Birthday in Doha

Still waiting for my RP and so the wait for everything else continues. Bah! This is a shame because my new car is ready for me but I can't get it yet as I can't get my Qatari Driving License until of course you guessed it, I get my RP. Ah well not much longer of being driven everywhere, hopefully.

In other news it was my birthday this week. For those of you that know me well you will also know I have never worked on my birthday, ever. I always take the day off to do nice birthday things or for the last couple of years have proper birthday adventures. Thank you Gili Islands and Hamner Springs.

So this year I was a bit horrified that I had to actually go to work. I jokingly told my team that it's OK I would shut the shop and we would have a party. They haven't quite grasped my humour yet so for a short while they thought I was serious. I think they were very disappointed when they realised we wouldn't actually having a dance party whilst customers banged on the shutters.

We did have a fun day though, they surprised me a with a fancy cake and we had some now obligatory jelly throwing in the store. Just to clarify for the non Lushies, this is the shower jellies that LUSH sell not actual eating jelly. When the shop is quiet we do various things to draw attention and foot traffic inside and this is one thing that the team really love, although I may now be regretting introducing the concept of jelly throwing to Doha. This has led to cross mall throws to other shops, security staff either joining in or telling us to 'keep it inside', jelly to the face and jelly everywhere really. It has been very successful though, the team love it and it really raises the energy when it's quiet plus they engage with passing customers getting them to join and then come inside the shop and wash their hands. Once inside we can show them all of the other lovely things!

Back to birthday fun now, I had a nice dinner at an Italian with my housemates the night before, finished with proper gelato yum! I skyped with my family in multiple calls and today I'm off to experience a Doha tradition of Friday Brunch. Remembering Friday is the first day of the weekend here and technically this is a dry country, brunch is a big deal. All the western expats seem to go for 'brunch' which is in fact an afternoon session of all you can eat food at whichever hotel you happen to choose with 'house drinks' included. I'll report back on this later. Or possibly not later depending on many 'house drinks' I have consumed. Happy Birthday Kasia!