Active hope and a seven year old moon-o-phile

Active hope is the antidote to cynicism says Maria Popova, utterer of much wisdom and author of the weekly Brain-pickings which a friend put me on to, leaving me asking myself how I did without it.

The Tree of Hope now stands in the centre of the Old City and here is the first cut of the film I made about Mark the talented sculptor, and the making of it.

https://vimeo.com/185045037

password: hope

And in this region where despair so often reigns - we find examples of hope nestling in the thorns in the most surprising places. At a recent event at a Jerusalem street which houses Arabs on one side; Israelis on the other; we find art on the inhabitants' walls. One such inhabitant hands me his card which reads: 'The head of the parents committee in Turi schools. A peaceful man.' And his neighbour, an Arab who works with Ultra Orthodox Jewish ambulance first aid teams so he can be at the scene of the accident more quickly than if he were driving his own vehicle because of stringent security restrictions on Palestinians. And the extremely moving visit I paid with a new friend, to Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, just the other side of the separation wall, very close to the birthplace of the Pea, where I met Abdelfattah, the head of Alrowwad for culture and arts. A doctor of science, he turned his back on work as a biologist to throw himself into theatre, and toured the UK this summer with his troupe - all young people from the camp - including to the Edinburgh Festival.

Popovawrites: 'Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naivety.'

But I think she's also right to include the word 'active' alongside. Everyone's looking for hope, and most people want things to be better. Just this week we held a fashion show to sell unwanted, quality clothes, and raised nearly $4,000. It came from nothing - unused clothes formerly dangling dejected in our closets - became a something. Everything can be a something.

St Grace explains. 'It's good, a sale like this madam, because when you buy, you feel good, you feel peace, right?' She was fully involved and donated lots of new or nearly new clothes for the cause, and shopped for many of her friends.

I notice that all our friends want to come, want to join. We internationals can also be negatively influenced by the Holy Land's complex political situation. And it makes us shy - more reluctant to creep out of our holes and fly a hopeful flag. And often we can stand around and wring our hands and feel guilty that things look like they're getting worse. And yet we're still living here - so does that make us complicit?

But the flag of hope is flying this week. And our new seven year old is in the mix with his heart and his soul. 'Give me a child before he is seven...' Well if this seven year old man child is anything to go by, 'Shop til you drop' is something for naughties-born males.

A good chunk of our money is due to the spending of the Lozenge himself: bangles for some of girlfriends in class; a wallet for his best girlfriend's Mum; an emerald green silky Ra-Ra skirt for the Pea; a pair of leggings for Tilly T his cousin; a couple of tops for Daisy his other cousin; some shorts for himself and a tie for Daddy.

He shops. Then he drops. Half way through their night time poem, called Benediction, by James Berry, I notice both dwarfs are fast asleep with their sticky heads deep into their pillows, while I stumble through our nightly ritual by torchlight.

'Thanks to the ear that someone may hear; Thanks to seeing that someone may see; Thanks to feeling that someone may feel; Thanks to touch that one may be touched; Thanks to flowering of white moon and spreading shawl of black night holding villages and cities together.'

The Lozenge loves the moon. It was his first word. So the birthday card I give him has a huge full moon on it with a small person looking up at it surrounded by the night.

He reads his own birthday card with the moon on it, and looks happy and interested.

What else about this seven year old? He skips often. Almost as often as he sings. He still runs naked unabashed. He makes me my lunch: a gouda cheese sandwich, firmly pressed down with a shadow of fingerprints on top. He carries his 13kg-worth of sister and belly laughs at her first attempts

at words.

He goes to school on the little white bus every morning driven by Yacoub the driver 'with the ball-y head'. Rashimi has made him a card with: I LVOE YUO LARUIE on it. For which the Lozenge must be grateful as he ensures a birthday cupcake is delivered to his brother's classroom. 'He won't be expecting it but he'll be really pleased.' When I tell this to J, who has a big brother who was not at all nice to him, J says this means more to him than anything in the world.

