Its nearly Shabbos

I'm sat here to write the blog and honestly cant remember what I did today. I remember a night of little sleep and then.......

Its coming.........

Orly went to gan and had another great day. She is still a little hesitant at being left but always comes out happy (it does help that they give them a biscuit on the way out).

Ben spent the morning re-writing his CV and Lol went off into town to do some business. Off to the Iriya (town hall) to sort out our arnona (what we think is council tax) and Orlys Gan (kindergarten) for next year. A bus and a train there, some minor issues over our contract being too short and Orly being born in between the age boundaries for this year and next, we managed to come to some sort of conclusion and it was back home on another train and bus. Today was my first time Lol had the guts to yell "NAHAG" (driver) down the bus as he tried to take off with her and the buggy half way out the door. A proud moment.

Ben then earned our first bit of israeli money. We are debating weather to frame it on the wall or I calculated we could get 4 tubs of ben and jerry's with it from the makolet. 2x choc fudge brownie, one choc chip cookie dough and maybe a cookies and cream (Mum thats for you).

Meanwhile Lol and the girls went to 'help' Sophie with the cooking. We made posters and peeled carrots. Then off to meet a new family and make some friends.

I forgot.... Ben is convinced he can kit out our whole house with bits of furniture he finds on the street. He attempted to get 3 sets of shelves for us but then decided they were no good due to the lack of shelves on the frame. Better luck next time!

Our second homemade dinner of cous cous bake. It was Ok. Yet Ben and Orly managed to finish the whole thing. Please contact us if you would like the recipe.

Ben popped out this evening to buy a travel cot for Yael as the poor little thing is squished like a pea in a pod in her carrycot. Maybe now she will sleep???

Looking forward to Shabbat!

p.s. I have started to keep a tally of how many strangers tell me that my kids are too cold and need more layers (bear in mind it was about 20 degrees outside). Today a total of 4 (even Sophie made me wrap Yael in 2 layers of extra padding).

cous cous bake after Orly had excavated all the olives

Yaelis new cot

The shelves we Almost had in our living room

Orly making friends with the local wildlife. She then roared at it until it went away.

What the desert beholds

Mitzpeh Ramon Army Training Base - Officers' Ceremony

Orly went to gan this morning. its growing on he greatly! the ganenet said that she was opening up a lot to the other classmates and speaking lots in english to all the children. bossing them around and playing imaginatively... lauren and ben reckon that there is a greater chance for all the children to learn english faster than orly will learn hebrew! having said that, orly voluntarily used the word 'todah' today, instead of the english equivalent! she was mightily pleased with herself :)

It was Neryah's officer course completion ceremony today on his desert military base. we set off to Mizpeh Ramon having stuffed the car with food, food, food and toys (and more food). after half the journey we take a pit stop... at this point the car decides its had enough 250,000km is too much! one stall, 2 stall, 3 stall.... o dear. after some angry israelis, i managed to rev enough to convince the engine that theres no point in stopping in the desert leaving a family of 4 with a single humous sandwich. "daddy, is the car broken again", "no orly, its just a little poorly". the car did fine, we carried on. but it didn't like the fact that we were stopping to turn right onto the motorway "thats just unacceptable" said the car. more revving and hey presto, back in shape.

we arrived at the mitzpe ramon base, and were greated by a few thousand spectators, a large amphitheatre and food (everywhere). sophie saved some seats and we watched the scenes unfold. a few hundred soldiers marching in lines to a brass band. orly was transfixed from start to finish "daddy, why are they doing a silly walk", "daddy, why did the marching go away", "daddy where did the music go?". Neryah shone like a knight in shining army, and couldn't hide an appreciating smile at the banner sophie had made, and the raucous waving that came from our direction. all caught on tape :) after the final pomp and circumstance things wrapped up and Neryah came to say hi. WELL DONE.

we went home by car. it had decided that it was better to not leave 4 tired people in the cold desert. thank you car. quick stop for dinner break, and home. and EVENTUALLY yael went to sleep... zzzzzzzzzzz

(Bird alert: syrian woodpecker on the tree outside our front door! 2 jays playing happily in our garden. and hundreds upon hundreds of eagles (short toed?) being carried up by the thermals in the desert, there was also one very large eagle (possibly imperial!))

