Punctuation points

If you imagine life is like walking a hill, in a slow corkscrew motion upwards, (allowing for the odd slip and tumble down here and there) there are moments when you'll get the very same view you had from a little further below.  It can be luxurious, and it can be unsettling. Sometimes both. But either way, they are punctuation points which help us to navigate our lives in the best way we can.

When we were driving along the road towards Za'atari refugee camp last week, I had one of those moments. We went right past the Hashemite University, which is where I stayed with 300 other women from around the world, exactly 9 years ago, in May 2004, when I filmed and cycled with the ladies from Beirut, through Syria, into Amman. I had a visual flashback, and the discomfort of remembering our meeting with a seemingly charming, pristine-white-headscarf-ed, Asma Al Asad as we peddalled into Damascus, on that infamous road.  How much has changed in that time. The welcoming people around the amphitheatre in Bosra may be dead, jostling for space in over-populated camps and buildings in Jordan or Lebanon, or struggling to survive in what remains of their country.

A couple of weeks after the bike ride, J and I met for the first time. And the nine years has brought us all the way back to where the bike ride finished. It was during that time, I realised I'd like to come back to this region, as it seemed to hold something very special and difficult to explain. Perhaps it's all the roots of things I first fell for about Spain. And then falling for J helped very much to come full circle...though I wasn't to know it that day in late May.

Some of the Syrian widows in our nearby house are from Bosra, and I was with them today. They were as warm and as pleased to see me and the lovely translator-ess, as ever. We chatted and laughed and asked each other questions, sitting in their empty rooms with nothing but thin foam matresses on the floor. How unwise of David Cameron not to spare time to meet any of the refugees in Za'atari camp when he came to visit. (We were informed by a source…) Just an hour with these people can clarify so much. One lady said the worst thing about being here was the lost and temporary feeling - that moments didn't matter as much as they should. One twelve year old orphan stroked my hair and said it was the same colour as her mother's. 'I love you,' she said, in English. And when I left, they pressed a bag of Lebanese coffee beans into my hand. 'These are the best beans. The richest and most delicious!' they cried. I looked back as I walked home, and they were waving and smiling from behind their  multicoloured washing lines on the balcony.

The Lozenge, meanwhile, has had three weeks off nursery, because of holiday, friends visiting, and a recent bug. I took him back this morning, and I know we both had that butterfly feeling that comes with going back to a little job you've left un-attended for a while. His classmates were sitting there on the floor when we walked in, looking a bit bovine as usual, but the row of brown doe eyes creased into smiles when he came in, and he received the warmest welcome. 'We MISSED you!' his teacher said. And I'm sure I saw a proud little upwards tweak of his mouth as he kissed me goodbye, as if to say, 'You see - I am capable of settling in this funny place where no one speaks my language or has ham in their sandwich. Did you ever doubt?'

It's all about bowls and balls