We go out for the Lozenge's birthday dinner with 9 small people and one other adult (not a recommended ratio). One little Palestinian friend disappears on the Lozenge's scooter over the brow of a hill out of sight on our way to the restaurant. 'Haaaaaadiiiiiii Cooooommmmme Baaaaaack!' I yell running as fast as I can after him. The other 8 small people look perturbed and run off in pursuit of Hadi. Now I've lost all of them. Bad plan. The other Mum intercepts Rashimi from a small train about to run him over. Then they scoff chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. I feverishly grasp a bottle of beer.

Half way through my burger the Lozenge says he needs a number two and could I assist in the bottom wiping in a bit. Seven...hmm. I insist he's great at doing it by himself. But no. Another bite into my burger and the Lozenge says: 'Mummy, I've got something really cool to show you. Please come and look.' I'm reluctant. And I take a while. But finally, I get there.

'Look Mummy', he says pointing up to the dark sky. 'Look. The moon'.

J is back any minute, and my only concern is our little Pea who has no words really, yet she has reasons of the heart, that cannot be spoken. 'Dadda' she says, pointing a shining index finger at Palestinian local men in the supermarket. Dadda she says as she clambers onto other friends' Dads' laps. She cuddles Mikel the father of Rashimi's best friend; and Beni our friend from Kosovo - and doesn't let him go. She is perhaps feeling J's absence more than any of us, and shows this more clearly with no words at all.

But she's standing proud too. She can rise up from the floor, legs wide apart like Petya my Granny's Bulgarian weight lifter home-help used to do. And she can walk three steps, stiffly, as though she has wooden legs.

So both of the dwarfs have fallen asleep mid-poem after our clothes sale. And we've raised all these dollars for doctors in Aleppo which feels so near only 700 km away, yet so unutterably far. And I think of all the seven year olds and four year olds and one year olds learning to walk and talk, and trying to fall asleep with their Mums under this same moon, and I wonder how the world is ever going to get through this.

Active hope needs to go live.
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Be fruitful, be a raisin

The kindly man at the supermarket checkout in our Eastern Jerusalem district is dressed in a black tie, black shirt and black trousers. As usual he greets me warmly as I hurriedly bundle my wares from trolley to desk as the Lozenge and Rashimi toss me paper bags of sugary morsels which, like magpies, they've collected. 'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Are you mourning someone?'

'La, la' meaning: 'No no' in Arabic. He shrugs. 'Just I'm wearing black today - no one die'.

'Not becuase of Shimon then?' I joke. For a couple of seconds he looks blank and I fear I've overstepped our line of mutual respect. Then suddenly he gurgles into a laugh as he gets what I mean. 'NO. Most certainly NOT because of Shimon!'

Shimon Peres' familiar face with slightly sad brown eyes, is emblazoned over local newspapers this week and though he is mourned by Israelis as being one of the longest living bastions of peace and progress; most Palestinians view him as pugnacious a rotter as any other Israeli leader past or present. After my supermarket joke, I do end up putting my foot in it with a Palestinian friend at a dinner this week. 'So what do you make of Shimon then?' I ask. And he unleashes a furious tirade about all Israeli leaders since Jabotinsky being the reason for the loss of his own homeland. 'They had a plan then, they have a plan now - which is to take the whole place for themselves based on nebulous writings from 3,000 years ago. I honestly can't believe you ask me this question,' he says.

Forgiveness seems an unattainable reach. But just look at what's happening in Colombia and their almost-peace agreement.  So close. And this would not have been the case 20 years ago. There must always be hope.

Because of Shimon's funeral and the visit of world leaders to Jerusalem, the school is closed for the day, and my fabulous Italian friend and I have to postpone our fashion for a cause sale to raise money for Syrians. Ironic.

The dwarfs are delighted to have another day tagged to their Rosh Hashanah - Jewish new year - holiday. The Lozenge begins his Friday with an experiment: putting a raisin in a glass of water and leaving it there for a few days. 'I want to turn it back into a grape,' he explains. I wonder secretly to myself if this would work with humans. I've completed one more year of life this week, and after nearly two months of living without J and working and tending two dwarfs and a pea day in, day out - I am feeling like a raisin myself. It will be unfortunate if J returns from his Baghdad pod-life looking grape-like.

