Abu and Umm Lucy arrive

I've just been home again to meet my new nephew, Fergus and it was like we'd met before. The familiarity of holding and smelling a tiny being with some of the same blood was surprising and lovely. And I had the chance to sing and dance at a wedding, which was the other surprising thing - because I realised that I hadn't done either (with adults) since we arrived in Jordan, and the release was intense. In every human culture in the world people do both, which must mean they're as necessary as eating. So I'm on a mission to find a nightclub here in Amman.

With a little distance from our new home, I had the chance to think about where we've come in 2 months, and to resolve to be all things better - a better mother, a better wife, a better me, and then I saw this little quote written in a scrawling hand on a white board in Kentish Town tube station's 'poetry corner':

I am in competition with no one. I run my own race. I have no desire to play the game of being better than anyone, in any way, shape, or form. I just aim to improve, to be better than I was before. That's me and I'm free.

That's how it felt being back in the UK. Living away from there helps you to appreciate its tremendous power and individuality as a nation - despite all its faults, a threat of press regulation, and the fact it was minus 3 degrees at midday in March.

And then I returned here, bringing Mum and Dad, and a bag bulging with strong bread flour, and the place suddenly feels like home. Their all-knowing hearts have checked out our every day. And thanks to the umbrella-like sharing of the joyburden of children, I feel a bit more comfortable we are not doing something too stupid by living here, so far away. I wonder if we ever grow out of seeking our parents' approval? So they're here, and they know more about life than us, and they love our children, so we feel safe.

Watching their reactions to all the people that come into our daily lives here is also fascinating. With no common language, having seen Abu Mohammed and Sayyad with our children, Dad quickly saw, with great gratitude, that both men would jump in front of a car to save one of the boys. A humbling thing to witness as a Grandparent who lives a long way away.

The Lozenge, whose last little stunt before I left, was to shake the tortoise's scaly paw in the downstairs garden, and say: "Hello, what's your name?" Then after a short silence, he said: "Oh dear. I don't think he speaks English," which I realise is his every day at nursery school.  So when Mum and Dad (Abou and Umm Lucy these days) walked through our front door, it was as though the floor beneath Laurie's feet had turned into a trampoline he bounced so high - and I honestly think the noise that came from his mouth was ullulation.

We've been out and about in Amman and the Lozenge and Rashimi have bloomed with the familiarity of their presences. The sculptures in the National Gallery are more functional than most…

We've got them earning their keep at last....

…and tomorrow we're all off to the Dead Sea with the Glammy who was particularly excited I went back to the UK as it meant I could get the latest LV handbag for her on her behalf. 

Women, an Iranian lunch and a packet of Jordanian sausages

The magazine I've been writing for is making strides into unchartered terrain for a Jordanian women's mag. While trying to veer away from high heels and handbags, they're giving space to stories about women's rights and other fundamental issues, which aren't always evident here, yet once you start unravelling the ball of wool, you discover it's pretty long.

I was shocked to discover that as a woman in Jordan you aren't able to give your child your nationality - it comes only from the man. So if I'd married a Jordanian, and lived here - my children would be classified as 100% Jordanian. Or as one lady I met, told me, her son's not eligilble for a Jordanian passport becuase her husband's American. There was also a story about how a university professor was sacked from her job after her students released a video about sexual harassment on campus; and another feature about the brave Jordan Times journalist who's published a book about honour killings. It's all going on under the surface, despite the veneer of modernity, and equal pay is likely to be years away. The magazine is limited to how political it can get, and the piece was written with no bylines.

I saw a short film in the art house cinema here - The Rainbow Theatre. The film was called 'Ismail', about a Palestinian artist, made by a young Palestinian girl in her 20's. It was beautifully shot, despite a disappionting storyline. But it was a good excuse to nip out on my own for a culture fix. I sat in the one remaining seat in the cinema which was packed full of Jordanians and Palestinians only.  There were long haired men and leather jackets - a far cry from Mall chic.The discussion was all in Arabic and my neighbour turned out to be an opinionated and interesting Palestinian lady of about 60, called Wissam. Before the lights went down, she said she loved this moment in the cinema. I agreed it was a moment that never lost its magic. 'There are many magic moments like that, in life. That never lose their value,' she said. She gave me a lift home and explained how she lost her husband four years before and is only just getting used to being on her own. I stepped out of the car and walked back upstairs to my boys - feeling wistful for Wissam. I got back and stared at the little cards the boys made for me with the Glammy for Jordanian mother's day, this week. Rashimi's had his first efforts at finger painting, with 'Bahibik, ia Mamma' (I love you Mummy) in Arabic, on it. The Lozenge's majored on hearts and stars. These moments of magic that could easily go unremembered.

