We soared back into Tel Aviv - with Christmas and a fortnight's holiday behind us. Dark grey clouds loomed to the south over Gaza, and the place that really feels like home now, lay waiting for us 70km away in Jerusalem. The break was miles away from our daily reality - Scottish clear blue skies tinged with pink; sheep and cows grazing in green and brown fields lined with leafless trees. The wonder of it all for a 5 and a 3 year old was tangible. On Christmas Eve the house was a rustle of wrapping paper and squeak of celotape. The Lozenge sang carols under his breath, sometimes even without any breath (Gloooo,ooooo,oooooo,ooooo,oooria! Glowia in eleeeectrics. Glooooooooooooooooo-oooooooo-ooor-iaaaaa). Oh for that lung control. And Rashimi's personal version: 'Awaaaaay in a loveleeeee manger' entirely dischordant with the Lozenge. Dad sat with a glass of whisky gazing at the piles of presents and asking how we had it so good, when three quarters of the world is in such turmoil. But one responsibility with this luck is to enjoy it while it's there, at least. And be entirely conscious of every mouthful and armful of it. As we lay in bed on Christmas morning, surrounded in the crumpled paper with two effervescent dwarves the questions bubbled in from Rashimi: 'But Father Chrithmath will wuin the fire when he comes down the chimney, and he will burn his self.' And: 'Do weindeerth come indoorth?' Since afterall the carrot with 3 bites taken out of it was lying on the table outside their bedroom.
The Lozenge was fixed on the weather forecast. It's not something we watch on TV in Jerusalem, and so the Lozenge took the forecast of snow as the gospel. And the angels must have been at hand, as on Saturday morning, the sun groaned above the silhouette of a hill a little after 8am, to reveal a ground covering of snow.
Not much, but enough for some excitable sledging and some snow angels on the carpet of untouched icing sugar on the tennis court. The dwarves lay back in their new snowsuits, flapping their little arms vigorously to create the wings. One of the Lozenge's creations from school was a tiny paper angel with his head at the top - the wings a trace of the Lozenge's hands, and the body a trace of his feet. And on it a little ditty.
This little angel is special
you see
Because she is a
part of me.
Her wings are my hands,
her body my feet
And on your tree
She'll look so sweet.
This year has been all about angels and nativity scenes for the Lozenge. And I can't bring myself to unhook his angel from her hook in my office just yet.
Then the snow turned to mud, and we were sad to leave the feathered nest of security and peace that homestead provides us with. If anything being far away, makes us appreciate it all the more, the community, the laughter and the streams of people breezing in. Cousins, uncles and aunties, dogs and friends.
Plus the Lozenge got to hang out with a look alike Katie Morag, who is even called Katie and has the exact voice.
At Edinburgh airport with 15 minutes before our flight took off for Heathrow, I realised my wallet had fallen out of my bag somewhere between check in and our gate. Thank the angels (again) for my Nike Airs and some wings they seemed to sprout as I retraced my steps. Blank but sympathetic looks at security, blank but sympathetic looks at check in, then a lady suggested lost property at the other end of the terminal. Another sprint and there were a friendly man who said: 'I recognise your face' and produced the wallet for a £5 charge. Worth every penny. Back through the whole security bit again, and screeched to a halt by J and the dwarves a couple of seconds before they began to offload our bags. It may be trying to get above itself by trying to break free from England, but Scotland still contains some friendly and helpful people and a small enough airport to sprint around in 20 minutes. I would not have been so lucky at Heathrow.
Then an overnight stop at the Hilton T5 where the dwarves bounced naked off the walls for an hour before 'woom servith' arrived on a tray accompanied by an Indian man who looked surprised at the dress code for dinner, but giggled as a nude Rashimi leapt up and down at the sight of a plate of fish and chips.
And then they watched Cbeebies reclining on a large double bed. Definitely not a lifestyle to get used to, but a huge excitement nonetheless. In fact, it was infectious, and I managed to look at the hotel lobby, complete with lifesized ginger bread house, a gargantuan tree and piles of jumbo presents, from a dwarf's eye view. We may have been on a rainy street somewhere round the back of Heathrow, but it allowed our adventure to live on until our arrival back home.
It was as if we got a hug from the house when we came back through the door. It was warm and tidy and we all felt happy to be back. Within 5 minutes the dwarfs had unpacked the contents of almost all the drawers neatly tidied by St Grace before she left. Toys were dragged out of bags, batteries were lost, dice and playing cards were scattered, and the fighting began. Is every home like this after Christmas? In a vain attempt to restore harmony I suggested a lemon harvest as our trees outside were groaning with bright yellow fragrant beauty, dripping with raindrops and wreathed with dark green leaves.
We picked about 20 with the step ladder (more fighting over that) and then the rain began so we retreated indoors and put the big steel squeezer to good work, and preserved a few of them in a jar a la Claudia Roden, one of the Queens of Arab cuisine. Though the jar looks a bit like some pickled human remains I saw in the Vietnam war museum, I'm looking forward to using them in some lamb tagine soon. Not a huge amount of interest from the dwarves about 'thtew' but they liked the juice with a pound of sugar added.