I have a good birthday despite the absence of J. I receive 2 naked card invaders at 6.15 who jump into my bed and cover me in kisses. The Pea joins us in our festivities that evening with friends at our local restaurant. She astonishes everyone with her pizza techniques, eating an entire slice without me having to cut it up; then grinning at us all with greasy chops and a black olive stuck to her chin.

We are happy and healthy but I'm ready for some man-power. The morning ritual of waking, feeding, dressing dwarves and a robust Pea, and skooshing dwarfs out of the door to get on the school bus can mean I sometimes rush things. Maybe I rush everything, in fact. 'Mummy this morning you must have put my PANTH on inside out,' says Rashimi. 'Because all day I had an inside bottom.' The Rashimi explanation for a wedgie.

But he and particularly the Lozenge have been reliable and generally unflappable this first stint of J's absence. 'We all rely on the Lozenge,' says J. J relies on him to support me. I rely on him to support me. Rashimi relies on him as an older brother, as does the Pea. He is seven this week. In Jesuit speak: 'Give me a boy before he is seven and I will make him a man.' He is also manning up with some good observational skills. As I pack up for a recent camping expedition, asking myself under my breath if I'm mad to be doing this, on my twenty fifth trip to the garage with tents and cold bags and duvets and swimming gear, I say: 'Guys can you just stop talking to me for a few minutes while I try and gather my thoughts.'

'What thoughts?' asks the Lozenge.

Well, exactly. I think I had a thought a few weeks ago. But it's gone again.

But after all the exertion of packing up the car, the smalls and I and our Swedish friends share a stunning sunset which we have to ourselves:

and to fall asleep under a bright, full moon with the sound of lapping waves a few metres from our tent, make me glad as glad to have tried it.

These happy little faces the next morning explain the glee of the adventure after their 11 hours of sleep while I have lain awake all night with my lapping-water surround-sound and moon glow lighting.

A dunk in the water at 6.30am...

Selina the fairy-godmother arrives from Paris, direct to our beach to camp to hang out with us. She appears in the dead of night and the dwarves are ecstatic to see her in the tent beside me in the morning. She spends all day in the sea with one dwarf on her shoulders, and another dangling from her neck and appears to enjoy it. Gold is not more valuable than a visitor like this, when in my situation. We spend merry days with her, and then two more girlfriends breeze in for a long weekend. I may be a raisin but I have some good girls on my vine who have put the energy back and a bit extra for spares.

A new friend, Munther, from the West Bank drops off a tiny snake in a bottle for the boys to inspect. He then disappears. Is he really a friend? He asks if we want to keep it - St Grace is appalled. She's not afraid of much, St Grace - but snakes are her worst thing ever. I guess in Sri Lanka you get some scary ones. I explain to her this one will be 2 metres long when fully grown according to Munther. She hugs the Pea more tightly to her bosom in terror.  So politely, I decline. 'You mean longer than you Mummy. Wow - that will be one big snake,' says Rashimi.

So the Pea's first pet will not be a Palestinian viper it turns out. Her new activity is singing along to the call to prayer, and her first word is: 'Cheers!' as she clinks plastic beaker with her brothers. A promising sign.

One of the obituaries of Shimon Peres says his character epitomises this quote by Nietszche. I read it and it makes me feel a bit better about being a raisin:

'One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one remains young only on condition that the soul does not relax, does not long for peace.'

I like the idea of not allowing oneself or ones life to become too peaceful, in order to stay young. So I'll take this vignette onto my vine with me this year, and hope that by being a raisin, life can be fruitful.