The cheerleaders

Transfixed...

another day

orly went for her first full day of gan today. we were given good reports upon collecting her "you know, in the play kitchen, all the other kids just chuck all the stuff on the floor, orly puts everything in order and starts making pretend things!", she's enjoying herself and even went for a playdate with her good friend in the afternoon.

ben spent a lot of time searching for possible work and chasing up many leads.

sophie and gavriel came round with her mother in law, silvia, to play with orly and yael, good fun. yael is leaning forwards loads and has outgrown her boingy chair... orly is getting really good at her toy keyboard and plays to yael regularly.

in the meantime lauren cooked our first proper meal at the flat, lasagne. despite not having a hob to cook anything on lauren managed to cook us a good tasty meal - lloyd grossman eat your heart out.

orly has also announced that yael's full name is: yael shira kayser spaghetti george gus gus
(she like cinderella, for those who understand the reference).

bed :)

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

the actual eating part, with twinkle toes keeping herself busy

post mincha shiur given by one of the locals. so lovely to see a group of dedicated men. please G-d by me.

nature at its best

after leaving the ladies with the children Ben was able to freely venture around giv'at washington in search of nature.

it took around 2mins to see my first wonder... a white throated kingfisher! i saw 2 more in separate locations!

of course i found the nearest lake and the birds numbers just went crazy. ring necked parakeets and all.

also included in todays catch... laughing dove, hooded crow, tree sparrow, syrian woodpecker, white throated kingfisher, eurasian jay, rose ringed parakeet, common myna, pied wagtail, spur winged plover, cattle egret, lesser kestrel, chiffchaff, bar tailed godwit, rock pigeon, feral pigeon, collared dove, stonechat, chukar, robin, blackbird, jackdaw, short toed snake eagle and spectacled bulbul and a couple of unidentified species! identified bird count = 47

...and the friendly jackals are still howling every night in our back garden!! aww... listen to our golden jackals as recorded from our back garden in givat mordechai!:

venturing out

after a night of toilet problems (not with the kaysers, but the actual toilets) the kaysers set out to ashdod to sort out paperwork with the shipment. after making up numbers and informing them (very importantly) that we have 2 handblenders we signed some papers and we were good to go. HOWEVER, a possible random check on our cargo could render us a few hundred shekels out of pocket. i asked the person dealing with us if it was ok for me to randomly choose to go to these peoples' houses and check their stuff randomly and force them to pay me money. There WILL also be a 'storage' charge for storing our container "is that ok mr kayser", "no, obviously it has to be stored somewhere, its as stupid as 'breathing air' tax". (Lauren wants me to tone down the cynicism, ok).

we had lunch in ashdod as Orly fed the entire sparrow population of ashdod her lunch (the bits that lauren didnt get to first). we briefly 'saw the sea' and the 'massive boats that could have orlys bed on it'. lauren was confused that the big boats 'sat on the horizon line', "why do they all do that".

we then went to givat washington to see Mim (laurens good friend) whilst ben went off nature trailing (a very very VERY good day, see separate post). we played with the kids and had a good time eating bolognaise (thanks 'auntie' Joyce!). good times.

playing waze on the way home. i think people like us.

home and bed.

It took a lot of patience and a lot of peppa pig to get us through shipment clearance

orly deciding she needs a dummy in ashdod...

Torah im...

our second "not a sunday"

After an early wake up from the little ones we set off from Modiin back to Yerushalaim in time for Orly to go to gan.

Once returning home Ben set out to look for jobs. Not sure exactly what he did but he looked busy.

We were still waiting for our cheque book and debit card for over a week that was meant to be posted so Lol set off to the bank to discuss this matter. Turns out we got the wrong end of the stick and we were meant to go pick it up. Obviously they would only give Lauren one so Ben can add 'go to the bank' to his ever expanding to do list.

Then some cheese on toast and off to town. Lauren went to a friends with the girls and Ben went bed hunting. No glory in the bed hunting mission. Ben tried a some blue and white kippot and is considering a change in kippa. This has absolutely no hashkafic significance however Ben feels that the black ones discolour in the sun very quickly and blue will last a lot longer. However blue does not match his kahki trousers that he has worn every day since we arrived so he is holding out for a kahki kippa (to match his camouflage clothes for when he goes for week long treks).