Our house was thickly lemon scented enabling us to tolerate the ground covering of chaos by evening, and we all went to bed early to prepare for Rashimi's big step - the first day at nursery school. Almost every hour he's been repeating like a mantra: 'I am NOT going to thchool!' But when the Lozenge explained: 'But Washimi you don't even have to do writing, you get to jutht play, play and play,' he chirped up a bit.
I find it hard to believe that it was 2 years ago the Lozenge embarked on similar adventure in Jordan, with only one child in the class who spoke English - 'Nabiw'. Big steps shrink over time. So let's hope Rashimi agrees.
As they drifted off to sleep the Lozenge asked: 'Will they be all the same people in my class tomorrow Mummy, or will they all be different?'
With every sweet life adventure comes a pinch of salt.
The Lozenge was fixed on the weather forecast. It's not something we watch on TV in Jerusalem, and so the Lozenge took the forecast of snow as the gospel. And the angels must have been at hand, as on Saturday morning, the sun groaned above the silhouette of a hill a little after 8am, to reveal a ground covering of snow.
Not much, but enough for some excitable sledging and some snow angels on the carpet of untouched icing sugar on the tennis court. The dwarves lay back in their new snowsuits, flapping their little arms vigorously to create the wings. One of the Lozenge's creations from school was a tiny paper angel with his head at the top - the wings a trace of the Lozenge's hands, and the body a trace of his feet. And on it a little ditty.
This little angel is special
you see
Because she is a
part of me.
Her wings are my hands,
her body my feet
And on your tree
She'll look so sweet.
This year has been all about angels and nativity scenes for the Lozenge. And I can't bring myself to unhook his angel from her hook in my office just yet.
Then the snow turned to mud, and we were sad to leave the feathered nest of security and peace that homestead provides us with. If anything being far away, makes us appreciate it all the more, the community, the laughter and the streams of people breezing in. Cousins, uncles and aunties, dogs and friends.
Plus the Lozenge got to hang out with a look alike Katie Morag, who is even called Katie and has the exact voice.
At Edinburgh airport with 15 minutes before our flight took off for Heathrow, I realised my wallet had fallen out of my bag somewhere between check in and our gate. Thank the angels (again) for my Nike Airs and some wings they seemed to sprout as I retraced my steps. Blank but sympathetic looks at security, blank but sympathetic looks at check in, then a lady suggested lost property at the other end of the terminal. Another sprint and there were a friendly man who said: 'I recognise your face' and produced the wallet for a £5 charge. Worth every penny. Back through the whole security bit again, and screeched to a halt by J and the dwarves a couple of seconds before they began to offload our bags. It may be trying to get above itself by trying to break free from England, but Scotland still contains some friendly and helpful people and a small enough airport to sprint around in 20 minutes. I would not have been so lucky at Heathrow.
Then an overnight stop at the Hilton T5 where the dwarves bounced naked off the walls for an hour before 'woom servith' arrived on a tray accompanied by an Indian man who looked surprised at the dress code for dinner, but giggled as a nude Rashimi leapt up and down at the sight of a plate of fish and chips.
And then they watched Cbeebies reclining on a large double bed. Definitely not a lifestyle to get used to, but a huge excitement nonetheless. In fact, it was infectious, and I managed to look at the hotel lobby, complete with lifesized ginger bread house, a gargantuan tree and piles of jumbo presents, from a dwarf's eye view. We may have been on a rainy street somewhere round the back of Heathrow, but it allowed our adventure to live on until our arrival back home.
It was as if we got a hug from the house when we came back through the door. It was warm and tidy and we all felt happy to be back. Within 5 minutes the dwarfs had unpacked the contents of almost all the drawers neatly tidied by St Grace before she left. Toys were dragged out of bags, batteries were lost, dice and playing cards were scattered, and the fighting began. Is every home like this after Christmas? In a vain attempt to restore harmony I suggested a lemon harvest as our trees outside were groaning with bright yellow fragrant beauty, dripping with raindrops and wreathed with dark green leaves.
We picked about 20 with the step ladder (more fighting over that) and then the rain began so we retreated indoors and put the big steel squeezer to good work, and preserved a few of them in a jar a la Claudia Roden, one of the Queens of Arab cuisine. Though the jar looks a bit like some pickled human remains I saw in the Vietnam war museum, I'm looking forward to using them in some lamb tagine soon. Not a huge amount of interest from the dwarves about 'thtew' but they liked the juice with a pound of sugar added.
Our house was thickly lemon scented enabling us to tolerate the ground covering of chaos by evening, and we all went to bed early to prepare for Rashimi's big step - the first day at nursery school. Almost every hour he's been repeating like a mantra: 'I am NOT going to thchool!' But when the Lozenge explained: 'But Washimi you don't even have to do writing, you get to jutht play, play and play,' he chirped up a bit.
I find it hard to believe that it was 2 years ago the Lozenge embarked on similar adventure in Jordan, with only one child in the class who spoke English - 'Nabiw'. Big steps shrink over time. So let's hope Rashimi agrees.
As they drifted off to sleep the Lozenge asked: 'Will they be all the same people in my class tomorrow Mummy, or will they all be different?'
With every sweet life adventure comes a pinch of salt.
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