Mummies of Jerusalem

We're on the phone with the Glammy as we drive out for dinner on Sunday night. The four of us: two dwarfs, the Pea, and me. We were all ready to go and then the Pea crawled to my bag, whipped out the bottle of white wine and cracked it onto the tiled floor while sitting back on a shard of glass which punctured the gnocchi dough thigh. The dwarfs got to work massaging the wine lake into the rug and crunching more glass around the house. So we're late for dinner but happy to be going out. We FaceTime the Glammy on our way. She's in the US now: found a job and in the process of losing another husband. But it's great to talk and she laughs at me - her face on dashboard as I drive - you are a crazy Mamma taking everyone out at night!' The Lozenge trills: 'But you shouldn't be at work. You're Arab and it's EID!' 'I know habibi (dear) Laurie but they don't have days off for EID in the states.'  And if Trump wins, not any time soon, either.

We have dinner on a balcony with some wonderful friends from Kosovo. It's a balmy evening and we smoke a hubby bubbly pipe, eat lasagna altogether, drink wine, study the Arab tiles on their floor, and ponder if this was originally an Arab house, now consumed by West Jerusalem.

We do the skip through the dark thing again back home and the Lozenge sings: ' I can use up some of my energy from tomorrow, and the bit left over from today.' I almost sleep drive, home. I am weary from physical endurance and I feel like Mummies must feel a lot, everywhere in the world. Particularly when they're on their own a lot. I look back as we draw into the garage. Two sleeping dwarfs, heads propping each other up in a head to head book-end style without the books in-between. The Pea also in dormouse cottage lolling alone in her seat covered in biscuit crumbs. I do four trips to the car and back putting each small creature into bed - though the Lozenge almost feels like I'm carrying one of myself - he is so big and tall. I peel off clothes, forgetting the teeth just for one night, and make one final trip for the bags which fortunately don't need tucking in or undressing. I collapse into bed.

Monday is first day of Eid so no school. I was part of the team at the school campaigning for Muslim pupils to have Eid holiday, as Christian and Jewish children have their holidays, so here we have it. 2 days off when I've just started work and really quite a lot of it to do. But Eid al Adha is the festival of sacrifice afterall: the holier of the two eids muslims celebrate each year - commemorating Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son.

Our area has a lightness in the air. The emphasis is on eating, family, and spending time and money, together.  Teenage girls wander the sticky pavements in squeaky new white Converse trainers; metal shop shutters are pulled tightly down while the community goes to ground for a few days. I stop at a flower shop for a bunch of lillies, a young boy gives the Pea a flower of brightest fuschia and ruffles her hair. 'Kol 'am wa antom bekhayr'  I say - an Arabic greeting for birthdays and festivals alike. Eid has been good this year, the man in the shop tells me.

The Israel museum beckons with a gang of friends - large and small. Picasso drawings for larges and an interactive communications exhibit for the smalls - or both for both. We get waylaid with the 'Mummies of Jerusalem' and while Rashimi contests these cannot be real Mummies as they are not covered in bandages, I realise though I'm not covered in bandages either, I fit right into the Mummies of Jerusalem exhibition anyway.  My brain embalmed with constant questions and smalls-talk; my body as stiff as a sarcophagus from the midnight kinder-shifting.

We walk down a wide avenue with a Rodin statue and Rashimi smacks his bottom; wafts of lavender exude from the garden, the dead sea scrolls housed on our right. I've never seen those I think to myself. ''Mummy, what is rock. Mummy, why can you sort of see through the moon in the daytime? Mummy why does water make your hand wet? Mummy...Mummy...Mummy..both dwarfs are at it in my two ears. Their questions come as fast as two mouthfuls taken in without chewing. They start another question before they'e finished the first. 'Mummy I have more bones than you and Laurie but the Pea has more than all of us, right? Mummy, because small people have more bones than big people. And Mummy does Master Kwaigon have the force?'

Yes I am a Mummy of Jerusalem. I create myself an invisible sarcophagus shell around my head and think still, quiet thoughts. We find ourselves back at the Mummies again as Rashimi is fascinated by them more than anything else in the museum apart from the video of the real-life beating heart. 'Mummy, but that's not a real heart because it's not a heart shape.' Khaled our friend says something about these Mummies not being Egyptian ones. He's Egyptian so I expect he'd know, I think. I don't get around to reading the information board. But a while later I manage to inspect the nano bible through half shut eyes for a few seconds. It's the world's smallest bible, on a microchip. (W.H.Y?) I look, briefly at a page of a dead sea scroll and try and work out if it's Hebrew writing.  This Mummy leaves the museum not altogether wiser about anything than before she entered. But at least I have literally 'seen' the scrolls.

