to export him to the UK. He also won't live as long as a cat with a healthy immune system. Poor Zinjibeel. He's feeling very sorry for himself today after his hernia operation yesterday. We just need to make sure we give him lots of love.

Friday, April 11, 2008

The naming of cats...

... is a difficult matter, according to TS Eliot, and crikey was he right. We've had the Ginger Bastard for three weeks and every name we tried on him just didn't fit. it was looking like he'd be called the Ginger Bastard forever.

But I think we finally have it. His name is (drumroll) Zinjibeel. It's Arabic for (wait for it) ...



... Ginger.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Holy crap!



What on earth is going on here? Rain? I hope so.