The boys excelled themselves at an Iranian lunch at our language teacher's house, complete with mounds of pistachio-scattered rice and fesun juun, the lamb, pomegranate and walnut stew which is one of the most famous of Iranian dishes. The Lozenge had a double helping of creamy Nescafe pudding and was bouncing off the swirly wallpaper and almost off balconies from the tiny flat, cackling like a crazed harridan. Rashimi is just about walking, meaning my days as a human Zimmer are nearly over, but it also meant he could reach all the glass baubles, china lace-effect dishes and bowls of sweets. So I spent the whole lunch lunging after flying ornaments. Headscarves were awry after our visit and it was a relief to get home.

The Lozenge's teacher told me he's not really playing with the other children as they only speak Arabic, and I was feeling a bit guilty about keeping away from the expat zone and international schools on his account. But we're arranging a playdate with 'Nabiw' who has some English and his Mum sounds nice. I got off the phone to her, and as I tried to resuscitate a packet of dodgy Jordanian beef sausages (the boys refuse to eat them as they are dry and greasy all at once) by putting them into a casserole, I wondered if the cultural gap is ever entirely crossable - even when you're three. Time will tell.

I went for a job interview at an old building with peeling paintwork, where the atmosphere was swamp-like soporific, and like being transported back to the 50's, but if the job did happen, it could be an interesting one, and would help me peel away layers of this country to reveal some realities, as I was itching to do to the paint.

Spring capers

Ahmar wa ahmar: red and red

Spring is here, the trees are sprouting pale pink papery blossom and the factor 30 suncream is already a pre-requisite for outings between 10am and 5pm.

The magazine said they liked my piece and photos about the gypsies and it's going to be out next month, so I allowed myself an afternoon of wandering downtown with a new friend. Although Amman has grown to about 50 times the size since the 1920s when it first became the capital, when you're downtown you can still feel it's the beating heart, and can find almost anything you'd need from brooms and plates to fruit, fabric and falafels. The winding, filthy roads are a refreshing contrast from the areas such as Abdoun, where many embassies are, with larger villas, wealthy Jordanians, and lots of expats. Downtown, there's not a chain you recognise in sight, no donuts, no ice creams, and the fruit juice coming from the ancient iron juicers - pomegranate, orange, mostly wielded by Palestinians, is nectar to a dry, dusty mouth. When you look from a balcony above as we did in a shisha cafe, it still looks like a village and is relatively quiet for the centre of a capital city.

Is there a jewel more beautiful?

We found ourselves in the fruit and vegetable market for most of the outing, since it's spring and there are all sorts of unidentifiable morsels jostling for space with the cauliflowers and shining claret coloured aubergines. We were lectured to by an elderly Palestinian man beside the cabbages, who said: "So you're British! Did you know it was your Government that was responsible for us losing our country to the Israelis? Have you heard of the Balfour Declaration?" He still had a cheeky glint in his eye when he spoke so it wasn't too uncomfortable. And you would be missing a huge part of crucial history if you didn't know about the Balfour Declaration in these parts. It is the name for a letter, (dated 2 November 1917) from the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. And it said: 'His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.'

We are still seeing the repercussions now, particularly since the second part of the declaration was not adhered to - if anything, the opposite was achieved. And although on the streets of British cities you may not find many who are familiar with the declaration. Round here, it's like saying 'Magna Carta'…and brings the rancour brimming to the surface like sea scum.

Finally, the man stopped his history lesson, shook our hands, said: 'God bless you,' and strolled off. If only we were capable of re-writing history.

A Palestinian quince seller telling us he has 3 wives

We carried on wandering about, squeezing furry green almonds which you eat with the skin on, dipped in salt and lemon; desert truffles; black carrots which are called: 'red carrots'; gnarly quinces; leathery pomegranates peeled at the top to reveal the jewels which Rahimi likes to bite one by one with his incisors giving him a pert little pout; and mounds and mounds of spices. And all so cheap…to us.