I watch the boys eating a large slice of Israeli cheese cake I've paid for. It costs about £6, and wonder if that can count as dinner or if they'll be hungry again when we get back.

The following day we decide to go the beach for the final Eid-off. We're all four in the kitchen making hummus which we've agreed will be our contribution to a group picnic. The Lozenge is balanced on a chair operating the whizzer, slopping olive oil over the work surface; Rashimi is ripping open razor sharp lids of chick pea cans; the Pea rams me with her walker in my shins - the boys are safely un-safely teetering on their stools, so free from ramming incidents at least.  She runs over a splodge of hummus and a plastic pretzel dragged from the playroom, now lodged under her wheel makes a scraping sound as she walks. Radio four is unintelligible for the decibels of our kitchen so I turn it off leaving a hummous finger print on the ipad, as Rashimi inadverently spatula splats some hummus onto my top.

St Grace is here, and then has gone - 15 Sri Lankans are on a pilgrimage here from Jordan and are coming around for a cup of tea so she whips off to get them from the Garden Tomb, where some, but not all, Christians believe Jesus was buried and the rock moved. I'm now half naked - the hummus top in the washing pile - and I wonder if Sri Lankans have a problem with semi-nudity in adults. The dwarfs are still completely naked. We laugh when we remember the last time she had a visiting pastor from Sri Lanka and the Lozenge came waddling out of the loo with his pants round his ankles asking me to wipe his bottom when the pastor was half way through a group prayer. I half miss her smooth presence, as smooth as the way she handles a mop or a brush or a baby.  And I want to wait to see her Sri Lankan pilgrims on their trip from Jordan but it's 9.30 and the hummus is made, carrot batons chopped, cold beer added for midday attitude ajustments and the Pea is looking sleepy in her walker.

I heave everybody, and myself, into the car and I receive a text from St Grace saying: 'sorry madam there still hear in tombs.'

Not such a bad plan, I think. Next week I might be wandering about the tomb too. A nice cool and quiet place for a Mummy of Jerusalem.

Taking Sides

While I have moments of missing J so keenly, I sit in a trance or pace the house, not knowng where to put myself. My Grandmother used to eat her dinner off newspaper when Grandpa was away, to save the drag of washing up one plate. And though I have to watch out not to eat a few Tuc biscuits followed by a Twirl for dinner; on the whole we're okay. Each street around us houses a friend. 'Keyf Jowzek?' (How's your husband?) asks my friend Marwan in the 'everything' shop, piled up to the ceiling with wares. 'Baghdad. Haraam.' (Baghdad, What a shame), people lament. The Armenian hairdresser pops out of his shop, his mouth full of hair pins. 'Anything you need. Really - you know where to come,' as I wheel past with the Pea.

In our world this week - in our uncomplicated bubble hovering over much a more complex reality - the main worry is that the star wars costumes and light sabres may have been forwarded to Baghdad by the diplomatic postal service. Though perhaps a light sabre is the very thing for J: for the force. With a thick Iraqi dialect to contend with in his work, and a life empty of distraction.

But all is not okay around us. Shaded by the superior hell of  Aleppo or Yemen, the State of Israel can continue to build illegal settlements on land that is officially Palestinian and bully the Palestinian people into submission unhindered. A greater regional conflict is just what the more sinister side of the State of Israel (becuase there are many, many Israelis who do not support this) needs to get on with what they came for - a whole country of their own, without the Palestinians getting in the way.

It's so easy to become inured to the situation here when you've lived here for a while. It's important to get out and see it as often as you can. And as internationals we can mercurially move around the way that locals from either side, cannot so easily, or safely.

