Luckily we had a plan the night before we went to collect the dwarfs from Jordan. We were so excited about seeing them again if there hadn't been a plan we might have turned up early. There's a book illustrated by the marvellous Helen Oxenbury called: 'So Much' about a West Indian family in London. The family members all come around to the tiny terraced house for a party, and they all 'hug and kiss and squeeze the baby because they love him Sooooo Much' and even though are dwarfs are not exactly babies, you don't lose that physical urge. I will definitely be the 80 year old with the hairy face hugging and squeezing and kissing babies and children who come my way. Mrs Coyne our next door neighbour used to do it to us as children: 'Mummmummmummm' she nuzzled on our cheeks with her prickly chin. Now we're heading that way ourselves.
The evening out was in honour of a charming Palestinian friend's 60 birthday. He's immaculately groomed and funny, with a penchant for Cohiba cigars and cognac; and is married to an equally lovely English lady from Surrey who moved here when they married nearly 30 years ago. What a big adventure it must have been back then - moving to Palestine with just a few bags and her fledgling career, which she has stuck at all this time in Jerusalem, working as an opthalmologist. Back then it was not so easy to pop back home on a whim. As a result their house has entirely escaped the fickle whims of globalisation. It's a classic meld of England meets Palestine, from the flowered covers on the arm chairs and sofa, which almost matched the waistcoat he was wearing, to the Palestinian furniture and classic Arab portrait of his mother by the door - in tribute to her. The atmosphere in the house could have been 1950's Spain.
We had a wonderful evening with a English/Palestinian megamix of food. I haven't eaten a peppermint cream for a while - let alone washed down with cognac. We laughed a lot - and the tears ran down his cheeks as his daughters rang up and sang to their Dad in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and then all of the above with a Hebrew accent, still singing. They were all raised here and you feel this is a house that has escaped negativity and bitterness, despite the fact that the house and garden - full of lemon verbena bushes, lime tress and roses - is situated almost up against the 'dividing wall'. Its greedy and looming presence has consumed not only land, but also light and air. Often in the stories she tells, she says: 'This was before the wall'. It has charted not only a geographical divide between two nations, but a historical one too. She has known the Palestine of before, and after the wall, and lived through both intifadas whilst bringing up 3 daughters. But is still as English as they come.
The following day we set off early to collect the merry dwarf duo from their holiday camp with the Glammy in Jordan.
We arrived outside the Glammy's apartment and heard the scampering of feet as they descended 3 storeys. They were full of news of camping and circus expeditions, toasting marshmallows and birthday parties. Rashimi explained, trying to get his words out so fast, that little bits of spit formed at the corners of his mouth as he explained: 'Umm Tooli (The Glammy's Mum) popth these little thingth into her mouth and SMOKE cometh out!' and: 'Then she thith down on the thofa with these little tubeth on her head which make her hair go all curly whirly' (complete with huge amounts of gesticulation and more spit).
We spent some time with them all in the flat full of golden sofas and lamps with dangling amber pendants, and chatted on the little balcony crammed with geraniums and a swinging seat. The week had been a happy one for all of them. The Glammy's foray into Buddhism is producing some interesting motivational posters on their fridge. I hope she hasn't caught my disease. The self help literature is everywhere, and she's currently devouring books on forgiveness and calm from the Taiwanese Buddhism Centre in Amman. It's a big step for a Muslim Jordanian woman who's not quite 30.
Many Jordanians are worrying about the regional security situation, and the Glammy asked me what I would advise if the so called Islamic State came rolling in (I can't believe she's asking me. All I could think of saying was: Run!'). She has a US passport but her mother doesn't. And with boatloads of people trying to enter Europe every week, and the visa portcullis ever more tightly clenched around Europe, now is not a good time to be thinking about fleeing the Arab world for somewhere safer.
But concern soon turned to mirth as the Glammy showed me a video of her greater clan, The Abadi tribe, throwing a wedding. The video was 15 minutes long and punctuated all the way through by men in traditional Arab headgear firing bullets into the air. In the backdrop, cruised a never ending stream of porters carrying steaming plates of the Jordanian national rice and lamb dish, mansaf, towards a banquet. Shot from above, to the soundtrack of gun shots, the huge round plates kept streaming and streaming. She howled with laughter. 'Well, I think if ISIS did ever enter this country - my tribe would have them for dinner. Or at least they would be taken prisoner and made to suffer a death by mansaf'.
