bureaucracy...

After getting through to Bituach Leumi to sort out why Ben 'had' to pay 6000 shekels for the period 2004-5, Ben found out that the government think that he was born in Israel. Thus, for being in yeshiva during that period he needed to pay national insurance. In not doing so, he incurred a fine. Wonderful.

Whilst on the phone, Ben asked where they think I was born, to which the attendant replied "are you trying to argue with me?!", "no, i just want to know where you think I was born, my israeli passport says i was born in the uk", "you're a resident and born in israel", "i see... so the passport which you issued me 27 years ago has been wrong all along? I even have my aliyah certificate (which you have as well) and my 'ezrach oleh form' (which you have as well), both of which state that I was never a resident (nor worked) in this country"... and it went on. Needless to say, Ben had to go in to fill out forms and shuffle some documents, etc. sorted. sort of.

Orly's new words (plentiful!) include ool'eye and maspik :)

painting, eating and fun

Lauren headed of early to tipat chalav to get Yael weighed again. Whilst feeding Yael and on the phone, the emergency sirens started to sound. The ladies in tipat chalav looked at each other helplessly as they had no idea where the key to the miklat (bomb shelter) was. Luckily on the phone Lauren was told that it was a practice and the siren was going off all over Israel. Good job as it took them a good 20minutes to locate the key. Lauren informed Ben that this was a drill yet was unable to get hold of Sophie. Poor Sops hadnt got the memo and was locked in a bomb shelter with no phone signal and no lights. You would think they would put up signs or something.....

Orly spent some time in gan learning new words. she's actually incorporating those words into everyday speech without being prompted! words like "regah", "todah", "loh", "ken" and even singing/muttering in hebrewish!

Yael attempted to eat some mushy carrot whilst orly carried on painting her cardboard for her purim outfit.

lauren made a wonderful dinner; things are getting good in the kitchen - aallllllright :)

Orly's minimalist piece which will be cut into butterfly wings. Today she painted the back, yesterday the front. Description: green all over with a few pink splodges, before things took a turn for the messy...

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - caught, purple handed!

Roasted vegetable with chicken breast garnished in a sauce of happiness.

Sunday

Yael is becoming so good at attempting to eat food that she is even attempting to eat her feet:

Orly and Yael playing on the swings together. Look at the joy and elation!

shabbat in Chashmonayim

It was a sunny day and we made our way to Chashmonayim for shabbat. A religious yishuv right next to Modiin. Once shabbat comes in the gates are closed and theres not a motor sound around. The place itself was stunning, set in the hills, trees of all blossoms, fruits and colours grow on every street and the air was filled with calmness.

We stayed with an old neighbour of the Golding family from Manchester who had made aliyah about 10 years ago.

Orly quickly got herself acquainted with the family, the garden and associated pets. we put 3 goldfish into the garden pond to eat the mosquitos, took the guinea pigs in for shabbat and fed the rabbits. orly was in her element. we even saw deer of some sort galloping in the valley below. friday night was spent wining and dining in calmness.

Shabbat day was great as well. The air was filled with shabbat and relaxation. A very good chance to get out of the big city and breathe some fresh air. yael ate another strawberry, some avocado and chewed on a carrot. well done (ben doesn't think anything actually went in...). monkey orly made a pretend island with trees, seeds and a lake in the playground (for about 45mins!).

All was calm as shabbat eased away. back to jerusalem. yael is always awake. the end. always.

Still 1 more box

Needless to say ben has still not unpacked his clothes!

The three musketeers went to the doctor (we're not so faulty really!). yael just to check up on how shes doing and seeing if theres anything more we can do. ben has a couple of niggling problems as well (needing x-rays just to check). we then went to the hospital to get an ultrasound for yael to check general stuff and ben got an x-ray or 2 to check a couple of things.we parked in the carpark underneath and the non descript "stairs leading to the place" didnt really lead anywhere: after 13 flights without a door ben opened a door to find a man eating his breakfast in his hotel room... not the 2nd floor of Maccabi hospital. i would like to congratulate the israelis on their signposting. well done.

we came back to pick up orly and had some general fun, playing, cooking and clearing.

ben, sophie and neryah went to a 'young couples living in cool frum places' expo i tel aviv. seemed cool, but not so much what we were looking for (cant speak for sophie and neryah). in the meantime lauren looked after 3 awake kids... yael went to sleep at the ripe hour of 12am (!), smiling and smiling and smiling with ecstasy the whole way through (naughty naughty naughty! parents need to sleep as well you know!).