This week I head up to Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank with Mark - the sculptor I've been filming with - to visit an eye clinic with St John Eye Hospital. Mark is visibly moved by what he sees. While we drive up the winding road, one of the doctors shows Mark a map of the West Bank showing the settlements. 'They're almost like a brown cancer stain in a scan of the human body,' says Mark. 'Yes, and they're growing, un-treated, even encouraged,' the doctor replies. 'There are maybe over half a million settlers in the Palestinian territories now,' he continues. 'They all have one IDF soldier guarding them to keep safe, and they are taking all the water, and using the roads, that we are often not allowed to use ourselves.'

Map from PeaceNow.org

The Palestinian populations scattered between these hilltop land grabbers are suffering from diabetes, depression, each compounded by the limited movement. It's difficult to get a permit to reach Jerusalem - though one way is a medical permit. The doctors refer 10 patients in the outreach clinic the day we visit.

But it's easy to ignore it when you're cut off from 'the other'. So easy. And also for internationals such as me: busy with jobs and juniors and just getting on with things. You can forget to put your head up and realise what is being eroded: a civilisation and a nation of people being slowly and assuredly squeezed. The life out of, the air out of, the houses out of, the land out of, the water out of...them and their country.

A young Palestinian man is shot dead by Israeli police while bringing home food, baby clothes, a grieving mother recounts. 27-year-old Mustafa Nimir, was killed early one morning this week, when Israeli forces showered the vehicle in which he was travelling with live fire. The Israeli police claim he and his cousin were attempting a car ramming. But eye witnesses deny this.

This is one story of many, many others.

Many locals here are calling this an ongoing 'Nakba' - referring to the 'catastrophe' when the Palestinian people were forced out of their land in 1948 when the State of Israel was created. The inhabitants of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are regularly subject to house demolitions, eviction orders, search operations. 83 Palestinian young people have been shot since the beginning of the year in the Bethlehem district. The same is happening all over the West Bank.

This is what an IDF commander, known as 'Captain Nidal' recently said to the young men of a refugee camp of Palestinians near Bethlehem: ' 'I will make the youth of the camp disabled. I'll make half of you disabled and let the other half push the wheelchairs.'

BADIL, the resource centre for Palestinian residency and refugee rights explains: 'These threats indicate that these actions are not accidental or isolated incidents, but rather result from a systematic Israeli military policy aimed at suppressing resistance, terrorizing Palestinian youth, and permanently injuring them and/or causing significant damage to their physical and mental well-being. The explicit threats by the Israeli army leadership show the willingness to commit criminal actsand raise significant concerns about the adherence of the Israeli forces to the tenets of international law.'

'We must always take sides,' said Ellie Weisel, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and holocaust survivor. 'Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.'

'An injustice somewhere, is an injustice everywhere.'

I often ask myself which kind of Israeli would I be? The one who puts her head above the parapet and says what she will not stand for? Or the one who just gets on with things and would rather not think too hard about it?

And as internationals we should be asking ourselves the same question.

Saja and Yazan

https://vimeo.com/181801625

The important and wonderful work of St John Eye Hospital for Palestinian children.

Daddy diet - week one

The dwarfs, at the end of the day, after I've concocted them three meals, sometimes four, have a habit of asking for warm milk (in a beaker which takes me at least ten minutes to clean and put together) and a bowl of dried banana or a platelet of fruit. Tonight was a bad night as I was threadbare from the day, and the day before that. And the Lozenge must have sensed it somehow as he followed me into the kitchen, naked, on his scooter and said sheepishly, 'Mummy, no rush with the fruit.' Then as he scooted out he turned to me and said a little more quietly, his head down,'Mummy. Do you miss Daddy? Because I do.' And scooted out again.

The Daddy diet has begun, as J begins his first seven week stretch away from us.  The first of a year's worth of these. He's in Baghdad; we are in Jerusalem. We're used to random-combination-destinations but this one is a wierd one. His lack is my overload, his silence is my noise, his solitude is my endless companionship. Mostly of dwarfs. But as Tom Hanks said recently: 'There is big difference between loneliness and solitude'. In my mind the two are as different as starvation and hunger. One is a deeper need that can't be answered with simple company or food; the other is a knowledge that everything is alright and a little pang of a reminder to enjoy the feeling and use it well, before the situation changes. ie. your husband returns, your friend comes to visit, or you have food on your plate.