At our friends in Nachlaot we were made the best coffee Israel has to offer. Vanilla coffee!!! YUM!!!

Back home on the bus where we got the kids to bed and ate more felafel.

Ben is currently on his way to a second hand shop to hopefully pick up 2 beds and attempt to fit them in the kangoo..... Will he succeed????? You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out..........

or not! he just arrived clutching the prized metal beds. what a fabulous catch!

Breakfast on our brand new (from the building next door) table!

First photographic evidence of our Syrian Woodpecker neighbours, caught at the local bus stop.

Refreshing

Ben preparing for the cat walk

Beds finally!

our second shabbat

friday morning and orly went to gan for the whole morning. she came home with challa, pictures of 'chittah' and 'kemach' and more nosh than she could consume in one sitting. ben did some calling around for work opportunities and lauren made scones for sophie (already feeling the british nostalgia).

After breaking his back for 15mins Ben lugged a solid wood dining table down the road with his bare hands - what a brave warrior. he is so strong. we now have a table! bargain. and off to the modiin branch of the kaysers for a lovely shabbat.

orly, yael, odelia and yosef chaim were all chilling together very nicely :)

settled down and bring on the shabbat! ben and ari went to ari's carlebach style minyan. good stuff :)

gabby put together a lovely shabbat meal whilst orly and odelia were playing nicely. bed. mmm rest

shabbat morning and ben gave the girls some breakfast - 'blanflakes', yum. eventually everyone awoke and ari and ben went to shul. we went to the park and smorgy porg and odelush went crazy on the slides and climbing stuff opposite the flat. orly and odelia were obsessed with the very high twirly whirly slide, was really cute. they wouldn't stop! back for lunch and there was fun, playing, chatting, jumping, scratching and biting (mostly food!). lunch was really really good. various people had a shluff and ben, lol, orly and delush (as orly calls her) went to the park again, shortly followed by the remaining kaysers.

more raving playing on the climbing frames and slides. just enough to completely tire the kids out. odelia fell asleep at the table by 5pm in ari's arms and orly was only just about awake until 6.15pm. happy days. even yael and yosef chaim got in on the early bedtime action.

eerily quiet evening but alls good! time to recharge the batteries. straight into the week, no sunday holidays!!!

Bird alert: Modiin brought our first sighting of Israel's national bird, the awesome Hoopoe ('duchifat' in hebrewaeli).

THE original whatsapp photo lauren sent ben to confirm viability of the table. we don't miss a thing on this blog!

higher and higher

Orly's first full forming at Gan and she loved it :) although all was spoken in hebrew the ganenet said that Orly behaved impeccably and was involved in everything and was excellent! she came home from gan saying "mummy and daddy i know hebrew: 'todah' ". it was so cute!

Lauren and Ben went to look for beds, a VERY expensive ordeal. before we got there we needed to drive. Ben was an awful back-seat driver (how dare he correct for minor things like the 'wrong side of the road', etc!). no beds acquired thus far... the search continues. it was funny that in israel you can buy "jewish beds"... המבין יבין, was funny but good.

we then came back to take Orly to the park and the lauren and yael went to ramat bet shemesh. well done to sophie for being a good companion.

ben and orly went fun and park hopping, collecting lavender and funny smelling tree leaves and rubbing them to smell them. orly's pine cone collection grows and she still chases the doves every time she sees them. orly sat beautifully in shul for mincha eating her apple and then we came home to make dinner. she ate 2 whole jacket potatoes with cheese and tuna and a whole natural yoghurt. WOW. shower and bed. gorgeous.

Lauren had come home with yael, both gorgeous as well. by this time it was lauren's hebrew birthday. mazal tov!

Ben was invited previously to the next door neighbours thursday night spiritual session. it was GREAT. an open house, music, discussions, philosophy, tea, relaxation and connection, dimly lit. it probably couldn't be further than other things i had experiences jewishly before. it was so fresh and real. sometimes aspects of judaism (or more acurately 'some jews') can be very coarse and exact. needless to say i will be going again. if anything, its pleasing to know that 'this kind of discussion' at least exists. for a full analysis speak to Ben.

night sleepy time.