We had dinner with some dear friends - Dutch and Syrian with two little people a bit younger than ours, and the following day, J went off for 2 weeks work away, and I set off back to 'Joothalem' with St Grace and the dwarfs. She's given the Lozenge the most beautiful yellow bicycle with stabilizers. He's been riding it up and down our garden each morning before school, and Rashimi has a little whirl every day when the Lozenge is safely out of the house. When the cat's away...
The evening out was in honour of a charming Palestinian friend's 60 birthday. He's immaculately groomed and funny, with a penchant for Cohiba cigars and cognac; and is married to an equally lovely English lady from Surrey who moved here when they married nearly 30 years ago. What a big adventure it must have been back then - moving to Palestine with just a few bags and her fledgling career, which she has stuck at all this time in Jerusalem, working as an opthalmologist. Back then it was not so easy to pop back home on a whim. As a result their house has entirely escaped the fickle whims of globalisation. It's a classic meld of England meets Palestine, from the flowered covers on the arm chairs and sofa, which almost matched the waistcoat he was wearing, to the Palestinian furniture and classic Arab portrait of his mother by the door - in tribute to her. The atmosphere in the house could have been 1950's Spain.
We had a wonderful evening with a English/Palestinian megamix of food. I haven't eaten a peppermint cream for a while - let alone washed down with cognac. We laughed a lot - and the tears ran down his cheeks as his daughters rang up and sang to their Dad in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and then all of the above with a Hebrew accent, still singing. They were all raised here and you feel this is a house that has escaped negativity and bitterness, despite the fact that the house and garden - full of lemon verbena bushes, lime tress and roses - is situated almost up against the 'dividing wall'. Its greedy and looming presence has consumed not only land, but also light and air. Often in the stories she tells, she says: 'This was before the wall'. It has charted not only a geographical divide between two nations, but a historical one too. She has known the Palestine of before, and after the wall, and lived through both intifadas whilst bringing up 3 daughters. But is still as English as they come.
The following day we set off early to collect the merry dwarf duo from their holiday camp with the Glammy in Jordan.
We arrived outside the Glammy's apartment and heard the scampering of feet as they descended 3 storeys. They were full of news of camping and circus expeditions, toasting marshmallows and birthday parties. Rashimi explained, trying to get his words out so fast, that little bits of spit formed at the corners of his mouth as he explained: 'Umm Tooli (The Glammy's Mum) popth these little thingth into her mouth and SMOKE cometh out!' and: 'Then she thith down on the thofa with these little tubeth on her head which make her hair go all curly whirly' (complete with huge amounts of gesticulation and more spit).
We spent some time with them all in the flat full of golden sofas and lamps with dangling amber pendants, and chatted on the little balcony crammed with geraniums and a swinging seat. The week had been a happy one for all of them. The Glammy's foray into Buddhism is producing some interesting motivational posters on their fridge. I hope she hasn't caught my disease. The self help literature is everywhere, and she's currently devouring books on forgiveness and calm from the Taiwanese Buddhism Centre in Amman. It's a big step for a Muslim Jordanian woman who's not quite 30.
Many Jordanians are worrying about the regional security situation, and the Glammy asked me what I would advise if the so called Islamic State came rolling in (I can't believe she's asking me. All I could think of saying was: Run!'). She has a US passport but her mother doesn't. And with boatloads of people trying to enter Europe every week, and the visa portcullis ever more tightly clenched around Europe, now is not a good time to be thinking about fleeing the Arab world for somewhere safer.
But concern soon turned to mirth as the Glammy showed me a video of her greater clan, The Abadi tribe, throwing a wedding. The video was 15 minutes long and punctuated all the way through by men in traditional Arab headgear firing bullets into the air. In the backdrop, cruised a never ending stream of porters carrying steaming plates of the Jordanian national rice and lamb dish, mansaf, towards a banquet. Shot from above, to the soundtrack of gun shots, the huge round plates kept streaming and streaming. She howled with laughter. 'Well, I think if ISIS did ever enter this country - my tribe would have them for dinner. Or at least they would be taken prisoner and made to suffer a death by mansaf'.
We had dinner with some dear friends - Dutch and Syrian with two little people a bit younger than ours, and the following day, J went off for 2 weeks work away, and I set off back to 'Joothalem' with St Grace and the dwarfs. She's given the Lozenge the most beautiful yellow bicycle with stabilizers. He's been riding it up and down our garden each morning before school, and Rashimi has a little whirl every day when the Lozenge is safely out of the house. When the cat's away...
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