As J works on one big mission, my missions are multitudinous. The dwarfs, the pea and I all have our routines, but I've noticed that through our intense togetherness, we've also begun to leak into each other's lives more than ever. Since J is not here, my life takes on more of a dwarf-friendly theme: they stay up later with me, as we're invited by friends to eat and drink on weekend evenings. I'm flanked in the darkness by two dwarfs on scooters, a pea in a pram as we wheel through the darkness back home, the call to prayer sounding under the starlight. And I can find myself of a Sunday morning eating nutella on toast roaring with laughter with them, watching Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip; or trying to stifle a sob on E.T. when he leaves forever, pointing to the little boy's head and saying: 'I'll be right here.'

Our lives and our flesh are interlinked in our small oasis in the middle of one of the more troubled cities in the world. The physicality of dwarf and Pea presence, both trips me up and supports me. J has none of this, and the seven weeks of absence must be in this sense harder for him.

The dwarfs are most of the time my allies - their conversation sometimes deep ('Mummy, God is the guard of the world' or 'Mummy if all the people in the whole wide world, died, would that be the end of the world. And if so, would God begin making it all over again?' from Rashimi) between naked wrestling or Pea wrangling. 'She is the most loved, and cuddled and stroked and pummeled and sucked and occasionally kicked or dropped-by-mistake, baby sister. You guys are going to be so fine you know - you'll swim the river, you'll wrestle the crocodile and it'll all be good,' J says as he leaves us.

And I also have my other allies - so many friends around, and Marwan in the local shop on the corner, whose shelves are stacked so high in his tiny store he has to flick the cereal down with a long stick so you have to duck to avoid flying Cheerios. Marwan is my friend. He sells cereal, salami and Leffe Blonde.

We have our moments, also. When I signed up for this year of separation, the Pea wasn't moving. Now we have a constant refrain. 'Hang on, where's Petra?'

It's as though the Pea is on wheels, and she doesn't answer when we call. Now we need Pea patrol as well as everything else.

'Mummy - she's crawling down the path to the gate!'
'She's got a mouth full of fir cones Mummy'!' as Rashimi shoves a grimy hand into her mouth to pull out the dribbly brown bits.
'She's chewing the loo brush!

Or worst of all, tears of fury as 12kg of human shaped gnocchi crushes a Lego masterpiece.

Before he left, J gave us a beautiful chess/backgammon set made in Syria, so we'd have something other than Alvin and his merry 'munks to focus on while he's away.  The Lozenge and I play chess (we're teaching ourselves on youtube which is time consuming and intense) so Rashimi gets bored and rearranges the pieces or drops them on the floor. 'Look - I've knocked off some of your prawns and your ponies,' says Rashimi, cackling with laughter, looking for a rise. Normally he gets one from a Lozenge and I look down as the Pea squashes a bishop into one cheek, the other side already packed with draughts pieces. More tears. I study the mother of pearl on the chess board and wonder where the Syrian hands are now that set the tiny pieces into it.

When we're in the house together, there is constant, constant conversation, and I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure I listen to every single bit - becuase it's all important, though all incessant. I almost switched off this morning while slicing into a newly baked fruity loaf, re-heating porridge, packing snacks for school and feeding a Pea a sticky spoon of mango in-between.

But luckily this morning I switched back on in time to hear the Lozenge's vignette on Gene Wilder's death. 'Willy Wonka, Mummy?' 'You mean he's dead?'  I said: 'Well - the actor who played Willy Wonka died. Because he was very old and he was ill.' A small silence. 'But you know what, that is really clever because what they do is they make the film with the Willy Wonka man in it, the one who's just died, and then they put it in a DVD, so then, so then he will stay there forever! Even when he dies, then he doesn't go away.' A six year old's way of explaining being preserved in Celluloid. Gene - you're with us. In our cupboard under the telly. And it's really nice to know you haven't gone away.

If only we could keep Daddy under the telly too.

Brotherhood and the Pea's first milestone