Hobbled camels

There's perhaps a reason why Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark didn't have children, or at least didn't travel with any.

An adventure is something you make. You have to look for one, and make it one. It doesn't just happen to you. But when travelling with children, the normality or domesticity you might try to escape when adventuring, follows you around. Had either lady done it, they might have felt it was like riding a hobbled camel into the unknown - forced to go slower and to stop in places they hadn't chosen. In a strange way, this can either make you feel trapped, or grounded. You can feel hindered by it, yet sometimes even grateful for it. But you never travel in the same way again. Until they grow up and leave.

I managed to salvage a few minutes gazing out the window as the Mediterranean ended and we flew over Israel/Palestine and I saw the mountainous desert begin as we swooped down towards Jordan. The sky was a clear icy blue which merged with pale orange as it met the desert and the border with Syria was visible. The border that hundreds of Syrian refugees are flooding over every hour, like so many other nationalities before them - Palestinians then Iraqis, now Syrians. Who next?

We were spat out from the Orange Purgatory into a humid arrivals section where we hung around for about an hour in a queue. Rashimi had spent most of the flight being squeezed and taken off our hands for cuddles in ample Jordanian bosoms, and continued to be plumped and kneaded by a gang of Bangladeshi girls who looked about 16. The mini van from the embassy was nowhere to be seen when we came through arrivals so we spent a sweaty half hour with about 25 taxi drivers in leather jackets and our pile of as many bags, and jumped in 2 cabs to the centre of Amman - Lozenge and J in one, a ravenous Rashimi and I in the other with a pack of Pringles. One pop, he ate the lot and unlike many other international junk, they really do taste the same everywhere in the world, unlike a KitKat or a Twix.

We all arrived at our flat at the same time, which was astonishing really, considering neither driver knew where we were going, and street names in Amman were added only five years ago. Our landlord greeted us, a slim man in his forties with a gym habit. LA meets Amman. J informed me he spends most of his time in the Power House around the corner. He was with Saeed, a charming Egyptian man in a shell suit with eyes as shiny, who's the caretaker. He gave us a whistlestop tour of every lightswitch with accompaniment of a bored-fatigued Lozenge cutting in every 30 seconds with 'CanIwatchCharlieandLolaontheIpadMummy' until our landlord, who seemed like he'd done one too many diet cokes that afternoon, finally whisked out again and left us in Apartment 2, No 3 Allal al Fasi Street, Amman which is our new home. It majors on beige, gold and marble with a twist of Louis XV, and is so much bigger than our London house we keep losing each other.

Then we found ourselves having dinner in Mirabelle, a 4 storey ice cream parlour and cafe which is so sweet and sickly you feel like you've landed in Disney. It's not somewhere J and I would have chosen to stop, but our travelling dwarves were delighted and I guess until we settle in here, their moods will be the barometer for all four of us.