Mummy and Orly trying to pack food into yael - banana and rice i think

the last box.....

For a few days now we still had about 8 boxes left with NOWHERE to put them other than in the middle of the room. The flat was almost liveable yet these boxes just would not go away. Yet again the land of Miracles held the key to our problems...........those black plastic shelves that everyone has!!!!

With this in mind Lol, Ben and Yael set off through the back streets of Mea Shearim determined to find these black shelves that would change our lives forever. After about an hour of hunting we finally set off home with our shelves in toe.

Once home we unpacked our remaining boxes. All but one and a quarter. We have one quarter with a few bits and bobs yet to find a home and one filled with bens clothes. Ben claims that as he wears the same clothes every day there is no need for this surplus box a garments and his time is better spent picking up bits of rubbish in the garden. Sophie had a clever idea to put Bens box of clothes in the garden and then it may get unpacked. We will try this tomorrow an inform you of progress. If were lucky Ben may pitch tent in the garden and set up camp with his box of old jumpers there to keep him warm!

We then had a pleasant afternoon with some friends and Orly ate about 10 burgers!!!

Ben went to see a good friend Rabbi this evening and then we sat on our couches overlooking the floor with a table and general clear space. This was great!!!!

Orly Attenborough. Her Daddy is so proud!

Soooooo gorgeous!

Orly teaching Yael what an earthquake feels like!

gazelles!

another sunny day in the holy land and the morning brought a wonderful surprise. ben spotted his first gazelles from the back garden. two beautiful specimens roaming their land and grazing - a spectacular sight to behold. the bird feeder is not in action yet, we only have cheerios to feed - which the sparrows may take getting used to. orly made a cheerio, water and grass soup for the birds, yum.

ben heroically cleared more junk from the garden at large and even went tree climbing to remove old clothes and towels that had fallen and were now dangling from the trees above. they must have been there for 10 years...

making the final few adjustments to our living quarters...

monkey orly is saying more and more words in hebrew! we made bread in the breadmaker and had a friend of orlys come over to play. orly has insisted on crumbling up polystyrene to make 'pretend snow', i swept it up when she was out and claimed it had melted!

picture courtesy of me downloading it

Yom sheini

So today was monday, which was actually monday and not just sunday that felt like monday. whilst orly was in gan and ben 'job hunting' lauren, yael, sophie and gavriel set off for a morning of adventure. first stop was to get yael weighed and discuss vaccinations with tipat chalav (health visitors). things are done very differently here which, unfortunately, means that there may be lots more injections in the near future.

off to shop for some food essentials. lets just say, its not tesco... we filled our trolleys to the brim and left with our wallets considerably lighter. lauren then kindly dropped sophie off in bakah using her phone as a satnav which was dwindling on very low battery. for those who know lauren picture this: lauren in a very large white van, with a screaming baby, enough food supplies to last a month, with no phone, no satnav and driving on the other side of the road. jerusalem truly is a place of miracles, and somehow she made it home.

on a 'break', ben ploughed ahead (almost literally) in clearning the rubbish from the garden. NB: ben decided to clear the communal garden before tackling our lounge. items of interest included: a sandal, a stilletto (probably not the same person), clothing pegs, ice cream jars, CDs, computer equipment, parts of a cupboard, major electronics mains junction/splitter, old tub of hummus, childrens toys, 5meter spring, socks, bottles, jars, towels, the list goes on.... we only kept the good stuff. ben reckons, he'll find gold if he keeps on going (p.s. the stilletto suites lauren!).

a quick lunch and off to malcha mall to get our eyes tested for driving licence related needs. the 'only place in the whole of jerusalem' to get this done. 50 shekels each for approximately 23 seconds of a test "look up", "how many dots to you see", "read the first line". "you can drive". laurens eyes were too close together for the machine so had to read double vision-style and explained this to the optician who wasn't too bothered - "pass". at this speed this woman could have made 3000nis an hour!

orly went with ben to the pet shop and went in the cage with the rabbits and parrots. orly was fascinated but cautious. ben, on the other hand, handed in a CV.

home. relative peace :)

aliyah complete

orly and lauren force feeding yael some pomelo

brave orly and the 'arnevet'

another rabbit!

ben having the time of his life. his t-shirt suffered somewhat in the process...

