Another bonus of having tots under 5 years old is you can embark on many a social terrain without them noticing.
Last week we struggled through the soupy air into the hot car with burning acrylic car seat on Rashimi's rubbery thighs, en route to the West side, where one of the Lozenge's classmates lives with his new mother. The verdant and carefully trimmed landscape dotted with Israeli flags in their quarter of Jerusalem was a far cry from our scruffy little Arab section with sticky rubbish-strewn pavements, though from their penthouse balcony we had a stunning view of the Dome of the Rock.
The Lozenge's classmate, let's call him Peter, is not actually from here. He's from Siberia, and was adopted with his little brother by his new mother and her husband who were too old to have children themselves. The couple are Messianic Jews (a blend of Evangelical Christianity and Jewish practise and terminology which came into being in the 1960's/70's).
It was interesting seeing our two family realities - four boys from backgrounds which couldn't have been more different - splashing in the paddling pool together. I gazed at Peter and his brother, who started life in a Siberian orphanage, enjoying themselves on their balcony in West Jerusalem - this their first experience of family life which began only last September. They are lean and athletic and can throw and catch balls like circus performers. But they don't talk much yet. Our boys filled the silence, and gazed at their playmates' gymnastic skills. You could tell they were thinking: 'Wow. Check that out.' Their new mother, in her 50s, admitted honestly that you should be careful what you wish for and that she is only just keeping afloat with her new charges, in the new life they have brought her. But with an energetic quartet of testosteroned tots, there was not much time for navel gazing, and little time for politics - though I did tentatively ask her opinion about the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers, and Netanyahu. It was not a road we'd have been wise to continue on. But we left on good terms after a scorching, shambolic but happy morning.
Back home, the dwarves attacked some cool slices of water melon.
J and I sparked up the barbecue that night, and invited a few people round.
I got off to a shaky start by deciding to do our food shopping for dinner the day before ramadan. (Note to self: never shop the day before ramadan begins, particularly in 45 degrees.) The roads were choked with cars and headscarved women attempting three point turns in front of streams of angry males with sweaty palms on horns. The man at the butcher's section at the supermarket, who has not produced one smile for me in the five months I've been shopping there, looked at me as if I'd asked for 3 kilos of goldfish kebabs, when I asked for lamb cutlets. The shelves were gapingly empty. Then there was a powercut, so I had to wait for the mince, watching the partially dead corpses of flies buzzing resignedly against the fading blue electrifier. I returned, puce, with a paltry selection of products.
That evening there was an enormous explosion, followed by another. I looked at J, thinking I hadn't heard a noise like that since the Taliban bombed the Indian embassy when we lived in Kabul; and wondered if Hamas had finally hit the Knesset. I looked at the boys, and wondered which room we should crouch in when the next bang inevitably came. There was none. And surprisingly no news feeds. A few hours later it transpired it was merely the 'ramadan cannon' doing a few practise shots (without balls). Every morning at 4am and every evening at 8pm the cannon goes off - signifying the moment to stop and begin eating, respectively. How we laughed. But it still makes me jump a little, even now I know what it is.
Inviting a few people around in a new place is never as simple as it sounds. And the cocktails, in both senses, could have gone either way. I felt a little nervous as one man with a very English voice, extolled the virtues of 'stalking in the Highlands' next to a sparky Glaswegian, (confirmed nationalist in his heart yet for this year's referendum he's letting his head rule). I felt relief as I saw the Glaswegian's face light up: 'I just love that sport! Just the feeling you get when you pull the trigger and you know you've killed the stag'; then dismay as I looked at the expression on the face of the staunch vegetarian lady on his left. Luckily the Palestinian contingent, one wonderful man who was more Napoli than Nablus with a box of cuban cigars, and tortoiseshell glasses, soon had us hooting about his experience with our nearby dry cleaners. 'You wrecked my beaauuutiful Italian suit, you moron!' J spent much of the evening squirting the results of the frenzied feline frolics from three months back - litters of kittens, with the dwarves' pump action water pistol. And despite one lady fainting from the heat, the evening went more smoothly than it might have done with the ecclectic mix around the table. Often these days, our best moment is when everyone has gone and J and I get to tidy up and then slump on the sofa, finishing the wine and mulling over the evening. There was plenty to mull in this instance.
