The arrival of the Virgin Mary

I find myself alone in our apartment for the first time, and everything that's happened over the last week is drizzling into the air pockets in my head. Is it a coincidence that the Scottish word for child, bairn, is made of the same letters as brain? A poor woman from Clan Macdonald back in the day perhaps had the realisation that once the r had moved two letters forward, her head would be a different place. Not better, not worse. Just different.

My brain is at ease and ticking happily having just watched the bairns from two floors up, skipping along the road towards the Bird Garden with a ball of wholesome Jordanian goodness in the form of our very new part time nanny who has filled our lives with fun, energy and crucial local knowledge.

When we were planning our lives here, everyone told us we'd never find a Jordanian willing to help with children - it was only Egyptians, Philippinas or Sri Lankans who did that job. But it appears we've found the only one who does. And amazingly she also feels the stars were aligned in her favour.

Her last job was with an Arab royal family, where she was used to being shuttled around with the children in a helicopter. She drives a Mercedes (also beige) and a 4 x 4 and LV is her Topshop. I'd been concerned she'd be more Glammy than Nanny. But as an unmarried Jordanian with a tattoo, a clandestine boyfriend, and a job that she doesn't tell anyone she does - she errs enough on the wild side to hang out with our two dwarves and she won their hearts in a matter of hours. She also says everything in English and then in Arabic, so our days are all about 'yala yala' (let's go) and 'shwai shwai' (gently gently/slowly slowly). Inshallah, Alhamd'u l'illah and Mashallah. No day is complete without heavy use of all these.

L keeps forgetting her name and asks me, 'Where's that little lady gone?' as she's about half my height and when holding Rashimi his toes reach her mid thigh. But she can shift, as I discovered when L was hurtling towards a busy road, and she disappeared as lightning to scoop him up, her sleek plait, as black as a squaw's, flying straight out behind her. She is just what we needed, not least becuase she laughed when I explained about all the imported food and told me that supermarket was where you go if you want foreign stuff. Now we have a fridge full of Jordanian veg. No surprise her name means Virgin Mary in Arabic. I hadn't realised The V.M. featured in the Koran. But she is proving herself to be that, and more.

We had to buy a first pair of shoes (Chinese) for Rashimi as he's out and about a lot, and he's walking like a small John Wayne wading through mud. In the playground yesterday he was found face down in the downward dog position eating sand most of the morning, which is either a mineral deficiency or a demonstration of his humility for a new land. To everyone's amusement, I was also accosted by gangs of Egyptian and Jordanian ladies wanting to take my photograph. Perhaps this is payback time for all those pictures I've taken of other people in my life.

I just met our landlord's mother who came to show me how to work our oven. They are a Palestinian family and I had the chance to talk to her about when they left Palestine and came to Jordan. Her side of the family arrived here in the mid 30's, and her husband's came in 1948, during the Nakba, which means disaster, when Palestinians were forced out from their homes, their towns, their country, in so many cases, never to return. She said they used to return to Jerusalem every weekend before 1967, but after that date, they couldn't really go back at all. These dates are etched in the history here, as 1066 and 1789 in Europe. I'm looking forward to understanding more about it. It's particularly appropriate that we should understand it being British, since Britain played such a big role in the turmoil. The Middle East was divided up by Europeans, particularly the British and the French, and we've been living the manifestations of it ever since. It's something we don't get to look into nearly deep enough in our history classes at school.