Furry almonds

Desert truffles

We had another few people round for dinner and made lamb tagine and Tunisian orange cake which had a story to tell by the time it made it to the table. I managed to use a leaking cake tin and set off the smoke alarm at 10pm as the cake mix leaked into the gas flame; then, after 15 minutes of cooking, I realised I'd forgotten to put in the oil, so I had to whip it out and stir the oil into the part-cooked cake, and because I'd ground the almonds myself it had a bit of a nutty consistency. One of the ladies who came was Jordanian and she described how difficult life has become for the poorer Jordanians. Food prices, petrol prices, thousands of refugees coming in and competing for work in an already over saturated jobs market. She said in her workshop, some of her female Jordanian employees had been complaining that Syrian fathers were coming to the mosques and negotiating competitive rates to marry off their daughters, leaving young Jordanian girls with fewer men to marry. She explained the Syrian ladies cook better, and don't demand posh cars and jewelery as the Jordanian girls are apparently known to do.

The un-nerving thing about being in these places as a diplomatic family, is that you could easily be here for years, and never get under the surface, unless you get out your mental pick axe on a regular basis to see what lies beneath. You could live in an expat children's club and never really venture out, meet Jordanians, learn Arabic or nibble on a local radish. We are lucky to be living in a fairly central part of town and to have a good handful of locals already, from the Glammy to the odd new friend, who are able to open these doors for us. The claustrophobia of the other way occasionally haunts me - that we might mistakenly trip and fall into it and not make the most of all these opportunities on our doorstep. It would be easy to do, as the pick axe sometimes feels quite heavy and the conveyor belt of comfort can beckon to you on tired moments.

We have a new Afghan friend who also came for dinner. She left Afghanistan with her family in the 90s during the civil war, and has been floating about the world ever since. It was interesting to hear her version of an itinerant childhood, and how she now realises the difficulties her parents must have had, yet what fun it was for her and her sisters and brothers.

One day we'll get her to talk to the Lozenge and Rashimi about it. The Lozenge has been creeping out of bed in the early hours and climbing onto a tall stool to reach the Smarties in the kitchen cupboard. So by 7am he's had a chocolate high, then a low, and is not interested in breakfast or nursery. But as if to compensate, he picked me some flowers in the park and put them all in my shoes like some sort of Malaysian honeymoon hotel.

His teacher at school said he's settling in okay, although one day he'd asked her not to speak to him in Arabic 'never, or ever. Never and not at all.' She giggled saying she thought she might have caught him in a bit of a bad mood. I think life is a little easier for Rashimi at this point in time - galavanting with the Glammy and being cuddled and kissed by every passing female.

Blue skies and mansaf

The turbulence of living with a three year old in a foreign land make the times when you break through the clouds into blue skies more valuable than ever. Last week J and I were hunched over the kitchen table thinking, 'Do we need to talk about Kevin?' (After the film with Tilda Swinton where her boy becomes a psycho). But as if the Lozenge had heard us through his slumber, the next day dawned and we woke to a little voice singing in the room next door: 'De thun hath got hith hat on. Hip hip hip hoooway.' And I found him dancing about in his pyjamas in a little shard of sunlight entering his bedroom through the iron shutter. The night before we'd had some people round for dinner (it's still a bit dial-a-friend, but I suppose this is how you start) and the 5 hours' sleep and faint sore head dispersed as I saw the Lozenge's cheeky smile again, rather than the 10 day bottom lip which would be comfortable enough to sit on.

We sat around the kitchen table with flaking croissants from the rip-off parlour, still in our pyjamas on a Friday morning, and I realised that slowly we are getting used to things, together - the sounds and smells and everything else - and feeling in just a small way, that we belong. From the little tune that the gas van plays on the street outside, that for weeks we thought might mean ice cream; the resonant call to prayer at 5am; the bird calls from the tree outside that once were foreign and are now as familiar as the Arabic consonants and vowels; the smell of the cupboard when we open the door to find the ever growing stack of spices on the shelf; and the delicious taste of labneh and mint with some drips of olive oil. And at the same time it seemed that the little boy who belly laughs while fighting with his brother over a pair of inflatable bath boobs had come back to us. I had to include this video from before we left the UK, as it makes me laugh. Grandma gave these to Duncan to rest his head on in the bath at least 15 years ago and they're still on the go...

With your oldest child it seems you're a bit blind and always behind. Every so often I realise the Lozenge's needs have changed since I last looked, and I need to ramp up my act. And although he's back to himself, it still doesn't stop the odd gnarly moment. Every Sunday and Tuesday I have an Arabic class at home with a lovely Jordanian/Iranian man from the university. The Lozenge doesn't like the fact I'm there, but not there, and his latest decoy technique is to come skipping into our lesson with a bare bottom yelling: 'Mummy I need a poo poo!" So I have to down my books and sprint to the loo with him. Invariably it's a "falth alarm" but you can never be sure and I'd rather not scare the teacher off for good. He doesn't have children and after a few bi-weekly visits to our flat, it doesn't look like he will any time soon.