(bird alert: definitely owls in the back yard... judging from the call its probably a scops owl, which subspecies?! i'm not sure!)

orly examining a pine cone

orly playing yael a tune on aunty dan dan's keyboard present

yael grabbing the dangly toys

ben looking tired!

A mention of its own

Yesterday brought our first sighting of the Palestine Sunbird (BH). The 'hummingbird of the middle east'!

Glorious :)

our second wednesday

After very little sleep was had by all, little miss monkey had her first day at Gan "like Odelia". She was cautious at first but enjoyed herself "and we'll go again tomorrow to play with the children".

TO MISRAD HAKLITA AGAIN... take 3. Thank G-d it was open, we had our stuff, signature, DONE. ££££££££ (we hope).

whilst in town we heard of the terrible news of a pesticide/chemical accident on our street which was shut and we were unsure as to whether the area was safe/being evacuated. we pray that all those injured make a speedy recovery and please daven for:

חיים מיכאל שלמה בן מיכל

רפאל יצחק אייזיק בן מיכל

מיכל בת רחל

שמעון עוזר בן ציפורה

we stayed around town to have lunch. Orly disected her cream filled desert with surgical precision!

we had planned to visit Sam Rosenberg (and co.) for playtime and chatting. we met and got a bus to collect the children. Orly and Akiva made pizza and Lauren ate it off their plates. 4 very tired people headed home for another not so early night!

Thank G-d Yael has perked up this afternoon and looks a lot better.

(bird of the day: pied wagtail)

orly and her mummy exiting orly's first day in gan

orly was rather tired. found on the cold stone floor :)

end of week 1

So we've been here a week now and so much has changed. Yael now eats rice and is wearing 3-6 month old clothes, orly wants to go to gan like odelia and summer has finally arrived. Today we were shmoiling hot!! We debated if we need to buy the kids suncream, hats and sunglasses or can afford to wait for the shipment yet the locals want to know where the kids wooly hats are. All the shops are still stocking wolly hats, gloves, scarves, THE LOT... needless to say sunglasses were not for sale.

Lol and yael went to find orly a gan and ben and orly went to the ministry of absorption. We think we have a nice gan and orly is going to try it out tomorrow.

Ben met the people again at the ministry of absorption. they 'hmmed' and they 'haaah'ed, and they regularly saluted me with the three/four-fingered "regah" signal. after (yet again) establishing that logic doesnt always make sense, lauren has to go in to give a signature before our whole absorption benefits can begin. of course.

Then the fridge came!!!!!! Except the delivery men wouldnt carry it over the table into the kitchen so its in our lounge. Oh well!

Then we did the unthinkable. We went shopping with kids! Sophie very kindly showed us the local supermarkets and took 2 busses each way for the privilage. Thanks sops. We spent a lot of money and they kids screamed and winged for the best part of 3 hours but we have foods so thats good. We will miss our local falafel man every day.

Then to sops for a bowl of pasta and cheese. Nothing to make you feel at home like a bowl of pasta and cheese.

A nice young couple gave us their kettle... mmm warm. but ben was too stingy to pay 40 shekels for not great coffee. cups of hot water are on us! (NB bring own cup)

And now at 8.30 at night we have had strange turn in events. Yael is asleep :)

Jackals galore!

Just heard a whole pack of jackals outside! they sound really close!

day... i'm losing count

O dear what a bad night! some werent feeling quite so well. details will be spared! Its been really nice hearing the howling Jackals at night. it sounds like they're in our back garden! the sounds of nature :)

our task today was to look at some second hand furniture, change and bank money and get the girls seen to for medical stuff.

Before we even got out, our wonderful neighbour insisted that we take his sofa-bed for how ever long we needed it! great stuff! finally something comfortable to sit on :)

so we went to a bomb shelter in ramat eshkol with looads of furniture. they're going to find it comfy there when the occasion arises (hopefully never). didn't find what we were looking for (and probably didnt have enough money as well!). finally changed and banked money and Ari briefly met us to say hello :)

orly has learn which pine trees give off a 'nice smell' when you rub the leaves in your fingers and enjoys collecting pine cones of all varieties. pizza for lunch and off to the doctors.

