My sister is just back from another couple of weeks in the Gulf. She tells me that she couldn’t take a shower in her apartment complex because the cold water was coming from outside. And, as it was 52 degrees outside, the cold water was quite a lot warmer than the hot water. And she was there for the hottest day in Doha in 40 years. Lovely.
This inspired my mother-in-law to tell me a story about her friend who lives in the Gulf and who can’t use her swimming pool most of the year as the water is too hot and they can’t afford the expensive mechanism to cool it down.
Other little snapshots from the Gulf, my sister visited a shopping centre where there are canals and gondolas, she saw a woman in a burka eating spaghetti and she visited the local Pain Quotidien where she picked up some Belgian chocolate spread for me. Odd, very odd.
When will the good people at Pain Quotidien realise that Ireland needs them? Branches in the Gulf, America and London, but not Ireland. Insanity.
My mother (currently living in Belfast) is running a one-woman campaign to get them to open there! (I also have to keep my sister supplied with their chocolate spread, perhaps it’s the duty of sisters?)
M-A-D-N-E-S-S. I know. The only thing is, there’ll be queues round the block and I’ll never be able to get in. I will be bitter straining my ears to hear the nice classical music being piped in the Nirvana inside.
Shall I mail you some? Dark or au-lait? When I am in LA (half the year) I live 2 blocks from the West Hollywood branch of PQ – it’s one of the few things that keep me sane in that town.
Juliette, you are kind. Would that be better or worse than importing it from Qatar?
Probably best to petition PQ to open a branch in Dublin…