Today I've come to sit and type in my favourite cafe in Amman and I'm looking at this view, over East Amman towards the beautiful black and white Abu Darwish Mosque, to perk myself up.
You miss family and friends more when you've just seen them, and my mind is still full of little memory bubbles of laughter with people. And I think I had perhaps belittled in my mind, the process of settling back into a newish place after a month's holiday. It's as though all the purposeful bricks I put down in the past six months have tumbled and I need to begin again. And because we now know we're going to be living in Jerusalem from January next year, I want to make the absolute most of the last 6 months here, but I hadn't expected to return to Amman to start building again. And all this in an oven of a den, in 40 degrees.
This coupled with pains in my forearms, probably from over-hammering it on the work front immediately before we left, and hauling two heavy dwarves and multiple bags around the UK for a month, has not helped my mood these last two days.
I called our health insurance provider to make sure I was covered for a visit to the (extortionate) GP and physiotherapist if required. And they replied, that no, I wasn't covered for outpatients visits or physiotherapy. Just surgery. Only the dwarves are covered as outpatients. Of course, I thought as I put the phone down, concentrating not to slam it. An insurance company would never insure a mother of two young children for outpatient visits or physio, or they'd be shelling out on a weekly basis. Such is the lot of the working mother, we are bound to have bits that play up, stop working or fall off. Just like the aging, rusty car that the insurance provider shakes his head at. 'No longer insurable, that one. Sorry mate.'
The well-insured and generally bomb proof Rashimi has had the squits for a couple of weeks now and has a severe bottom rash that I worried would get infected, especially under a nappy in this heat, so the Glammy, the Lozenge and I accompanied him to the paediatrician for an inspection . After much howling and protesting from the rashy Rashimi, the doc prescribed a list of about 7 lotions and potions and drops, and suggested we take a stool sample and find some lactose free milk for him. This required almost half a days worth of driving around Amman in thick traffic collecting plastic sample pots from the Arab Medical Centre and looking around pharmacies and supermarkets for the rest of the potions which came in at around £75 (not covered). Plus the Medical Centre explained that we'd need to get the stool sample to their lab within 30 minutes of its arrival at the very most, for it to be worth testing.
My huffing and puffing got a lot worse and by 5pm I was extremely pleased to see J come in through the door and the prospect of someone with whom to laugh about my day during which we had been paying the Glammy £7 per hour as an escort and taxi service and I'd got no work done.
As J was making himself a cup of tea, I noticed that a nappy-less Rashimi had deposited a potential sample on the floor on the balcony and was just calculating whether it had been there for too long to qualify when I heard a wail from the Lozenge who was zooming a toy car up the ramp to his wooden garage. There was another potential sample distributed all over the top of the multistorey. 'I can't drive my carth on that, Mummy,' sobbed the Lozenge. 'That'th dithguthitng!' And as J and I frantically discussed whether we would have time to get some of it to the lab within the 30 minute window, the wailing from both boys got so piercing we canned the idea and decided a cool bath and early bed was the only option left for today for them both.
Reclined, nearly naked on my bed with the 'Ay theeee', as the Lozenge calls it, on its coldest, full blast setting, retreating into the delights of The Week, Spectator, FT Mag and so on, that I'd brought back with me, I could see why expat Mums might end up stocking the cupboards with gin and not venturing much further than the toddler group. And as for Bupa, no wonder they don't cover us for any form of therapy…we'd all be there on that couch, getting our money's worth.
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