lovely angloish doctor who saw the girls. yael's weight still needs picking up, but i would definately say that she's getting more chubby. we gave her her first few teaspoons of baby rice today which she took and held down really well. clever girl!

at the doctors ben had to keep orly entertained and found some nature magazines. we went through the magazine and (thank G-d) orly could identify: frogs, elephants, lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, tortoise, monkeys, macaws, alpacas, eagles, vultures, tapir, sloths, kingfisher, etc. good stuff. the next david attenborough.

orly then spent the best part of 15mins after the doctor hysterically chasing any animal moving: mainly birds and cats. orly can also fly.

back to givat mordechai and to a play area, slides galore, orly loved it. mincha at the local. bought some goods at the shop to prepare at sophies. night. sleep :)

bird alert: more kestrels in the area as well as the woodpeckers. i even had a glorious moment when i noticed the unmistakeable song of a robin (!), the UK national bird! sure enough, she revealed herself. nice.

a piece of furniture. hurray!

Lessons of the day

There are some great people here. great diversity. acceptance. peace. and great vibes.

we joined the local emailing list, and got a couple of calls tonight about meals and help. Be grateful of what others offer and hope that you will return the favours and more in the future.

(3 syrian woodpeckers today AT DIFFERENT LOCATIONS!!! and a high altitude battle between some unidentified raptor and a hooded crow, clearly trying to scavenge something off a well deserving raptor)

And on the seventh day thou shalt rest

Friday we took things a little more in our stride :)

we met sophie, neryah and gavriel and sam came to sleep at the kaysers. orly went to the local playground, which she LOOVED, was so nice to see her flying through everything. yael and lauren went on the swings.

the men went to shul and the ladies and children stayed at home. there was a special kayser mention at shul and everyone was so nice and friendly. it was really refreshing experiencing jews of all varieties come together to pray and be at one, in a non-judgemental, spiritual manner. of course, this is not a dig at other shul experiences of the past! but it was really nice and refreshing.

sam cooked us all a wonderful friday night meal and some peoples' table manners leave much to be desired. enough said. just stop it. ok. stop it! behave. if you were a student of mine you'd get lines - the type you'd get from repeated whipping, not the type you get from writing sentences. but i digress.

Orly came with the boys to a "shalom zachar", or as orly put it "a party", of a freind of neryahs.

orly didn't go to sleep until late again (about 11.15pm). ben was learning and orly asked "daddy, what does the toyrah say?", as so it began. for about 1hr we discuss what was in the toyrah: succot, rosh hashana, chanukah, avraham (good boy), yitzchak (good boy), yaakov (good boy), esav ("naughty boy because he doesn't put away his toys"). the stars, moon, sun, veins, heart. "and who made all of these lovely things for us orly?", "Hashem!", "and how did Hashem put all of the stars and moon into the sky?", "He got up on a ladder, and THREW it all up in the sky!", "YES!" :) lots more classics.

Shabbat day was great as well. Ben got a "ve'shavu banim ligvulam" song after an aliyah to the Torah and many freindly welcomes. met lots of new people.

we were all invited out for lunch at one of Lauren's old friends from Sem and Orly played nicely with the kids. lunch was great :) (big thank you). Orly kept on asking for "more children to play with". so we went to meet another young couple with kids who we spoke to for a while. good stuff. really good people.

mincha. seuda. maariv. 'not being allowed to walk with our shoes on gavriels roadmap carpet'. havdala. bathing everyone. home. (and of course, josh came over. hi josh :) )

Lesson of the Day

"Indicating is an extreme sign of weakness"

"baby wearing consultants"... you couldn't make this stuff up!

note to self: learn to get out of the shower and keep feet clean whilst not picking up dirt from the floor, somehow.

talking to people forcefully can really help. but be nice!

bird count: hooded crow (very rare in uk), tree sparrows (obviously, about 95% decline in uk), laughing dove (obviously not in uk), eurasian jay (look different to the UK ones, but same species apparently, found loads), pied wagtail (plenty in uk), kestrel on our road and what sounded like bee-eaters on jaffa street (awesome), spectacled bulbul (in our garden, overlooking the gazelle valley nature reserve, awesome).

Day 3

Another big day in the Israeli adventure....

