Adventure is relative.

A very normal work area.

Peggy of Margaret Sterner Cox left a comment on my last post about my adventurous life and Cathy of Down a Dusty Lane commented on its foreignness. The reality is I have a normal life, just in somewhere a little different. I wrote about normality from Khartoum in my post Neglected and here in Doha it is a similar story.

Normally, I get up (at the silly-time of 5.20am), go to work, come home, watch tv, do computer stuff, eat, go to bed, early. On the weekends, Friday and Saturday, I get up, have several cups of tea, clean, do laundry, shopping... yawn, so uninteresting. Here in the Middle East the summer is too hot to do much, like winter in Europe you stay at home and hibernate as much as possible. However, in the winter, when the temperatures cool to a more manageable 20-something degrees, that's the time for events, sightseeing, meeting friends etc. hence the opportunities like the tennis tournament.

My very normal lounge.

What has changed, is that I permanently have a sketchbook in my handbag, which I use as much as possible. However, I carried it everywhere in England this summer, so I guess that's just a change in my reality and not part of the foreign adventure.

I am glad that I can share this part of the world with all of you, and show that there is more to the Middle-East than the media images of war and violence, and that the majority of people here, like anywhere in the World, are good, kind, gentle people.

Qataris and expats relaxing together under the stars.

However, I couldn't resist finishing thispost on normality with a little touch of the exotic.