Rather late in the day
Once again I find that weeks - months, more like - have passed and I've completely failed to update here. Life is just so hectic that I rarely find time to read my Flist properly, let alone write anything of my own. I can only apologise for my hopeless inability to keep in touch in any consistent fashion.
So, to summarise, since my last post (at the end of November, yeow!)…
Pre-Christmas happened in a flurry of concerts, all of which went well but left me exhausted. For the holiday itself I went back to the UK and spent quiet times with my folks. The mother of a very close friend died just before Christmas - a peaceful and not unexpected end which was actually a relief in many ways - so I was glad I'd made the decision to fly home as it allowed me to be at the funeral with A.
Since returning to Doha life's settled back down into its pattern of work, rehearsals, performances, late night coffees and generally hanging out with M. Despite all my resolutions to keep things on a sensible level and not spend all my time with him, it just seems to happen that way - and I can't remember being as happy and relaxed for many years. S describes my relationship with M as 'friendship and a bit' which I think is an accurate phrase. In any case he's a total sweetheart, always fun to be with and very, very supportive.
One added excitement in January was a fleeting visit from helenraven, passing through on her way to Kerala. It was a lovely bonus to spend time with her, so soon after staying with her in London just before New Year. She had the full Capella-in-Doha experience: a wild and windy afternoon on the Corniche waiting for me to finish playing three sets with the community orchestra at a huge charity event; an extended browsing session in Daiso, the fixed-low-price Japanese tat emporium, which is my favourite shop in town; a wonderful buffet lunch at the newest and coolest hotel; a slap-up meal at Kebab King, across the road from my apartment and at the other end of the monetary scale; and an evening at M's place, watching him futzing around with his various bits of flashy AV equipment in an abortive attempt to overcome region problems and play a Bluray DVD (Let's just say that installing Linux on a PS3 is a great idea in principle.) I suggested leaving him to it and going home, but helenraven seemed to be finding the whole thing rather amusing.
In more recent news, M and I have just come back from a totally ludicrous long weekend break in Lebanon, of all places. It's less than 3 hours and a whole world away from Doha. We arrived in Beirut the night before the big Hariri memorial and the funeral of Imad Moughniyah to find the city under total lockdown - tanks, soldiers and rolls of razor wire everywhere, and half the roads blocked to traffic. We wandered around as much of the downtown as we could get to, rubbed shoulders with the Hezbollah contingent bivouacked beneath the underpass by the main square, and generally found everyone to be friendly and charming despite the obvious tension about the place. I didn't sleep well that night, but M assured me in the morning that the gunfire I'd been hearing was only shots fired in the air. 'You can tell by the lack of answering volleys,' he said, unflustered as always.
The real point of the trip was to visit a ski resort. I don't do steep slippery slopes, but M was quite keen to ski again and I was more than happy to go along for the adventure and the lovely views. As it turned out, taking to the pistes wasn't much of an option. Having escaped from barricaded Beirut with some difficulty - even at 8am our taxi driver had trouble finding a clear route out - we watched in awe as what seemed like the entire population of the northern half of the country drove past us, flags waving, heading into the capital for the massive pro-democracy, pro-peace demonstration. I'd never seen anything like that level of public participation and found it all very moving. Part of me wished we'd stayed in the city to see the whole thing through, but the more practical part was very glad to be getting away.
Once we reached The Cedars we discovered that the views were better than we could have imagined, that our hotel was practically at the end of the road to nowhere, and that we were the only foreigners - and virtually the only tourists, fullstop - in town. We had the hotel entirely to ourselves on Thursday night (the rooms were cosy and warm and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' happened to be showing on the satellite channel…) and woke to bright blue skies and half a metre of fresh snow on Friday. It was a magical day and we walked for miles, drinking in the peace and clean air and wonderful scenery. The only ski lift in operation was on a tiny training slope, crowded with Lebanese visitors starting their weekend early. It was far too hectic for me and not challenging enough for M, so we had a good excuse to forget about the skiing and just chill out in every possible sense. Wonderful.
Back in Doha, and we're planning the next trip - a quick weekend hop over to Bahrain, without the major musical commitment this time so we have a chance to see the place properly. And my visit to South Africa next Christmas looks like a sure thing…
Here are a few photos from Lebanon just to give the idea. (None of the situation in Beirut, I'm afraid, as I don't think photographing the tanks is smiled upon. Suffice to say, though, that it's a fascinating city, very trendy and lovely in places despite all the heartbreaking evidence of years of war, and both M and I are keen to go back and explore it further. I was there ten years ago and felt then that I might at some stage end up living and working in Lebanon. The same feeling returned this time, and even more strongly. We'll see.)