Finally we managed to open a bank account (THANK THE LORD). very friendly. i had initially asked them to 'open a bank' in hebrew. they told me i was at the wrong place. we quickly established that i actually wanted to open a bank 'account' and it was plane sailling from there.

Poor shmorly poorly was bored a lot today. things should get easier for her soon.

we then met sam for a falafel. very heimish. the guy told me to serve old my own chips, however many she needed. he told me to just dig my hands into the chips bowl and grab... "no one is looking!". food hygiene is not the number 1 priority.

ari and co brought us a chest of drawers that was in his car. YAY, FURNITURE!

and then we headed off to talpiyot to get a phone contract and fridge. this was lauren's first time driving. it was the most silky smooth, confident, seemless (almost artistic) piece of machine weaving I have ever seen. She glided and pedalled and indicated and manouvered so wonderfully that i woke up from my dream to find lauren trying to start the car: "what button do i press?", "yes lauren an automatic means if you let go of the brakes it will move", "no lauren you didn't run over a child... that was... the road you just drove over", "yes lauren 'left' means move the car to the 'not-right' if its easier to think about it that way". in truth (!) she was fine!

mobiles sorted after the guy slurred almost all speech at high speed. luckily ben was to hand to discuss why we dont have 'bank cards' yet, and of course, more paper work because of that. funnily enough, we needed a contact number to open the account, because, of course, when you dont actually have a number they expect you to have a number for them to call you on. done. BUT WAIT!!! ben's phone was bought in london (as was laurens) and was therefore locked (not laurens). it turns out that the blue galaxy s4 needs to be used for 5mins with a sim card from the country of purchase. o dear. Ben did not want to return to england to speak for 5mins to get his phone unlocked... luckily, putting an english sim in the phone (and calling england) unlocked the phone.... phew.

fridge. "machsan chashmal", really helpful outlet. bought fridge. will come soon. dont ask what we're eating. cat food. unfortunately we forgot the measurements of where the fridge should go... i hope it fits!!! AHH! probably not, but whatever, we'll put it in the garden, good excuse to see the spectacled bulbuls.

sam was the children entertainer, but was somewhat at a loss when orly wouldnt 'do as he says', and would still not change a pooey nappy for yael (next time). all in all, thanks sam.

off to malcha mall for dinner, yuck. whilst eating dinner Yael was getting restless, but THANK G-D there was a 'baby wearing consultant' to hand: "I KNOW why your baby is crying", "you do, do you", "yes. your baby is intimidated by its surroundings, you need to hold her facing you, and press her on to you, and you will see that she will be more at one", "thanks hun". Meanhwile, this womans baby was so pressed into her own bosom that i would guess it had serious oxygen deficiency! nutcase. i wasnt allowed to pursue my line of thought, lauren wouldn't let :(

back home, all the girls now asleep. orly took a little more convincing than usual due to an unfortunate unavoidable car nap for 1hr.

Sleepy time.

Mayhem ("balagan")

Lesson of the Day

"This is Israel" means a lot of different things!

Lessons of the Day

Some people are just so lovely. Our next door neighbour gave us his landline phone, which connects wirelessly through the wall. gave us his front door key to help ourselves to the fridge and anything we like! great, great guy.

Lesson: do NOT pour fluids of any kind (including viscous ones, like honey, jam, toothpaste) on 3 year old children.

Do not get on the wrong side of Misrad Hapnim people.

Men: be prepared to go into women's toilets to change your child's nappy.

Large amounts of blood outside your front door is not necessesarily from someone who has a vendetta against you, but more probably a really nasty cat fight.

Day 2

Big Day. A good reason to leave the house at midday again!

Got Lauren and the kids signed up for healthcare. Its funny that the bus driver couldnt tell us where the Ginourmous Maccabi central office building was, that he passes every day. Thanks for that. A blind man could have directed us.

Funny: there are only baby changing facilities on the paediatrics ward, in the female toilets. Ben went to do that, or course. It was interetsing seeing the faces of people as I got out. Friendly people along the way to direct us to Misrad Hapnim (aka mad house for nutcases).

We were, of course, instantly told that "new olim cannot come in the afternoon"(but they're not open in the morning, go figure). After forcfully discuss that she was being silly, she let us in with a ticket.