We all went to one of J's language teachers house to have the Jordanian national dish, mansaf, last weekend. It's a Bedouin spiced rice and lamb creation which you all eat from one plate with your hands. Rashimi was right in there with his chubby hands, and spent the afternoon cruising around with the younger girls in his usual fashion, tidying up all the tea cups on the low tables. Everywhere he goes, people call him 'Habibi' which means dear or darling, so it's now his favourite word. 'Habeeebeeee.'

We went to the beautiful Darat al Funun gallery one evening this week which is in old Amman where we originally tried to find a house. The gallery is built on and around the ruins of a Byzantine church. The event was an opening exhibition of a Syrian photographer with Armenian roots who has photographed the descendants of Armenians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman genocide of Armenian Christians in 1915. Other photographs he exhibited were of city squares where people are executed just before dawn, looking chillingly normal in the blue morning light. But one of his most moving photographs was a simple interior shot of his father's photography studio in Damascus, forced to close in 2010. I stood staring at it for minutes, wondering what has become of it now, and what this photographer, now based in Jordan and London, must be carrying about in his heart.

Darat al Funun

This afternoon I'm going to the magazine to hand my two articles and all the photos over, and I'm a bit nervous they might say the style isn't want they wanted at all, or the photos aren't what they imagined - a bit like handing in your essay at school or university - I'm not sure this feeling is something you ever grow out of.

Bedu ladies weaving in Wadi Musa

A cupboard, a princess and Lego therapy

I've had to escape to the ice cream parlour to catch up on my work, as the Lozenge understandably doesn't like it when I need to be in my study on his arrival back home from 'nurthery', so best not to be at home at all, and leave him with the Glammy and Rashimi, who is now known about the block as 'swanji' which means 'womaniser' in Arabic. He's such an incorrigible flirt and these days, likes to reach into the Glammy's LV handbag to spray himself with body spray before he goes out in the morning.

So I'm sitting on the top gallery of the cafe, trying not to be distracted by the huge television screens showing close up shots of someone squeezing iced-gem like dollops of porcelain coloured icing onto revolving cakes; gleaming, roasting baclava and toasting pistachios. It's a strange place, but no one interrupts.

I'm finding it hard to write the article about the Turkmen gypsies because I know in my heart of hearts that the readership hates them. So it's hard to come up with an angle. This society is strange, because it's built predominantly of people who aren't originally from here - other than the Bedouin. Yet, some people still have a problem about who should and shouldn't be here - and constant fuel for this attitude being the ever increasing stream of refugees coming in from Syria. There is a large number of Syrians who don't stay in the camps long, and as a result are coming to find work in an already over saturated jobs market. Because of the sharp Syrian business acumen, some Jordanians find this a threat.

This week J and I went to a fascinating evening by a PHD in the Arabic script, and how it has evolved. The lecture happened in the house of a prominent Palestinian family here, whose daughter is producing some important and beautiful documentaries through interviews with Palestinians who can remember living in Palestine before the 'nakbeh' or 'catastrophe' in 1948, when the Israelis made the first concerted and violent push to get them out - these are people who had been living in Palestine since Biblical times (Philistines, being the very same people). Last night, we watched one of her films, 'My Jerusalem' where the interviewees reminisced about their childhoods before they were brutally evicted. One lady recounts how she begged her father to let her sneak back into Jerusalem from the border, in order to fetch the deeds to their house. She was shot at by Israeli snipers, but made it back alive with the deeds. However, the house was destroyed soon after, so now all they have is the flimsy piece of paper to say they once owned property there. Jordan is now over half Palesinian in ethnicity - none of them any more able to return home, over 60 years on from the nakbeh.

Today, Abu Mohammed and I spent the morning driving about town trying to find some plates which weren't made in China, as we're having loads of people round tomorrow night and we only have 4 plates, which were made in China, and make me want to drop them on purpose when I hold them - which wouldn't be a great start to an evening. I also needed a cupboard or 'khazana' as they say here, for my study since I've been confined to one tiny corner with a large stockpile of camera kit, tripods, starionery, books, printer, wires, wires and more wires all over the floor. Then we had to go and drop 24 bottles of milk with the Turkmen gypsies as I'd promised them I would a couple of days ago. (I had to go back again for more interviews and stories, and we were even more mobbed than the previous time. I'm hoping it was the last…) Then I had a meeting at lunchtime with one of the Royal family who works with the Royal Film Commission of Jordan. Many of the Royals are pretty integrated in society here.

