The night before we left home we embarked on the fridge finishing system we employ before a holiday which involves concocting something edible out of what's in there so nothing goes to waste. The Lozenge swallowed a mouthful of Parma ham (imported for us by Gran Gran) a little too soon without chewing enough and choked on it. As he pulled a long piece of ham from out of his throat, he said shaking his head looking worried: 'But Mummy I don't want to choke before the holiday.'
'The holiday' had been the topic conversation for many weeks - it being our first foray as a family of five on a plane and out of the country. The Lozenge had painted a picture in his own mind of snowy Alpine slopes dotted with pine trees; a hut on the hill, where we would all stay, and huskies and polar bears roaming while he learnt to snowboard.
At Tel Aviv airport a young security officer asked us some questions: 'I see you go a lot to Jordan. What do you do there? Do you have friends there? Would any of your friends have given you something to take? I ask you this for your security.'
Then he asked: 'So what is the origin of the name 'Hamish'? J and I stifled a giggle - wondering if he thought Rashimi's name sounded too much like Hamas, Israel's bete noir. 'The Scottish name for James,' I answered. 'And Petra?' he continued.
'Well...in Greek it means rock...'
While people do extremely stupid things in the name of terrorism, people ask rather daft things for security too. And while it's comforting when you're boarding a plane with your whole family that someone is taking your security seriously, I also hope that Europe doesn't suffer too much Israelification in the security sense over the next decades.
Thanks to the 're-wilding' and planting of unusual animals over Europe, there were huskies, and wolves in our ski resort - just no polar bears. And the 'hut' that the Lozenge had dreamt about in fact fitted all five of us, plus Grandparents and auntie Rosie and uncle Duncle's families. The Lozenge's dreams made real, and the absence of polar bears was soon forgotten a couple of croissants down the first morning. And I wondered if 're-wilding' would also apply to putting three young humans in an Northern European open space for the first time in a while. It was a holiday to remember when three pairs of young male legs tried their luck on the planks for the first time, and learned to ski down hill and crucially, to stop. We laughed and skied and ate and drank and laughed and skied a bit more. An on it went. No surprise that on the aeroplane on the way back home, as the Lozenge played hangman with Grandma, his word was: 'Doyouhavetogo'.
From there to the boundless skies of Norfolk. I stood by the pond as the dwarfs collected pond weed with rakes and sticks - trying to avoid the dollops of frog spawn and large toads. 'I just saw a double toad!' shrieked Rashimi. More on that in a couple of years, perhaps...The Pea sat in GranGran's Silver Cross pram chewing on a rice cake in a cashmere bonnet, squinting into the sun as her brothers worked.
Soon you couldn't see the wheelbarrow for weed. Green on green, and daffodils trembling in the cold wind, while GranGran stooped to inspect the contents of the pond with the Lozenge and Rashimi.
To me this photograph says: Grandmothers. Those remarkable ladies that have the time to gaze into a murky pond on a cold day, and be just as interested as the small people.
Then they ran off to do something else, leaving a small, blue rake discarded by the pond, like a precious thought, forgotten, beside a tiny barrow dripping with pond weed. 'I'm going to sell it,' the Lozenge said. 'Who to?' asked Grandfather. 'To someone to make pond weed sculpture,' the Lozenge answered. 'Or to a wig maker to make green hair wigs,' he continued, looking at Grandfather as though he had asked something rather silly.
That morning J and me had been lying in bed, the Pea in between us, da da da-ing to herself, and patting her hand on the duvet. The Lozenge and Rashimi chatting in their room next door. 'Because when you hit someone, and then they hit you back...That's karma,' explained Rashimi.
The news of the bombs in Belgium hit the news and J and I chatted about it in low tones.
After the weed session, the boys and I had run across a wide open field towards a solitary tree, its leafless branches silhouetted against the sky; our ankles braced over the stubble and clay which clodded our trainers. Rashimi's soft brown hand crept into mine, and we slightly tugged on each other as we ran, our breath interlacing into a knitted fabric of air. The tree reminded me of the Dexter Dalwood painting: David Kelly, of a solitary tree silhouetted against a pale moon. The Lozenge ran ahead and sat down at the base, panting. 'Look. Sheep. This is like the Giving Tree, Mummy,' a favourite book of theirs. The children where we live in Jerusalem don't have big fields like this where they can run. We stayed for a while after stretching our arms out and grabbing each others hands so we just managed to encircle the trunk, and then we ran back. 'Can we shout loud here Mummy?' the Lozenge asked. 'Yes! You can shout as loud as you possibly can - look no people anywhere,' I said running in a 360 degree movement. And we all hollered and yelled and yodelled and screamed at the tops of our voices.
