Rain and other things

This weekend just gone I got my new camera set up and working. I am very pleased with it. It's my first digital SLR and I think (fingers crossed) I can use the lenses from my 35mm SLR with it, although I'll have to wait til we go back to the UK to test that theory. I bought it online from the UK because with the pound being weak things are much cheaper. Despite the lack of purchase tax in Qatar, decent electronics (rather than knock-offs from the souk) are expensive.

I took photos of my recently completed socks (basic ribbed socks using MiddleEarthKnitter's sock yarn in Captain Jack):

my on-the-needles socks (Roza's Socks from Interweave Knits using 100% cashmere from Knitting Goddess in Brown Owl):

my on-the-needles stole (Matryoshka Stole from Knitscene using Rowan Calmer in Coffee Bean. This is my first time knitting with beads and it's actually easier than it looks):

and the incredible light after a massive rainstorm with thunder and lightning:

It was so good to see and hear and feel rain. I had some laundry hanging on the roof to dry and in the time it took me to bring in 4 towels and a mat, I was absolutely drenched and had to change my clothes. It was television rain -- the kind of huge drops at high density they use on TV to make sure they show up on camera. We spent most of Saturday doing housework so the rain didn't adversely affect our day. When we weren't busy sweeping up tumbleweeds of cat hair, we leant out of the window and watched the storm. The traffic was at a standstill out on the C-Ring road because many people here aren't used to driving in the rain.

We also watched Spiderman 3 and while I enjoyed it, I was disappointed that they still haven't broached the subject of how he gets out of the bath.

In other news: I saw on the TV that John Barrowman got his cock out live on BBC Radio 2. Apparently they had one complaint, presumably from someone complaining that they couldn't see it.

Buying beads from the Taliban

On Saturday I got together for a coffee with a friend from knitting group. We sat in the rocking chairs outside the Coffee Beanery at Cholesterol Corner (a.k.a. Ramada Signal) and knitted socks for a while. The weather was just right for outdoor knitting – not too hot and not too cold, although there were rather a lot of flies. We knitted until the sun started to go down, then we went to the Taliban Store.

The Taliban Store sells buttons, beads, fabrics, threads, ribbons, edgings and anything else you can think of connected with tailoring. From the outside it’s just a normal Doha shop front with faded samples, dead flies and a leaky air conditioner in the window. Inside it’s like Ali Baba’s cave for crafters. It’s dark and stuffy and so crammed with goods you have to flatten yourself against the wall if someone wants to come by. There are reels of ribbon hanging from the ceiling with the ends dangling like vines. They catch on your clothes so you walk around the shop trailing ribbon. There is a room whose walls are lined with spool after spool of sewing thread in every colour imaginable. There is a wall of buttons that look like sweets in an old-fashioned sweet-shop. We rummaged around for ages. I had set myself the challenge of buying the beads I need for my next project (the Matryoshka Stole from Knitscene) in Doha, instead of using the internet, even if it meant using plastic ones. But I managed to find exactly what I needed in real wood which was great. Natural materials are quite hard to find here.

On the way back to the car we passed a laundry where a man was sitting cross-legged in the window operating a steam press. A pipe directed the steam out onto the street, carrying with it the smell of freshly-laundered cotton. It was refreshing after the somewhat fuggy atmosphere in the Taliban Store.