The following morning, I witnessed some inevitable bonding between feline and human small creatures and watched as the Lozenge tiptoed out to the garden with a bowl of milk for the kittens. 'Now I'm going to draw a picture of birds for the kittenth,' he said when he came in, which he did, then laid it out beside the bowl of milk. We watched from the window as the kitten sank its little face into the cool liquid and drank it all up. I really hate the feral parents of these creatures, but their offspring remind me so much of our own - feet slightly too big for their frames, and pluckily confident as they try and pad into the house without us noticing. This is probably why, when I saw one little face peeping out from behind the sage bush, I felt a little pang of sympathy. Oh dear. A slippery slope. I can hear J loading the water pistol in retaliation to this motion.
Later, I found J and the dwarves in their bedroom reading Ant and Bee in the dark with the 'air condithionning' on full blast. It's a job keeping cool. So we went off to a swimming pool and picnic area about 20km from Jerusalem. It's on the Israeli side of the 'green line' so I was not expecting the scene we arrived to find.
Large swathes of olive toned (though not so honed) flesh was on display, as lots of little families sat around in deck chairs, happily picnicking. I couldn't understand why everyone was chomping, it being midday in ramadan, but one look at the huge crucifix tattoos and other Christian emblems confirmed that these were all Arab Christians evidently escaping the heat and restrictions of ramadan. They were all incredibly friendly and chatty. One lady, Angela, laughed: 'If you come here on a Sunday you will find ALL of the Old City's Arab Christian population on a break from the intensity of it all. Please come again - we would love to see you.'
Many of the men were vast, and one of my favourite tattoos was a head of Jesus branded onto a bulging upper stomach, which when the owner sat down, was almost entirely engulfed, revealing only a little mouth, seemingly gasping for air from under the man-boobies.
The dwarves for once excelled themselves, happily splatting about with wet feet and arms at an armbanded angle, even managing to share out their bag of Haribo and muttering the odd Arabic greeting. The cool water and friendly environment with complete strangers, did us all a world of good.
They have found the bodies of the Israeli teenagers. And the atmosphere is getting extremely tense. So it's good to have an escape from all this within a stone's throw, so to speak, from Jerusalem.
Last week we struggled through the soupy air into the hot car with burning acrylic car seat on Rashimi's rubbery thighs, en route to the West side, where one of the Lozenge's classmates lives with his new mother. The verdant and carefully trimmed landscape dotted with Israeli flags in their quarter of Jerusalem was a far cry from our scruffy little Arab section with sticky rubbish-strewn pavements, though from their penthouse balcony we had a stunning view of the Dome of the Rock.
The Lozenge's classmate, let's call him Peter, is not actually from here. He's from Siberia, and was adopted with his little brother by his new mother and her husband who were too old to have children themselves. The couple are Messianic Jews (a blend of Evangelical Christianity and Jewish practise and terminology which came into being in the 1960's/70's).
It was interesting seeing our two family realities - four boys from backgrounds which couldn't have been more different - splashing in the paddling pool together. I gazed at Peter and his brother, who started life in a Siberian orphanage, enjoying themselves on their balcony in West Jerusalem - this their first experience of family life which began only last September. They are lean and athletic and can throw and catch balls like circus performers. But they don't talk much yet. Our boys filled the silence, and gazed at their playmates' gymnastic skills. You could tell they were thinking: 'Wow. Check that out.' Their new mother, in her 50s, admitted honestly that you should be careful what you wish for and that she is only just keeping afloat with her new charges, in the new life they have brought her. But with an energetic quartet of testosteroned tots, there was not much time for navel gazing, and little time for politics - though I did tentatively ask her opinion about the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers, and Netanyahu. It was not a road we'd have been wise to continue on. But we left on good terms after a scorching, shambolic but happy morning.
Back home, the dwarves attacked some cool slices of water melon.
J and I sparked up the barbecue that night, and invited a few people round.
I got off to a shaky start by deciding to do our food shopping for dinner the day before ramadan. (Note to self: never shop the day before ramadan begins, particularly in 45 degrees.) The roads were choked with cars and headscarved women attempting three point turns in front of streams of angry males with sweaty palms on horns. The man at the butcher's section at the supermarket, who has not produced one smile for me in the five months I've been shopping there, looked at me as if I'd asked for 3 kilos of goldfish kebabs, when I asked for lamb cutlets. The shelves were gapingly empty. Then there was a powercut, so I had to wait for the mince, watching the partially dead corpses of flies buzzing resignedly against the fading blue electrifier. I returned, puce, with a paltry selection of products.
