No longer the new kid on the block, seven weeks in!

I'm nicely settled in now and we have a new Director at work - hot from England - so he's replaced me as the new kid on the block at work. Although I think he has had a guardian angel looking over his shoulder since he seems to have sailed through the bureaucracy extremely well and quickly. Two weeks and he already has a residence permit and a driving licence, a new apartment and a promotion - not bad going.

I have now got my Qatari driving licence which I am pleased about but which also fills me with dread since the prospect of driving out here is really quite frightening. The drivers really don't follow any particular highway code and do pretty much anything they feel like - road rage seems to rule and size definitely matters. Anyone who doesn't have good lane discipline on roundabouts would feel very much at home here. Still, I have a rental car booked for Tuesday, so I am going to have to bite the bullet and get on with it. Apparently, the best time to go out and practice is Friday morning - the roads are quietest then because of Friday prayers and it being the weekend. So watch out Doha, here I come.

Some of you may have seen the camel pictures on Facebook - these are in a part of the car park near to Souq Waqif which is in the city centre. I'm not sure what they are doing there - there are no facilities for them and it doesn't appear to be a riding or tourist centre. Maybe it is just for the visitors to take pictures, exactly as I did. Strangely, they all seemed to be looking in the same direction, every time I looked. Maybe they were looking to Mecca.

Have I mentioned the senior Arabic men with the wheelbarrows in the Souq. There are a number of them when you are wandering around and they will follow you with your shopping - they are a version of the supermarket trolley and will take your shopping back to the car. When they are not engaged, they sit in the wheelbarrows.

Although the apartment block I am staying is serviced, ie it is cleaned and the linens changed twice a week, the cleaning is really a bit of a lick and a promise. Those of you who know me well, will know that I am a bit of a dusting fanatic although I have been a bit lax since I've here and had someone doing it for me. The other problem was I've been unable to buy a duster anywhere. So imagine my total surprise and pleasure when I came across a Lakeland shop in the City Centre Mall. A breath of fresh air and a reminder of home - one of my favourite shops.

Another thing that it's hard to get is white sugar - you can buy sugar cubes and brown sugar but loose white sugar is not so easy to get. So I've become adept at leaving conferences and coffee shops with a few packets of white sugar for my cereal in my handbag. Other things are very common that you would expect to be hard to find - Kellogs cereals are all over. If you ask for English breakfast tea, you get Liptons Yellow Label. Quite often though, they will serve it with hot milk, unless you ask for cold.

I'm developing a strange "pidgin" English which I use for speaking with non-English speakers or people I meet who are not fluent in English. Unfortunately, I think if you do this long enough, I imagine your own English would be affected, Conversely, when you are communicating by email, you need to adopt a more polite and stilted, even old fashioned style, almost how we would have once written a letter to introduce ourselves. It is customary to be polite, pass the time of day, express gratitude etc even in an email to get anything done. This can be very time consuming. It's a bit like learning a new language. After years of constantly being annoyed with spellcheckers trying to Americanise words with a "z" instread of an "s" in organisation for example, at ictQATAR, our style guide instructs us to use American English. So now I have to type center instead of centre.

Well, having used up another day of my weekend at a conference, it's back to work tomorrow, so I must go. The conference was, however, very interesting, at Qatar University, about education reform and I made some useful contacts for my programme.

Time for more tales - I think this will be the Lady's edition!

It's been a couple of weeks since the last instalment and things have been very busy at work. Khawar has been off in Singapore, so we have all had to muck in.

The weather has not been so great this last week, quite cool and very windy. I eventually had to give in and get my hair cut. Before I left England, I had been growing my hair into a different style which required more maintenance and the use of straighteners every morning but by the time I had walked to work here, I looked like "Looby Loo". For those of you who don't know who I mean, she was a doll with plaits which stuck out at right angles to her head - I presume you are getting the picture now. Suffice to say I couldn't do anything with my hair, so I have gone back to my original short hairstyle, which I know my mum will regret. It's also cooler and when the weather gets a lot hotter, which everyone is warning us about, I will probably be very glad.

It's very traumatic for a lady finding a new hairdresser - we build up a close and trusting relationship and it is hard to establish that with someone new. I was lucky that Precia, one of Khawar's friends out here was able to recommend someone. Theresa turns out to be Irish and from Dublin would you believe. She has only been out here six months herself. The cut is a bit short but it will grow!

The next big decision was where to go for a pedicure - another personal and traumatic one for us ladies. Again Precia came to the rescue and took me to her favourite beauty salon, Dados. This was a fantastic place - very plush and you can see the pictures on Facebook. Treated like special guests - the foot spa was in the floor, a hot drink, hot neck warmer while you sit, special slippers if you want to walk around, the offer to use the spa if you have to wait and a fantastic interior - and no "dudes" allowed in there.

I don't know if I've mentioned the amusing tale about the canteen at work. We go next door to the Qatar Foundation canteen for a hot lunch. When I say hot, that is a bit of an over statement, it is at best warm. However, it saves me from having to buy a hot meal at night as I don't have any cooking facilities in the apartment, only a fridge. The amusing thing is that there is a good selection, usually fish, chicken, beef, veggie, pasta etc and name tags are supplied on each dish. The names of the dishes usually provide me with amusement each day. Here are a few examples: Seafood Terminator, Fussily Pasta, Chilly Fish - some English lessons required I think.

Excitement last week on one of our trips to the Souq to buy yet more pearls as last minute presents for Precia to take home to Houston with her. The Pearl is the national symbol of Qatar, its traditional trade was pearl fishing and the local pearls are very pretty and reasonably priced. Whilst we were in the shop, a film crew arrived from Qatar TV and interviewed us about our shopping trip. Don't know whether they will actually show it but they promised to email us when it was on.

