A dream Christmas

Fewer things could have eased my mind more, as I wandered between the empty supermarket shelves with the Lozenge after the snowfall, than a phone call from the Duke inviting us all to Christmas lunch at his farm nestled beneath the Golan heights, near Umm Qays in northern Jordan.  This meant that my first turkey was instead a very manageable dinner of poussins for 6 on Christmas Eve. The pudding had travelled all the way from Tasmania with Uncle Frank and Auntie Odile, complete with the finest possible brandy for the butter, carried in a Lancome demaquillant bottle, and a photograph tube of mince pie cases made by Odile with the finest Tasmanian flour. Not one had cracked on the journey. The dinner was extremely merry since we'd arrived a little early for the evening carol service in the Anglican church off Rainbow Street, and filled the time in a bar overlooking Amman, drinking extremely strong cocktails.

The following morning, unusually, I was awake first, at 5.30am, as I suddenly remembered that we hadn't put the bottles of Prosecco in the fridge, which was part of our alcohol contribution to the Duke's lunch. So by 6am J and I were happily unwrapping our stockings, a whole hour before the dwarves. What else would a travelling dwarf have asked Father Christmas for, than a 'wolling thootcase'? And the Lozenge, reminiscent of a diminutive air steward, has been wheeling his new suitcase proudly around our marbled flat, filled with toys which he wants to take to 'the new houthe' in Jerusalem. We broached the subject of a new school the other day. And while waiting for the little orange bus, the Lozenge asked J, 'Will Washimi be coming to my new school with me?' J replied: 'Not this term, but maybe next year.' 'Good', said the Lozenge. 'Then I won't be afraid.' Perhaps there are merits to having a little brother in an itinerant lifestyle.

So on Christmas morning, we set off to the Duke's 'jinnah' (paradise), we were a 2 car convoy complete with 'Aunteeeee Fwank!' (as Rashimi calls him), Odile, Gran Gran and Grandfather, the dwarves, J and I. The sky was a cool, eternal blue and as we approached the city of Irbid, makeshift home to thousands of Syrian refugees, the light accentuated the small houses of pale purple, pink and yellow, buried in amongst the beige. It was one of many small reminders that day, of the turmoil that surrounded our happy bubble of family and friends, only a few kilometres over the border. We showed our passports at a couple of check points (the farm is almost on top of both the Israeli and Syrian borders) and drew up through a metal door painted royal blue, where the Duke was standing with his wife Basma, with lots of other guests milling about.

We wandered up the path, lined with palm trees, through a very low, fat door, made of volcanic stone with a cushion tied onto the top to save a scrape on the head, and before us steamed a huge rectangular pool of water from the natural hot spring that feeds the site. Surrounding the pool were a smattering of the Duke's installations, a couple of changing huts, a long table covered in a cloth for lunch and a round bar area slowly being charged with drink. People were already splashing about in the steamy water, swimming between a floating raft with olives and drinks on it, and a stone column with a champagne bottle perched on top. The Lozenge and J jumped into the pool almost immediately where they stayed for most of the morning, while Rashimi had a 2 hour sleep in a small stone house with a domed roof which serves as the Duke and his wife's living area when they stay here, which is most of the winter. In all we must have been about 30 people. As J's father put it: 'Only with the Duke could I be swimming in a thermal pool on the Syrian and Israeli border, on Christmas day, talking to a Chinese girl about her Grandparents' experiences during the Japanese invasion.' There was an expansive range of people including the Chinese girl, the German and Egyptian ambassadors, a historian, and archaeologist, an academic, a Jordanian architect and her husband, and many more besides. The Lozenge spent the day, (between a couple of Harrods alcohol-free mince pies that had been given to the Duke by one of the Jordanian princes, and handed on to our delighted dwarves), making 'thculptures in the jungle' in the surrounding vegetation which was as much of a child's paradise as an adult's.

The faded colours and the steaming pool only make the memory of the day more of a dream sequence in our minds. And sitting back in my den in our flat, now some of our family have left, and we await the arrival of more, I will have to look back in years to come at this entry and the photographs, to believe it really happened.