The shops eventually opened at 10am, we found some beautiful Palestinian hand painted plates which we packed and wrapped, then trawled about town trying to find a 'khazana' that wasn't Chinese and overpriced, which turned out to be impossible, so I eventually persuaded Abu Mo to find a 2nd hand shop where we picked up an orange wooden cupboard with shiny gold knobs for £50 (still expensive in my book but the other stuff was nearer £200). It wouldn't fit in his taxi so we had to get a truck to take it back to the house, belt it to the Turkmen gypsies to drop the milk…and at 1pm on the dot we screeched to a halt outside the Film Commission.

The building is stunning - an old traditional house looking over the hill of East Amman - and had an interesting meeting, hiding my dusty shoes under the table as much as I could. The problem is there's no money anywhere here. And the Film Commission, which used to rely on state funding is now having to look for its own resources. It's like the BBC suddenly having to go commercial.

From there, to the supermarket where I managed to spend the statutory £250 on as far as I could see, nothing of great value, other than some quite nice looking lamb and some state of the art tubs of Quaker Oats. My Jordan Kuwait Bank card was refused as they seem to have given me a pin number which isn't recognised, so I had to get out yet more cash. I don't know how people get by here. There are no jobs, prices are extortionate, there are no NHS/child benefit safety nets, and even when you do get a salary it doesn't match the price of food, let alone housing. For instance, the rate for writing two magazine features and doing all the photos will probably be around £50.

I've finished Hilary Mantel's book and I'm now at the other end of the human-freedom spectrum reading Grayson Perry's biography. It's inspiring to see what the UK, as a free society, can produce - even when Grayson had a turbulent childhood in working class Essex, he had the freedom and eventual support, to become the revolutionary and creative being that he is. He says: 'Making things from Lego was a restful, almost meditative, creativity that involved solving  technical problems that had no sentimental content. It was an excape from emotional chaos. There were only a limited number of options for how Lego bricks could fit together and that was comforting. I recently made a pot called 'Assembling a motorbike from memory' about how a large number of men are at peace with life taking a motorbike engine to bits, becuase a motorbike engine is finite. It doesn't have the infinite possibilities and muddle of relationships.' Wow.

Then I got back home from the supermarket, with some free lamb bones which the butcher gave me to make stock, and the hugest bag of fruit and vegetables from the local stall which came to only £10. I could shop in the fresh air, to boot, and the men in there are friends with our boys as they wheel past and chat every day.

At home, I squeezed my new bright orange khazana into my study and a few hours later the whole room and corridor stank of cat's pee. I think there's a price to pay for non-Chinese second hand merchandise. The evening was turbulent as the Lozenge has all but ceased communicating with J, refuses to do anything with him, including bath, bed, book which he used to love. It's upsetting for us all. (Perhaps he should try Lego?...) So I spent the evening shaving the peel off some apples and making pastry for tarte tatin, slamming the pastry onto the marble to the latest hit by David Bowie after his decade of quiet (another free UK star in Grayson's league). Meanwhile, J Googled: 'Our 3 year old son is rejecting his Dad' and entered the world of parent forums while I lost myself in Bowie: 'Where are we now? The minute you know, you know you know….As long as there's sun. As long as there's rain. As long as there's fire. As long as there's me. As long as there's you.'

Turkmen Gypsy Girls in Amman

Wadi Weekend

I've been itching to put the lipstick red Chevy to the test ever since we rented it. There's enough to do in Amman for a couple of weeks, but there's a whole country to discover on our dusty doorstep, and I've been longing to break out into it ever since we arrived.

So when I was given the chance to go and interview a Dutch horse whisperer and artist in Wadi Rum, the nearest town to Petra, I jumped at the chance. She was busy for most of March so the only option was this weekend. Since I'd left the boys for 5 days already this month, I didn't want to leave them again, and thought it might be fun to venture there together. I looked into where we might stay, but the whisperer herself said we'd be welcome to stay at hers. Since it's easier to get the real picture of someone if you spend time with them in their home, and we had the impression, as J put it, of, 'sea grass matting, scented candles and horses whinnying in outdoor paddocks' - this seemed a great idea, and J was game.

