I didn't think we were in need of a break. But when we stepped out of Prague terminal 3 snuffling and snorting like 4 truffle pigs, thanks to the cyclical coughs and colds we've been harbouring for the past month, I felt my shoulders relaxing as I sank into the familiarity of Europe. Not home, crucially, but a few steps closer. Then, as though sniffing out some of our own kind, we found ourselves gazing at the mottled and dusty array of sausages, salamis, frankfurters and hams in the pork Deli, tactfully placed right next to the end of the tunnel which spits out daily arrivals from Israel.
Perhaps we did need that break after all....50 metres squared, stuffed with P O R K. And women wearing clothes I too once wore, like mini skirts. And one even had blue hair. The worst bit about being an ex-pat is you never meld into your host country, and then you cease to fit in back home too. Though actually, being with-child in Jerusalem - which has to be the reproduction capital of the world - I will soon look much more like every other Haredi Orthodox or Arab woman on the pavement.
But anyway, the array of pork products put us completely off course and we ended up snuffling and shuffling our way up to the opposite end of the airport from the baggage reclaim. The dwarfs whined about aching legs, but after no slack from us, the Lozenge solved the problem by putting Rashimi in an airport child's buggy which enabled R to rest and L to forget they were actually having to w-a-l-k. (Never call it a walk. Or you'll have a dwarf revolt on your hands.)
They're excited about the baby-to-be, and the Lozenge sometimes likes to practise on the horrified 'I'm-NOT-a-baby! Rashimi, hence his delight about pushing him in a buggy. They've announced that when it's born, they want to call it: 'Bunny Floppy Ears'.
And then we arrived in an area supposedly the equivalent of Hackney in Prague, at a grey, flat-faced building, hiding a stack of beautiful parquet floored and tall windowed apartments. Our friends now live in one of them. We fell into their arms. True, true, dear friends. A bit like the pork deli, a rare thing in Jerusalem. Not that the people aren't nice here. We just don't have the history quite yet.
And talking of history, it's really not my strong point, but after plates of shining orange frankfurters, buttery potatoes and beer (there I was thinking we'd have a far-from-falafel-detox while we were away...) we wandered up to their nearby park which looks out over the city and looked at the blue misty perspective, punctuated by Gothic spires and rows of coloured houses, each one with a different facade from its neighbour.
The city seems to have all the majesty of Vienna, but with little rebellious and individual-natured twists. The population seems to be un-mixed, with the exception of Vietnamese who fulfil the same role as Pakistanis in London when it comes to small grocery shops.
And despite the Gothic churches, the atmosphere felt gloriously far from the sombre aura of humans under the weight of scrupulously observed religion. Not a headscarf or a side-lock in sight. And you know what, it was magic.
I wondered how long it takes for you to start being influenced by your surroundings to the extent that you change, as I gawped at arty snaps of semi naked women on the walls of one restaurant loo and tried not to feel shocked.
From cafe to restaurant we wandered - 4 adults, 4 children - sipping on molten chocolate in cafes, scampering through parks whose robust, well designed playgrounds made our little local Arab ones look rather vintage and flaky
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| The Jerusalem version |
There was unfortunately a four day whine-a-thon from the youngest member of our pack. Rashimi, it appears is more comfortable in the Southern Med being carted about in a 4 x 4. Walking the cold streets in a Parka jacket was not his idea of fun. And he wasn't afraid to let us know. What with Bunny Floppy Ears on board, I can't really carry him at the mo, so poor J had a permanent Rashimi badge or stole as he wielded him, whining and crying, along path, after road, after forest lane. The truffle pig virus, may also have had something to do with it. But you never know where virus ends and petulance begins with dwarfs.
Interesting being in a country whose blight was formerly communism. As I speed walked ahead to avoid hearing the wailing of Rashimi, I wondered if the 'reds under the bed' could honestly have seemed as threatening as this crISIS the world is struggling to contend with today. Did the Cold War feel as dramatic as this frenzied, wicked sandstorm whipped up by the Islamic State nutcases? Hard to believe it was as bad. But then read about the Stazi and the pogroms, and the same kernels of all encompassing evil are there.
Gloriously there was some synchronicity between my book about Ibn Battutah, the medieval Tangerine explorer and the Gothic Cathedrals we looked at. While Ibn Battutah was on his epic mission from Tangiers to Mecca which took him 29 years, the spires at St Barbara's Cathedral near Prague, were being carved, and frescoes still wet on her very walls.
