The dwarves earn their keep

The wind and rain began in the middle of the night and continued well into today, which is Thursday, which also means we've been here for a week and it's my day on my own with the boys. We're in a bit of limbo as none of our stuff has arrived, we can't use our car which is at the Embassy until all the paperwork and ID has been cleared, internet will be another couple of weeks, so…what to do in an empty house with two boys of 1 and 3 and J at Arabic classes most of the day.

We started by making a den with one of the fitted sheets we were loaned from the embassy and attaching it to the sofa. This was fun for about an hour as it could be a boat, a car or a bath. We thought we'd found a cleaner, but she came once and we haven't seen her since, so I thought I'd rope the dwarves into a bit of bathroom cleaning and floor mopping. We had fun at first, with L mopping, and Rashimi playing in the bidet and dangling his fingers into the loo bowl, but then they both started wiping out on the wet floor, Rashimi like a dog on ice, and the howling began. Everywhere I went, Rashimi screamed. And if he went near L, he got pushed away backwards - head smacking onto marble floor.

Sayyad came by to collect the rubbish and I could hear him outside our door calling: 'Umm Laurence!' which means 'Laurence's mother'. Here you are called Father or Mother of...and the name of your oldest child. So J is known as, Abou Laurence about the block. Sayyad came in and grabbed Rashimi's cheeks asking why he'd been awake so early and threw L in the air. His twinkly eyes and broad smile made us all feel better and miraculously after a bit of car racing in the empty sitting room it was lunchtime and the moment to get the olives out.

As we picked the stones out of the olives with greasy fingers, I asked myself, what are these Syrian ladies doing with their children in the refugee camps on the Jordanian border, with a lot more to worry about than no toys and no car? It's frustrating not to be able to go there and talk about where they've come from and how they manage. We have the easy ride as ever. Perhaps at some stage we'll get to go and maybe even be able to do something useful.