On our way!

Well, we finally had word this morning from The Learning Centre (Qatar) that our visas & travel arrangements are in place. So, Pat flies out of Ottawa on Thursday evening (28th August) to Washington & then on to Doha overnight, arriving there on Friday evening. That leaves just one day before classes begin! Roger follows on 10th September (with the same itinerary).

So this is what we are leaving behind! Something to dream about when it's 50 degrees celsius in the shade & the sandstorms whirl around.

A change in our lives

“We'll be living in the Cotswolds” was what we said, “and it is great hiking country.” Many of you promised to come and we promised to have at least a floor for you to sleep on. All we had to do was rent out our house for a year. We’d done it before…without any difficulties.

But, then we had difficulties. We tried for 2 months to rent our house, advertising on Craig’s List, Kijiji, university sites, newspapers, and even Facebook. We had exactly 6 serious (seemingly interested) responses. Four couples asked to come over. One couple actually came, one couple called to say they had found another place and the other two just didn’t show up. I think I saw one of the couples drive by to check it out, slow down and drive away laughing, implying in my now-paranoid thinking…”they must be kidding….as if I could live there!”

Roger now believes that we must have been very out of touch with reality. We like our house. Other people (family and friends) say they like our house. Now we wonder if you feel sorry for us and are trying to make us feel better.

You see, we live in an area of Ottawa that is close to Vanier which is an ‘up and coming’ place. We love where we live because it is full of colour, and energy and we can bike or walk downtown and we can take our grandchildren to feed the ducks along the Rideau River and our neighbours are, for the most part kind, intelligent, interesting people.

A week ago we realized that 1) we weren’t going to rent our house, 2) we couldn’t afford to live in England, and 3) we were happy at the prospect of staying here in Ottawa and having local adventures. It also meant that we could spend more time with our grandchildren.

But, that very day, two surprising things happened. First, a friend called from her Alaskan Cruise to urge me to apply for a teaching job in Qatar where she would be teaching in September. We looked up Qatar on a map, realized where it is in the Middle East and then looked it up on a few internet sites and figured it is probably a country in the Middle East in which we could live. So, we (Roger loves the details of things like applications) applied. Then, a wonderful young couple came to see the house, loved it right away and agreed to rent it and even help us out by paying for some storage for us.

We spent a week dealing with details for renting and details for moving and interviews for the job and at the end of it we had a new and unexpected direction in our life.

So, we are going to Qatar! We will have a 2 bedroom apartment on the edge of Education City and the desert. I will be teaching grades 9-12 English to small classes of students who have identified learning problems...like dyslexia etc. I will teach Sunday to Thursday from 7 am to 3 pm. Roger has already contacted some Qatari birders and has even heard about people he knows who are teaching at one of the universities there (there are many!). He may also be able to do some tutoring in French.

An adventure awaits us. We will let everyone know our address. We will be thrilled to have visitors. Most people use Skype to call out. Roger’s Skype name is erogclark. He is also going to write a bloggy newsletter and we will send pictures. So, all being well, I'm off to Doha on 26 August (via Toronto & Washington) and Roger will follow a couple of weeks later, although the exact date will depend on immigration rules (since I'll be "sponsoring" him). More as all this unfolds.