The Black Death was also a link to my understanding of the time. While, in 1348 at the time of the Great Plague in Damascus, Ibn Battutah witnessed "all conditions of men assembling in the Omayyad Mosque until it overflowed with them. They spent the night there in prayers, liturgies and supplications. After the dawn prayer, they all went out together, barefoot, carrying Qur'ans...." Not that this supplication worked, as the very same plague swept through the Europe, including what is now the Czech Republic. And we visited, in the town of Kutna Hora, an Ossuary, whose interior is decorated entirely with skulls and bones of victims of the very same plague and others thereafter. In the middle of the church there is a huge chandelier made entirely from the grey remains - dripping with femurs and dainty little hand bones, with piles of crania. The dwarfs were f a s c i n a t e d. As I stared at the skull mountain in the middle, I wondered why we worry about anything in this life, if this is the outcome for each of us.
Back in Jerusalem, cloaked with warm, spring air, the Mediterranean dwarf sprang back to life, and our lives continued as before, with perhaps some pork-infused energy and the feeling of having been in a friendship-spa. The dwarf duo and I visited the Mount of Olives, where wild flowers covered the ground,
and the Lozenge picked 'thalad' for his imaginary friends Lotta and Squeak the Rabbit and took handfuls of green things home to make a potion. Which he did, with the hand blender and a huge dose of food colouring which he and Rashimi spilt all over the floor, dying the white cupboards a watery green colour.
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| 'salad' picking on the Mount of Olives |
They ran about in the shabby playground and I watched young Arab girls swinging on the monkey bars in their jeans while their Mums, decked from head to toe in headscarf and long, acrylic 'manteau' coat, watched from the picnic table. The transition from monkey bars to motherhood seemed rather close to me as I sat watching them all.
Our break also meant that I did some soul searching about small annoyances about having St Grace always, always in the house. Particularly because even though she does work, she's also very good at resting.
Cantankerous is not a word that should be used to describe old men. It should be used to describe pregnant women. And in a few months, there will be an emphasis on the 'tank'. And she's not my only victim. After chasing news editors to try and get one of them to commission a story, woe betide the ones who are still keeping me waiting...I will keep on at them until they answer; until I am the size of a semi-detached; until I get someone to take one of my ideas.
But it turns out, that sadly St Grace is suffering from absent-but-overbearing-husband-syndrome. It seems he has an informant here in Jerusalem who tells him what she's up to. Sometimes even making up lies about what she does. He doesn't want her to go anywhere on her day off. When she explains that he can do what he likes in Jordan and she would like him to trust her enough to go out with some girlfriends on her days off to relax, his reply is: 'But you are a woman. And I am a man.' How many bone-headed, (I can vouch, after the visit to that Ossuary, that this is what they are) fearful males are there on the planet, of every religion, trying to limit life for women full of curiosity and potential? We worry for her - because it must be a suffocating and enervating source of unhappiness for her. And it does cast a pall around the house too. Plus it means she never goes anywhere.
Living in the same house, she and I could hardly have more different existences.
Mine, despite the bin that never shuts right outside my office door because Rashimi has tampered with it; and my desk door that falls off in my hand each time as the Lozenge has unscrewed the hinges; the food colouring staining the floor from the potion spillages; the fact my hands are so raspy I scratch myself with my own skin; my mind is a flip chart and a hive of muddled ideas and intentions and brainwaves and little moments of career-despair and then the odd light bulb moment; and our bed is surrounded by Playmobil and Lego vehicles and I get bread stick crumbs (left by a nonchalantly snacking dwarfs) on my cheek when I go to bed at night. I'll soon be the size of a small dorm-o-bile and I'm risking the mirth, or worse: indifference, of really busy news editors as I try and campaign for my little video stories to go a bit further than an NGO webpage. But, I'm free! And the man I live with is ready to brainstorm aforementioned little ideas whether it be 6.30am or pm. I get a cuddle when things aren't going right, and a cheer when things are. How did I get so lucky? It has at least, helped me be less cantankerous to St G as we talk through her situation over a quick cup of tea before I begin work at 7.45 am.
And perhaps a recent smile may have been thanks to Sri Lanka's recent victory over England in the cricket.
And maybe it's not just me who's influenced by the heavy hand of convention and religion in this city: after a sunny weekend, and our first picnic (on March 1st, no less) J was watching the boys as they played in another park. The Lozenge came running up, panting to tell him: 'Daddy, Washimi has just been talking to some girls he's never even met before!'
We should continue to get out of here for some European infusions.
It's clearly not just about the pork.
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