Back at the house we could smell the lunch cooking and an aeroplane droned in the sky decorated with cotton wool ball clouds. And I wondered what happens to people who've never been able to shout and run and feel small, but know that small is okay even if it's a bit scary. To feel: 'As big as alone', as I read somewhere, once.
'The holiday' had been the topic conversation for many weeks - it being our first foray as a family of five on a plane and out of the country. The Lozenge had painted a picture in his own mind of snowy Alpine slopes dotted with pine trees; a hut on the hill, where we would all stay, and huskies and polar bears roaming while he learnt to snowboard.
At Tel Aviv airport a young security officer asked us some questions: 'I see you go a lot to Jordan. What do you do there? Do you have friends there? Would any of your friends have given you something to take? I ask you this for your security.'
Then he asked: 'So what is the origin of the name 'Hamish'? J and I stifled a giggle - wondering if he thought Rashimi's name sounded too much like Hamas, Israel's bete noir. 'The Scottish name for James,' I answered. 'And Petra?' he continued.
'Well...in Greek it means rock...'
While people do extremely stupid things in the name of terrorism, people ask rather daft things for security too. And while it's comforting when you're boarding a plane with your whole family that someone is taking your security seriously, I also hope that Europe doesn't suffer too much Israelification in the security sense over the next decades.
Thanks to the 're-wilding' and planting of unusual animals over Europe, there were huskies, and wolves in our ski resort - just no polar bears. And the 'hut' that the Lozenge had dreamt about in fact fitted all five of us, plus Grandparents and auntie Rosie and uncle Duncle's families. The Lozenge's dreams made real, and the absence of polar bears was soon forgotten a couple of croissants down the first morning. And I wondered if 're-wilding' would also apply to putting three young humans in an Northern European open space for the first time in a while. It was a holiday to remember when three pairs of young male legs tried their luck on the planks for the first time, and learned to ski down hill and crucially, to stop. We laughed and skied and ate and drank and laughed and skied a bit more. An on it went. No surprise that on the aeroplane on the way back home, as the Lozenge played hangman with Grandma, his word was: 'Doyouhavetogo'.
From there to the boundless skies of Norfolk. I stood by the pond as the dwarfs collected pond weed with rakes and sticks - trying to avoid the dollops of frog spawn and large toads. 'I just saw a double toad!' shrieked Rashimi. More on that in a couple of years, perhaps...The Pea sat in GranGran's Silver Cross pram chewing on a rice cake in a cashmere bonnet, squinting into the sun as her brothers worked.
Soon you couldn't see the wheelbarrow for weed. Green on green, and daffodils trembling in the cold wind, while GranGran stooped to inspect the contents of the pond with the Lozenge and Rashimi.
To me this photograph says: Grandmothers. Those remarkable ladies that have the time to gaze into a murky pond on a cold day, and be just as interested as the small people.
Then they ran off to do something else, leaving a small, blue rake discarded by the pond, like a precious thought, forgotten, beside a tiny barrow dripping with pond weed. 'I'm going to sell it,' the Lozenge said. 'Who to?' asked Grandfather. 'To someone to make pond weed sculpture,' the Lozenge answered. 'Or to a wig maker to make green hair wigs,' he continued, looking at Grandfather as though he had asked something rather silly.
That morning J and me had been lying in bed, the Pea in between us, da da da-ing to herself, and patting her hand on the duvet. The Lozenge and Rashimi chatting in their room next door. 'Because when you hit someone, and then they hit you back...That's karma,' explained Rashimi.
The news of the bombs in Belgium hit the news and J and I chatted about it in low tones.
After the weed session, the boys and I had run across a wide open field towards a solitary tree, its leafless branches silhouetted against the sky; our ankles braced over the stubble and clay which clodded our trainers. Rashimi's soft brown hand crept into mine, and we slightly tugged on each other as we ran, our breath interlacing into a knitted fabric of air. The tree reminded me of the Dexter Dalwood painting: David Kelly, of a solitary tree silhouetted against a pale moon. The Lozenge ran ahead and sat down at the base, panting. 'Look. Sheep. This is like the Giving Tree, Mummy,' a favourite book of theirs. The children where we live in Jerusalem don't have big fields like this where they can run. We stayed for a while after stretching our arms out and grabbing each others hands so we just managed to encircle the trunk, and then we ran back. 'Can we shout loud here Mummy?' the Lozenge asked. 'Yes! You can shout as loud as you possibly can - look no people anywhere,' I said running in a 360 degree movement. And we all hollered and yelled and yodelled and screamed at the tops of our voices.
Back at the house we could smell the lunch cooking and an aeroplane droned in the sky decorated with cotton wool ball clouds. And I wondered what happens to people who've never been able to shout and run and feel small, but know that small is okay even if it's a bit scary. To feel: 'As big as alone', as I read somewhere, once.
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