After a 2hr wait we were seen, to get Ben's ID card. Well before this Lauren and Yael fell asleep, and Ben entertained orly on a chair for a good hour. We got to the kiosk, and again, "new olim dont come in the afternoon". after, yet again, explaining that their brain did not have the capacity to understand that they are a living contradiction, we came to the conclusion that they should see a doctor. we then went into the other room and spoke to a lovely lady (in between barks, literally, to others coming into the room) who sorted Ben out. There were often shouts of "you think this is a market place, get out of here and wait your turn!". Finally at the final desk, ID card acquired. Thank goodness.

I prayed to the lady in stupidland that I wouldnt see her again, and she said that I shouldn't be so sure.

Went to get something to eat for Orly. For some bizarre reason, when bored, she thinks shes hungry, no idea where she learnt that from. Salad acquired, lauren and ice coffee, ben a moca. The nice man came to deliver our stuff, and accidently spilt the ice coffee all over poor shmorly poorly, lauren and the table. Those of you who know orly knows she doenst like to get wet (it normally takes a single drop of water for her to completely remove ALL of her clothes by default).

The cafe froze as the hysterically inconsolable 3 year old whaled frantically, whilst Ben changed Yaels pooey nappy in a rather unpleasant toilet environment. Orly was finally consoled by removing her outer layer of clothing. Within about 60 seconds Orly then spilt her apple juice everywhere. The histeria that follwed resulted in Lauren having to leave the cafe with Orly, the waitresses moving our table and offering rugelach as consolation (which I declined mum and dad) and Orly was finally consoled by removing the remainder of her outer clothin and spent the rest of the day in her underwear!

In the cafe we played looking at the tram line: "mummy and grandma call it a tram, daddy and orly call it a train, yael calls it a flabadaba". she then pointed out all the flabadabas for the remainder of our walk down Jaffa street to our number 6 bus back to Givat Mordechai.

Managed to get home. do some major unpacking. and were brought dinner by one of sophie's friends (thank you very much!).

Electrical fuse went about 20 times tonight! and when the landlord came down to see, OF COURSE (!) it didn't fuse :) o well. electrician coming in the morning.

A fun packed day. still no bank account. No phone. but happy days.

orly patiently waiting at the bus stop

Lesson of the Day

Dont mess with angry peacocks.

Big cars fit loads of stuff.

Muffins work better than sleeping pills.

The Adventure Begins!

So Lol, Ben, Orly and Yael set off on Monday morning for what they expected to be a holiday in the sun...... not quite!!!

After finally making it to the airport (thank you Saba and Uncle Andrew) we decided that the check in gate was the best place to do our final packing. So there we are with 10 suitcases, lots of duck tape and 15square meters of floor space (which we used all of to its fullest) and poor saba was covered in Yaels puke on his way to work! After the security dog was satisfied that we were hiding no cannabis in our cases, which was pretty obvious as most of the contents of our cases were visible to all we made it through check in and passport control leaving no time for shopping and straight onto the plane.

Orly loved looking out the window and seeing all the little people and cars. We tried to look for Talya out the window and we waved at her. She was very curious where people went when they stood up and wondered if they were getting off.

Then we landed and we were taken to the old terminal as there were too many of us on the plane making aliya. It took 5 hours from start to finish to complete a fun and exciting process with 2 tired, hungry children.

along the way orly made a new friend called Mia, they played with Geoffry the rabbit and were running around together for a very long time. we finally merited Lauren and the kids getting ID cards and were shipped back to the old terminal. We then had the slight inconvenience of carrying 10 suitcases, 2 children and a buggy, 3 handlugages and 4 coats to our overpacked minibus (exclusively for ourselves!). The young lady helped us by carrying the smallest item we possessed... Yael, thanks. The family making aliya with us were unfortunately behind us in the taxi receiving queue and were told by a confident driver that he needed 10minutes to fit 10 suitcases and 2 buggies in the back of his normal sized taxi. We left before the 10 minutes were up so did not managed to see the finished product.

The taxi home was great, the guy was friendly and we got our first chance at speaking to the locals.

upon arriving to our new home we were greeted with posters, balloons, made beds and provisions from the Orens (and Sam) (many many thanks).

First night? Cold but lovely. Lauren had a cold nose.

Bags and our junk EVERYWHERE.

Sleep.

the great shlep