The Royal Wedding

Jo organised a Royal Wedding party for a group of friends which was fabulous. She went all out on the decorations and everyone brought something to eat. We took strawberries for strawberries and cream dessert. The little girls were all hyped and excited and all Owen wanted to do was play with Cameron and eat sweets. Erin was happy to bob about and tried to climb the stairs a lot of the time. Brendon did his daddy duty well as per usual and kept everyone in check while I sat in front of the telly and enjoyed the historic event.

A rainy day

A sight to behold, it rained today in Doha. It was lovely to smell the rain on the hot dry dusty concrete. Made me think about South Africa. Soon after it stopped raining the ground began to dry quickly as now it is beginning to reach 40 degrees in the day. The change in weather was a hot topic at the next days Doha mums event. It was weird to get so excited about a bit of rain. But the days are constantly dry and sunny here so change was good.

Pictures out and about

My camera is always in my bag so when there is a photo opportunity while I am in the car I just grap it and shoot. The building to rent is a shell with nothing in it. Funny. Who would spray paint numbers on their cars. Accidents. Everyday somewhere someone has crashed a car. Car from Bahrain. Maybe a sign of escaping from the unrest. The last photo made me sick to my stomach. A mom and dad had 2 little girls in the back of their car and allowed them to hang out each window. The speed limit is 80km in this part of town. I was terrified when we went around a corner the one in pink (at the right of the car) would fall out and get run over by another car. I held my hand over my eyes and asked Brendon to speed up so we could get away from the situation. There is a huge emphasis on family and children here and yet it is legal to let the children sit, stand, bouncy around the car without any restraints. New born babies are held by their mothers who sit in the front or back. In a country with a lot of local wealth why not spend a little on what is really important!?

The Cake Course

One of my goals in 2011 was to complete a basic cake making and decorating course. I signed up for a 5 week class (2 hours a week) with a friend and together we enjoyed our weekly fix of acquiring knowledge and practicing the art of decorating. Yes, definately is an art and something to be practiced. Our instructor was a Sri Lankan lady, Sriyanti, who has been on all the Wilton cake decorating courses here in Doha. She is extremely skilled and a perfectionist and so I also asked her to make Erin's cake for her birthday. The course was fun and with only 4 of us attending it was easy to ask questions as and when we needed to. We learnt to create leaves, flowers, borders, lettering, made a clown and practiced over and over again. The first cake with the leaves was a free for all where we all got to do our thing on the cake. It ended up looking more like a jungle theme than a pretty cake! For our last lesson we had to bring our homework which was a baked, crumb coated and frosted cake of our choice and then we showed off our skills of decorating in the class. I decorated it with leaves, flowers, dots and a shell border. I had a brilliant time and now have the confidence to try out all the exciting stuff on the Wilton website like a cream cheese red velvet cake. Yum, can't wait.