There's a strange tissue phenomenon in Doha - everywhere you go, you will see boxes and boxes of tissues, in the cars, in the restaurants, in the hotels, in the meeting rooms, on coffee tables, I'm pretty sure there will be a world shortage as a result. The explanation I was offered was that they don't have paper napkins which partly explains it but not completely. An example, in a meeting with twenty tables, there will be a box on every table. Go figure. If anyone knows the reason why, please tell me.

It was Precia's birthday yesterday so we were out all day, coffee and breakfast in the Souq in the morning in the lovely sunshine, the first for a week, then to the Mall to kill a couple of hours before the beauty salon, then in the evening we went to the Cultural village, which is alongside the sea and the newly opened public beach. This is something new for Doha, because up to now all the beaches in the city are owned by the hotels and private. This is a place for strolling in the evening and people watching with some very smart restaurants.

We went to the seafood restaurant which had to be seen to be believed. It was huge, spread across at least four buildings connected internally with a fantastic interior, a fresh fish bar with the fish waiting to be selected before being cooked for you. Several large round aquariums with tropical fish were part of the interior design and the ladies restroom had to be seen to be believed - it was as good as one of the five star hotels. Before you started your meal, the bread basket arrived and also a salad basket containing a whole lettuce, green pepper, cucumber, tomato, carrot strips etc with various dips and this was just to pass the time before your starters arrived, a meal in itself. It was the weekend so it was very busy but surprisingly reasonably priced. No alcohol of course.

Finally, I've now got my residence permit, so next hurdle is my driving licence and Colin's visa.

More adventures in the residency and visa process

Today was fingerprinting day - the last hurdle I think in the process towards getting my residency status and ID over here. This took another two hours because it is outside the city centre and quite a drive to the Criminal Forensic Centre where they carry it out.

We arrived and I was given yet another ticket with a number on it - this time I had 21 people in front of me and I was in the VIP queue this time. There were three machines with operators doing the fingerprint scanning electronically, and the palms of your hands also. Then the machine takes your photo for the ID. Again a very efficient and automated process.

So all done now and hopefully I will be officially a resident with a work visa and ID very shortly.

More drama at the apartment with the electrics when I got home last night - no lights in the bathroom - they were working when I left for work in the morning but not when I got home. It is quite a worry because there is a shortage of electric sockets and you have to use extension leads so everything is overloaded all the time as well and it is the light bulbs which seem to keep blowing the system.

Went to the Latinos dance party last night with Khawar and Precia, one of her friends from Houston. This starts with a dance class at 8pm for an hour. You pay 60 QR which is about £12 and this includes the class and one free cocktail. Then the rest of the evening is a dance free for all with a mixure of salsa, cha cha cha, machacha, merangue, argentine tango, and a few others. Everyone struts their stuff on the dance floor, beginners and more advanced together. The instructor generally works his way around everyone at least once.

Because I'm a beginner, no one really wants to dance with me so I got stuck with two no hopers who were even worse than me. One just wanted to dance in a circle and wasn't interested in the dance steps and the other just wanted to run on the spot. Either way, I wasn't making any progress with either of them. I think I need a new strategy.

Work has been very interesting this week - I have been able to get out and about and visit a few places - I went to both Qatar University and one of the new American University campuses in Education City. Both were very impressive, one more traditional and the latter, much more modern and more like a five star hotel with fantastic student facilities such as free wifi in the communal areas.

Settling in nicely now - week three

Well, here I am into my third week now and still surviving. I had the tedious medical testing process to endure last week and endure is indeed the right word for it. Patience in bucket loads is required and also a driver who speaks some English to at least start you off in the right direction. Ladies are segregrated from men in a different part of the medical commission building and although we were there quite early, about 9.30 in the morning, there were already hundreds of Indians and Phillipinos already queueing up.

I first had to go upstairs to get my visa stamped - this was the first queue and took about 20 minutes, then back downstairs to the ladies section to register and pay 100 QR (about £20) for the chest xray and blood tests. I was given a ticket with a number on it, my place in the queue and I was 6186 and the ticket stated that there were 69 people in front of me. I then waited one hour and twenty minutes to get to the counter where I registered, had my photo taken by the girl on the counter with a digital camera, and paid by debit card.

I then went to the next section for the blood test where we queued again to have a blood sample taken. This was done with no care or compassion - you are basically just a number in a line of people. Another 15 minutes or so but I have to say it was painless. They were very efficient. Then the last queue for the chest xray which was the longest and most humiliating of all. 8 rows of chairs and the same 69 people in front of me. We were sent in, 6 at a time, row by row. When it was my turn, after another hour and a half, you change into a gown in a cubicle which was shared and queued up again for the xray in one large room, your details were checked and you were sent to the machine, xrayed and sent out again to change back. Not much humanity but a very efficient process. Total waiting time three and half hours.

After that on to the next clinic for another blood test to find out my blood group. Bearing in mind, I had already had all this done before I left England at great expense for the job but apparently, this is not valid for the residence permit. All that remains is to be finger printed for my residence process to be complete.

Great fun this week when we went shopping for Abayas for Khawar and Precia. Khawar occasionally has meetings with the Secretary General and it is a mark of respect to wear the traditional dress. She has looked on many occasions but not yet found anything she really likes. We did find one that was a possibility but had great fun trying them on. I was even persuaded to try one including the headdress but it was far too long. They do all the alterations as part of the process and some of them are fabulously decorated and embroidered. We as Westerners think they are all the same, but they even wear the headdresses differently and they look very glamorous with their designer sunglasses and handbags and shoes with them.

More tomorrow about the dance classes - just going out to Latino.