The view from my hotel room window
The hotel itself - at the end of the road to nowhere
Fresh snow, Friday morning (M's photo)
View from the terrace where we ate lunch
Hardly needs an introduction
A genuine Cedar of Lebanon
So, to summarise, since my last post (at the end of November, yeow!)…
Pre-Christmas happened in a flurry of concerts, all of which went well but left me exhausted. For the holiday itself I went back to the UK and spent quiet times with my folks. The mother of a very close friend died just before Christmas - a peaceful and not unexpected end which was actually a relief in many ways - so I was glad I'd made the decision to fly home as it allowed me to be at the funeral with A.
Since returning to Doha life's settled back down into its pattern of work, rehearsals, performances, late night coffees and generally hanging out with M. Despite all my resolutions to keep things on a sensible level and not spend all my time with him, it just seems to happen that way - and I can't remember being as happy and relaxed for many years. S describes my relationship with M as 'friendship and a bit' which I think is an accurate phrase. In any case he's a total sweetheart, always fun to be with and very, very supportive.
One added excitement in January was a fleeting visit from helenraven, passing through on her way to Kerala. It was a lovely bonus to spend time with her, so soon after staying with her in London just before New Year. She had the full Capella-in-Doha experience: a wild and windy afternoon on the Corniche waiting for me to finish playing three sets with the community orchestra at a huge charity event; an extended browsing session in Daiso, the fixed-low-price Japanese tat emporium, which is my favourite shop in town; a wonderful buffet lunch at the newest and coolest hotel; a slap-up meal at Kebab King, across the road from my apartment and at the other end of the monetary scale; and an evening at M's place, watching him futzing around with his various bits of flashy AV equipment in an abortive attempt to overcome region problems and play a Bluray DVD (Let's just say that installing Linux on a PS3 is a great idea in principle.) I suggested leaving him to it and going home, but helenraven seemed to be finding the whole thing rather amusing.
In more recent news, M and I have just come back from a totally ludicrous long weekend break in Lebanon, of all places. It's less than 3 hours and a whole world away from Doha. We arrived in Beirut the night before the big Hariri memorial and the funeral of Imad Moughniyah to find the city under total lockdown - tanks, soldiers and rolls of razor wire everywhere, and half the roads blocked to traffic. We wandered around as much of the downtown as we could get to, rubbed shoulders with the Hezbollah contingent bivouacked beneath the underpass by the main square, and generally found everyone to be friendly and charming despite the obvious tension about the place. I didn't sleep well that night, but M assured me in the morning that the gunfire I'd been hearing was only shots fired in the air. 'You can tell by the lack of answering volleys,' he said, unflustered as always.
The real point of the trip was to visit a ski resort. I don't do steep slippery slopes, but M was quite keen to ski again and I was more than happy to go along for the adventure and the lovely views. As it turned out, taking to the pistes wasn't much of an option. Having escaped from barricaded Beirut with some difficulty - even at 8am our taxi driver had trouble finding a clear route out - we watched in awe as what seemed like the entire population of the northern half of the country drove past us, flags waving, heading into the capital for the massive pro-democracy, pro-peace demonstration. I'd never seen anything like that level of public participation and found it all very moving. Part of me wished we'd stayed in the city to see the whole thing through, but the more practical part was very glad to be getting away.
Once we reached The Cedars we discovered that the views were better than we could have imagined, that our hotel was practically at the end of the road to nowhere, and that we were the only foreigners - and virtually the only tourists, fullstop - in town. We had the hotel entirely to ourselves on Thursday night (the rooms were cosy and warm and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' happened to be showing on the satellite channel…) and woke to bright blue skies and half a metre of fresh snow on Friday. It was a magical day and we walked for miles, drinking in the peace and clean air and wonderful scenery. The only ski lift in operation was on a tiny training slope, crowded with Lebanese visitors starting their weekend early. It was far too hectic for me and not challenging enough for M, so we had a good excuse to forget about the skiing and just chill out in every possible sense. Wonderful.
Back in Doha, and we're planning the next trip - a quick weekend hop over to Bahrain, without the major musical commitment this time so we have a chance to see the place properly. And my visit to South Africa next Christmas looks like a sure thing…
Here are a few photos from Lebanon just to give the idea. (None of the situation in Beirut, I'm afraid, as I don't think photographing the tanks is smiled upon. Suffice to say, though, that it's a fascinating city, very trendy and lovely in places despite all the heartbreaking evidence of years of war, and both M and I are keen to go back and explore it further. I was there ten years ago and felt then that I might at some stage end up living and working in Lebanon. The same feeling returned this time, and even more strongly. We'll see.)
The view from my hotel room window
The hotel itself - at the end of the road to nowhere
Fresh snow, Friday morning (M's photo)
View from the terrace where we ate lunch
Hardly needs an introduction
A genuine Cedar of Lebanon