We packed the Chevy to the rafters with my camera kit, luggage and bedding in the usual end of week haste, and shunted, low slung, out of the gate of our house to the soundtrack of Peppa Pig and her animal friends coming from the boys' DVD in the back. The days are already fairly hot, particularly in the car on the motorway, and after a few wrong turns in the mad highway planning that is Amman, we made it onto the road to Aqaba about an hour later. The Lozenge's mantra began in the back as the scenery either side flattened, and turned to desert - the long straight road heading south. 'I want to turn awound. Turn awound and go back Mummy. I don't like this woad. I don't want to stay with the lady. I want to go home.' We managed to cajole him with pretzels, and after a couple of hours turned off the King's Highway onto the road to Petra.

It was getting dark by the time we got to the edge of Wadi Musa. The mountains of Petra cast an impressive but eery shadow over the town in the half light, and the whisperer's directions led us up and down steep roads and one way streets, culminating in us getting completely lost, the Lozenge and Rashimi exhausted and sweaty in the back. After a few garbled phonecalls we made it to a semi-detached on the end of a dusty street. A few warning bells rang in my head at this point,  wondering where the horses might live for a start. I heard some louder alarm bells ringing from my left too, as J had been on the receiving end of the garbled directions which in no way corresponded to his own logic. This was already an unpromising start.

I think it would be unfair to go into too much detail, but to sum it up - here's the idea: lone female, cats, empty fridge, greasy surfaces and indecifrable kitchen smell, wafer thin sponge matress on the floor in one room…by 9.30 no dinner had appeared, and we'd finished the wine we'd brought between the 3 of us. Fortunately, in a last-minute-mother-hen-flurry I'd raked the contents of our fridge in Amman into a plastic bag, since heading to the desert with a 3 and 1 year old, you want to be prepared. So we ate the pasta which was meant for the boys' lunch. All I was aware of as the whisperer started her life story, were Jamie's eyes through the plume of jostick smoke on a cushion opposite, that seemed to be beseeching to me: 'Get us, the hell, outta here.'

All night, I lay awake listening to the fitful restlessness of my 3 boys in the room, thinking what have I done? This is the stupidest idea yet. How had I thought it would be a good idea to come and try to gather photographs, interviews and all other material for a feature and a photofilm about the whisperer and her Bedouin bag business, with the boys - J exhausted from wall to wall Arabic, the Lozenge still feverish from a strange virus, and Rashimi just your average 1 year old (the one saving grace for him being the cats). The dream of a bucolic, adventurous weekend together in the desert popped and dropped, as a little shred of damp balloon  through my doze. The muezzin's call came bursting in from the mosque 10 metres away at 5am, and J whispered, 'I can't do another night of this. We have to leave today.'

So, explaining to our hostess, a delightful dreamer, who obviously doesn't have house guests, let alone small ones, often, I said I'd made a terrible mistake trying to combine my boys and my work in one weekend and would have to leave that afternoon. Together we bulldozed our way through the day trying to get everything we'd planned for 2 days, done in 1. We spent a feverish 6 or 7 hours in the baking heat driving between stables and Bedu weavers, recording her in the car as she downloaded her life's tale to me. I still haven't been through my photos or notes, but I'm praying that tomorrow morning I have enough material to make sense of it all. The poor woman, who spends most of her days in the stillness of Petra on horseback, or chatting with her merry gang of female Bedu weavers, had to go from 10mph to frenetic urban speed, and I felt guilty on all accounts. Harried and flustered under what I endeavoured to make veneer of calm, I was so intent in getting everything done, smiling and looking relaxed (as the Bedu ladies decided they must go and make lunch for me which would take 3 hours), and being able to leave with the boys in the afternoon before J filed for divorce, that I forgot to put on suncream or drink water, so I was the colour of the Chevy by the time we saw the twinkling lights of Amman in the distance, and my head thumped. Ah, the delights of being a woman in 2013. If only the Bedu ladies knew what was involved…And let's hope I do them justice.

We drew up at our gate at 7.30pm, only to discover that J had left his keys in the flat, and I'd leant mine to Grace, so we couldn't get in. St Grace arrived with the keys 40 minutes after my phone call. I took the Lozenge to the bottle shop to make the time pass quicker while we waited for her, thinking I might creep my way back into J's heart with a couple of cold Amstels.  L's sticky hand clasped mine and he said: 'But that wath a nithe lady and I liked her catth and her houthe. Now are you going to buy beard for you and Daddy to drink when I'm athleep?'

So next time, I'll remember that combining work and awladi (my boys in Arabic) on a weekend is a no go zone. But there's something to be said for going to a place that's so far from your idea of comfort, that your new home suddenly feels as cosy and familiar as somewhere you've lived all your life.