After 5 intense days I went to join the dwarves who had been lodging with the Glammy in Amman during that time - no doubt on a diet of donuts and verboten multicoloured cereal. As I hugged them, my nostrils filled with the aroma of stale cigarette and perfume thanks to the Glammy's velour tracksuited but warm hearted Mum, who also lives in the apartment.
But what I most loved about their tales of the week was the Glammy's approach to puddles, even on a cold March morning. Why get your clothes wet when you can whip 'em off? The Glammy may have an LV handbag, but that's where the mall-mentality ends…She did me such a favour by providing a loving nest for our duo while I did my work in the very same city.
We cruised out of Amman towards the border, each of us getting used to being together again after a 5 day break. We sailed out of the Jordan side not managing (at all) to avoid the lure of the duty free and the rows and rows of Toblerone and Jelly Belly beans neatly placed at a dwarf eye-line. The Jordanian men at border control pummelled and kissed and squeezed the dwarves as we exited, all 'habeeeebeee' this and that, complete with cigarettes dangling from bottom lips, flicking little bits of ash into their hair and foraging for sweets in their khaki trousers to give the dwarves. But only a few hundred metres on, the other side of the Jordan valley, the warmth and charm dwindled to a stream as insignificant as the trickle that used to be known as the Jordan river: Israeli customs…
Every country seems to have an idiom to the tune of: 'The dentist's child has bad teeth.' In Afghanistan they say: 'The potter's child drinks from a cracked cup'. And I think there's an Arab one about the carpenter's child and a two legged stool.
As we approached the armed lady escort standing outside the Israeli terminal, I wondered to myself if there was an equivalent for the diplomat's child. As Rashimi, seeing red after a few too many rude and complicated border crossings, turned purple and started swiping the air in front of the uniformed lady's face with a tanned, chubby hand: 'I NOT like that lady! I NOT LIKE THAT LADY! Go, LADY! Away! NO lady!'
Looking rather surprised, she seemed to melt at his 2.5 year old bag of fury, and her over made up face split into an enormous grin which spread between each multi-pierced ear. 'I have three boys myself,' she admitted, and went off giggling to tell her uniformed friends about her diminutive enemy. Maybe this is the answer for diplomacy Israeli style? Rashimi has learned fast but he'd better not try it at home…
Back at our house, the clean lines of my working life I'd established for five days disintegrated into a shape not unlike Mr Messy. Unsettled after their change of routine, the dwarves were up most mornings at 5am - the Lozenge making 'potions' in the kitchen out of baking powder, flour, water, any fruit and veg he could reach on the bottom shelf of the fridge neatly chopped, and a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. He stored the foul mixtures in a low cupboard which we were not to touch or move on pain of death.
Trying to make the most of the early mornings to do some editing, I would try and creep, laptop under arm, past Rashimi's room to grab a quick hour of peace to work. But he's a light sleeper like me, and I'd normally be dragged back from my mission with a piercing: 'MummmeeeeeY!' scuppering my work plans for that moment, and forcing me to join in a dawn den-making session with two wired and bed-headed dwarves. Or a premature breakfast in our high ceilinged kitchen where no ear-plug would be capable of muting the extreme harmonics.
Even before our shipment of things arrived from Jordan, our elegant 1930's house had morphed into more of a squat - with a makeshift dormitory in every room and potions suppurating in most of the cupboards.
And then along came the boxes, which I thought were full of things I'd missed, but when unpacked and put into jumbled heaps, resembled rather more, a room full of people I once knew but now had nothing in common with.
But the dwarves made up for my lack of excitement when they sniffed out the toy box.
I know that it's not just a phenomenon for a trailing spouse…but occasionally life can feel a little like you're walking on a conveyor belt which is heading backwards. As the Lozenge's version of the tune goes on the Eukele: 'Then we had to Beginnagain Beginnagain McFinnigan'.
But what I most loved about their tales of the week was the Glammy's approach to puddles, even on a cold March morning. Why get your clothes wet when you can whip 'em off? The Glammy may have an LV handbag, but that's where the mall-mentality ends…She did me such a favour by providing a loving nest for our duo while I did my work in the very same city.
We cruised out of Amman towards the border, each of us getting used to being together again after a 5 day break. We sailed out of the Jordan side not managing (at all) to avoid the lure of the duty free and the rows and rows of Toblerone and Jelly Belly beans neatly placed at a dwarf eye-line. The Jordanian men at border control pummelled and kissed and squeezed the dwarves as we exited, all 'habeeeebeee' this and that, complete with cigarettes dangling from bottom lips, flicking little bits of ash into their hair and foraging for sweets in their khaki trousers to give the dwarves. But only a few hundred metres on, the other side of the Jordan valley, the warmth and charm dwindled to a stream as insignificant as the trickle that used to be known as the Jordan river: Israeli customs…
Every country seems to have an idiom to the tune of: 'The dentist's child has bad teeth.' In Afghanistan they say: 'The potter's child drinks from a cracked cup'. And I think there's an Arab one about the carpenter's child and a two legged stool.
As we approached the armed lady escort standing outside the Israeli terminal, I wondered to myself if there was an equivalent for the diplomat's child. As Rashimi, seeing red after a few too many rude and complicated border crossings, turned purple and started swiping the air in front of the uniformed lady's face with a tanned, chubby hand: 'I NOT like that lady! I NOT LIKE THAT LADY! Go, LADY! Away! NO lady!'
Looking rather surprised, she seemed to melt at his 2.5 year old bag of fury, and her over made up face split into an enormous grin which spread between each multi-pierced ear. 'I have three boys myself,' she admitted, and went off giggling to tell her uniformed friends about her diminutive enemy. Maybe this is the answer for diplomacy Israeli style? Rashimi has learned fast but he'd better not try it at home…
Back at our house, the clean lines of my working life I'd established for five days disintegrated into a shape not unlike Mr Messy. Unsettled after their change of routine, the dwarves were up most mornings at 5am - the Lozenge making 'potions' in the kitchen out of baking powder, flour, water, any fruit and veg he could reach on the bottom shelf of the fridge neatly chopped, and a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. He stored the foul mixtures in a low cupboard which we were not to touch or move on pain of death.
Trying to make the most of the early mornings to do some editing, I would try and creep, laptop under arm, past Rashimi's room to grab a quick hour of peace to work. But he's a light sleeper like me, and I'd normally be dragged back from my mission with a piercing: 'MummmeeeeeY!' scuppering my work plans for that moment, and forcing me to join in a dawn den-making session with two wired and bed-headed dwarves. Or a premature breakfast in our high ceilinged kitchen where no ear-plug would be capable of muting the extreme harmonics.
Even before our shipment of things arrived from Jordan, our elegant 1930's house had morphed into more of a squat - with a makeshift dormitory in every room and potions suppurating in most of the cupboards.
And then along came the boxes, which I thought were full of things I'd missed, but when unpacked and put into jumbled heaps, resembled rather more, a room full of people I once knew but now had nothing in common with.
But the dwarves made up for my lack of excitement when they sniffed out the toy box.
I know that it's not just a phenomenon for a trailing spouse…but occasionally life can feel a little like you're walking on a conveyor belt which is heading backwards. As the Lozenge's version of the tune goes on the Eukele: 'Then we had to Beginnagain Beginnagain McFinnigan'.
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