That evening there was an enormous explosion, followed by another. I looked at J, thinking I hadn't heard a noise like that since the Taliban bombed the Indian embassy when we lived in Kabul; and wondered if Hamas had finally hit the Knesset. I looked at the boys, and wondered which room we should crouch in when the next bang inevitably came. There was none. And surprisingly no news feeds. A few hours later it transpired it was merely the 'ramadan cannon' doing a few practise shots (without balls). Every morning at 4am and every evening at 8pm the cannon goes off - signifying the moment to stop and begin eating, respectively. How we laughed. But it still makes me jump a little, even now I know what it is.
Inviting a few people around in a new place is never as simple as it sounds. And the cocktails, in both senses, could have gone either way. I felt a little nervous as one man with a very English voice, extolled the virtues of 'stalking in the Highlands' next to a sparky Glaswegian, (confirmed nationalist in his heart yet for this year's referendum he's letting his head rule). I felt relief as I saw the Glaswegian's face light up: 'I just love that sport! Just the feeling you get when you pull the trigger and you know you've killed the stag'; then dismay as I looked at the expression on the face of the staunch vegetarian lady on his left. Luckily the Palestinian contingent, one wonderful man who was more Napoli than Nablus with a box of cuban cigars, and tortoiseshell glasses, soon had us hooting about his experience with our nearby dry cleaners. 'You wrecked my beaauuutiful Italian suit, you moron!' J spent much of the evening squirting the results of the frenzied feline frolics from three months back - litters of kittens, with the dwarves' pump action water pistol. And despite one lady fainting from the heat, the evening went more smoothly than it might have done with the ecclectic mix around the table. Often these days, our best moment is when everyone has gone and J and I get to tidy up and then slump on the sofa, finishing the wine and mulling over the evening. There was plenty to mull in this instance.
The following morning, I witnessed some inevitable bonding between feline and human small creatures and watched as the Lozenge tiptoed out to the garden with a bowl of milk for the kittens. 'Now I'm going to draw a picture of birds for the kittenth,' he said when he came in, which he did, then laid it out beside the bowl of milk. We watched from the window as the kitten sank its little face into the cool liquid and drank it all up. I really hate the feral parents of these creatures, but their offspring remind me so much of our own - feet slightly too big for their frames, and pluckily confident as they try and pad into the house without us noticing. This is probably why, when I saw one little face peeping out from behind the sage bush, I felt a little pang of sympathy. Oh dear. A slippery slope. I can hear J loading the water pistol in retaliation to this motion.
Later, I found J and the dwarves in their bedroom reading Ant and Bee in the dark with the 'air condithionning' on full blast. It's a job keeping cool. So we went off to a swimming pool and picnic area about 20km from Jerusalem. It's on the Israeli side of the 'green line' so I was not expecting the scene we arrived to find.
Large swathes of olive toned (though not so honed) flesh was on display, as lots of little families sat around in deck chairs, happily picnicking. I couldn't understand why everyone was chomping, it being midday in ramadan, but one look at the huge crucifix tattoos and other Christian emblems confirmed that these were all Arab Christians evidently escaping the heat and restrictions of ramadan. They were all incredibly friendly and chatty. One lady, Angela, laughed: 'If you come here on a Sunday you will find ALL of the Old City's Arab Christian population on a break from the intensity of it all. Please come again - we would love to see you.'
Many of the men were vast, and one of my favourite tattoos was a head of Jesus branded onto a bulging upper stomach, which when the owner sat down, was almost entirely engulfed, revealing only a little mouth, seemingly gasping for air from under the man-boobies.
The dwarves for once excelled themselves, happily splatting about with wet feet and arms at an armbanded angle, even managing to share out their bag of Haribo and muttering the odd Arabic greeting. The cool water and friendly environment with complete strangers, did us all a world of good.
They have found the bodies of the Israeli teenagers. And the atmosphere is getting extremely tense. So it's good to have an escape from all this within a stone's throw, so to speak, from Jerusalem.
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