I heard this so many times in the last week of school I almost began to feel sorry for myself. All those exotic places people were jetting off to, what was I doing choosing to stay in Doha with three young children (Beth7, Alice4, Jonny2). Then there was that other voice of doom - the weather will be unbearable!

Time for a reality check. Hard Done By Of Doha - NOT

We have done the staying with relatives in England trip four times now, great for the first two days but there is the remaining weeks to endure! We arrive back having spent vast amounts and needing a holiday (how come it was always us who paid for the take away for twenty?) We have also tried the stop overs in 5 star hotels but with five of us in one room none of us gets much sleep as Jonny aged 2 is up at 5:30 a.m. regardless. How many hours till breakfast to fill in never mind the rest of the day. By 9 we are all ready for bed again.
Then there is summer in Qatar. Four-bedroom luxury accommodation, fully equipped playroom, choice of four swimming pools (at our compound and the falcon club to say nothing of all their friends pools), satellite television AND most significantly for the quality of my holiday, fulltime cleaner and babysitter!! Beats two weeks camping any day, which is all the holiday we would be likely to manage if back in the U.K.
As for things to do we have genuinely been spoilt for choice and have not heard the "mum I'm bored" once. A big plus factor was the Qatar Summer Wonders Festival of Fun. There were numerous events every day at no cost! My children thoroughly enjoyed each one we went to and here are their highlights.

The high wire acrobats amazed Beth, a nail biting display of trapeze and gymnastics suspended above the city centre ice rink. "It was really great, Fantastic, " she says
Alice wanted to go to the chocolate rainforest again and again. She means the Tropical Rainforest at the exhibition Centre. We went several times, a guaranteed 2 hours of entertainment for all 4 children. Ok, a bit of a giggle factor for the adults especially the polystyrene wild life but squeals of delight from my 2 and 4 year olds . Good respite for me as they got unlimited goes on the river and went round and round and round .
Jonny loved the flame thrower at the circus and the Spanish Dancers .He has been spiting at us (pretending to blow flames) and Flamencoing round the house ever since. As for Sara, our ten year old visitor from across the water. She had been to several events at Bahrain's Summer Festival and said ours was great in comparison. She said she wants to move here.
There was also a whole programme of twice-weekly activities to join in thanks to the organisational skills of the Mum's from school ( in our case Doha English Speaking School, aka DESS). This also made trips very reasonable such as ice-skating 10 riyals, bowling 5 riyals and a whole morning at Circus Land with lunch 20 riyals( exchange rate is 5.6 to £1.00(great when you are paying for 4 or 5). None of us was ever short of invitations to get together with friends, sometimes I barely saw Beth for days.-

And that other great secret of staying - 75-90% sales AND few shoppers.

But the best thing of all about summer in Qatar is the easy time with family and friends. Throughout the developed world how often do you hear we never seem to have enough time? This summer I have had time to complete a swimming teachers course, write this article, read 4 books a week as well as all the activities with the kids and time to make new friends. Quality time with my children, my husband and myself. Some of the grand plans have gone out of the window as we have increasingly learnt to relax and enjoy (Beth's two craft kits are still in their boxes, and likely to stay there for now) I haven't got round to actually teaching any swimming yet preferring just to play in the pool with my own kids-maybe next term!
ALL this has been greatly enhanced by the hot, sunny and blessedly not too humid weather we have had this year. Absolutely glorious for those of us from cool, grey origins (i.e. North East England). Last week my other half and I had the Golf Club terrace to ourselves, a beautiful summer night with cooling breeze off the sea and very comfortable even in trousers.

So thank you Qatar for a restful, relaxed and relatively cheap holiday. We are already looking forward to next year.