A Friday Stroll

MB decided to kick off his weekend with an early-morning stroll along Doha Corniche this morning. The Corniche is MB’s favourite walk in Doha, being 5km long, give or take. So if one parks one’s car at the Islamic Museum car park at one end, as MB normally does, one gets the full 5km and the same back. 10km. Walk or run. As you wish. Or mix the two. As MB often does.

MB never walks the Cornich, or anywhere else in Qatar, in the daylight hours, as temps are normally too high. So MB’s Corniche walks are always in the hours of darkness & street lights. But Doha denizens are now in the winter months and temps are down to more manageable levels. Hence MB’s early morning decision, his first daylight walk in his entire five-year Qatar sojourn.

And what an inspired decision it proved to be! Along with the last-minute decision to grab his hold-in-the-palm-of-his-hand Sony RX-100-M6 upon departed chez MB.

Five minutes into MB’s walk he hit photo pay-dirt!

Seeing many many people dressed in white t-shirts with an ‘I AM QATAR’ logo, MB asked one of the shirt-wearers what the shirts were about. MB discovered that there was a Qatar flag relay event in advance of Qatar National Day on 18 December next week. The flag was being passed person-to-person all along the 5km Corniche route. Soon the flag handlers were all over MB and he started clicking. Seconds later fighter jets and helicopters of the Qatar Air Force were strutting their stuff out over the adjacent sea-water, providing further photo targets for MB and his mini-camera.

A few of MB’s shots turned out ok.

Herewith, a flavour of Doha Cornice this morning: