Follow Your Sunshine: When opportunity knocks...

Since I arrived here, I have seen Doha as a place of opportunity. But unlike London, where opportunity lies around every corner, here you have to look for it and be ready to grab it with both hands as soon as it comes your way.

This has been a busy week of new opportunities.

Yesterday's came in the form of WAKEBOARDING with Nicky and Lianne.

As most of you will know, I am notoriously bad at anything that involves too much strength and agility. Netball, sure. A bit of light swimming, cool. Hoisting myself out of the water, bracing every muscle in my body and keeping my balance as I am dragged along at 60 mph by a speed boat...not a hope in hell. Still, like anything, I was more than willing to give it a go, and to have a good laugh at how terrible I was compared to these two seasoned professionals.

Look at how graceful N & L are on the water:

"Look, it's so easy I only need one hand!"

When it came to my turn, feeling emboldened after half a beer (it doesn't take much), I jumped into the water with my excellent coach Lianne, attached myself with a bit of difficulty to my board...

And after falling off a couple of times, proceeded with this really glamorous, squatty technique...

until I found the strength (and courage) to heeeeeaaaave myself out of the water. Wobbling down the causeway, before I inevitably wobbled too much, lost my balance and toppled back into the sea, I felt 3 minutes of absolute, pure and utter joy. You probably can't see it in these pictures, but I am definitely grinning.

I think this photo of Nicky photobombing me sums up the fun we had that afternoon perfectly.

It was even almost worth the all over body-ache which has slowly crept up on me today. Who knew that you use muscles in your ARMPITS to Wakeboard?!

Earlier in the week, I'd experienced another first in the form of a Harley Davidson themed brunch at the Grand Hyatt hotel. Bikes and brunch may sound like a slightly strange mix, but the combination of good music, great food, fun people and a really laid back vibe made for an excellent day out.

Holly had been invited along by the General Manager, Christoph, and following my awesome experience at brunch last week, I was all over it when she asked me if I would like to be her plus 1.

We were seated on a table with Christoph, his wife Rachel, their two children and a bunch of their friends, and within seconds of sitting down, we were immediately welcomed into the friendly group.

Holly and I had let the side down a little by not fully embracing the biking attire, but we still got stuck in with the best of them.

Once again, the food was amazing

But it was the fun and laid back party atmosphere that really made this brunch. We weren't at all surprised when Christoph told us it had won Doha's brunch of the year in the Time Out Doha restaurant awards for several years running.

We finished the night with a few drinks in the bar upstairs and more than a few new friends.

Forget Time Out, Friday brunch in The Grill at the Grand Hyatt has the Holly Chubb seal of approval.

The only other food I had this week that came anywhere close to rivalling the Grand Hyatt's was on Wednesday in the form of Luke's infamous homemade tuna flan.