Yom Rishon

First day of the week. Woah unto us, for UK sundays have disappeared - who thought of that idea?

we went to misrad haklita (absorption ministry) to be advised on all our current and future aliyah entitlements. we were dealt with by a really friendly american/israeli man who was very helpful indeed. the conversations flipped around whereby he was asking us lots of questions about the UK, he was fascinated - and concluded with "why dont the uk jews just come and live here then?!".

we then went shopping for some skirts for lauren. after the shop attendants told lauren how beautiful every skirt was (and piling even the not-wanted clothes at the checkout desk) we left with only 2 skirts. One was even chosen by ben himself!

we strolled around in ben yehuda running errands for a bit (and stepping into jerusalem street juice on more than one occasion - where does it come from?). home on the tram, with a new rug at hand.

ben looked after the kids in the afternoon and orly came back saying more hebrew stuff: "siyamtah?" and "gamarti", were favourites today.

ben was also on the phone to the bank for about an hour after being redirected and cut off 4 times. GRRR. it was such a simple question as well. what a waste of life.

such is the way of things.

ben and yael shopping in town.

Shaaabbos

in race was on to get the house prepared for shabbat with all the boxes nearly cleared. lauren cooked some food for shabbat and josh came to stay over. we ate at sophie and neryahs on friday night and had a blast....

However (!), Yael was looking very flushed and hadn't been in a good way for a couple of days; hot, floppy, coughy and feverish, ben went with Neryah to the local paediatrician for a check up and advice. thankfully the doctor was in, kind, gentle and understanding, he checked Yael and confirmed that her ear infection (now number 3) was still there. we were on a hot pursuit for a stronger antibiotic. but where does one get antibiotics on a friday night in the middle of givat mordechai (I hear you ask)?! Neryah and the doctor did a lot of running around to see if some families had the medicine we were looking for. thankfully, neryah found a medicine gemach with exactly what we needed. we went back and administered said drugs. thank G-d Yael is doing much better. the doctor wrote us a prescription after shabbat and we returned the drugs to their rightful owners.

shabbat lunch was an all brtisih affair. nice to hear some familiar sounds, and the food was great as well.

a lovely, somewhat relaxing, shabbat in our now (mostly) functional home.

one for yaeli, one for mummy and one for daddy

lunch on friday, eating in almost total normalness

josh enjoying himself on the couch on motzei shabbat. model material :)

another crazy day!

auren and ben spent the day doing craaaaazy unpacking and finalising some ikea building. as it stands there are only 8 boxes left! now in a flat with no storage, where does one put 5 years worth of fancy dress costumes, enough snake equipment to open a snake farm, enough bedding to bed an army, enough university notes to start a library, enough hold-alls to fill 3 kangoos, enough hangers to fill 3 wardrobes....

in the middle yael went to the doctor, she cant drive yet, so we took her. shes fine, just needs to paracetamol every now and again to ensure general 'sad puppy facedness-itis' is subdued.

after a hard morning, the local falafel place saved us again. at this point orly had been collected and temperatures soared to a freezing 25 degrees. orly began stripping off, whilst all the israel children still had wooly hats, gloves, scarves, ear muffs, coats, boots, blankets, I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT KIDDING. although, we havent had any good samaritans coming over to us to cover our children in blankets for a while...

sophie came over with gavriel for home made pizza and everyone went to sleep happily ever after. the end. 5mins yael was up again. sam came round to help with shlepping (thanks sam) and take any extraneous things that we never really needed in the first place, sam will find a good home for them.

shabbat preparations on the way...

warm blooded orly outside the local falafel joint

gorgeous

gorgeous as well

Around the israel in 80 minutes

The day began yesterday, packing the kangoo to take stuff back to Yafo.

We left early for Ramat Bet Shemesh to the brit milah of Natan and Talyas baby boy. Was great to see an aliyah success story and glad to meet little Ben Zion, what a name!

Ben dropped off Lauren and Yael at Death Trap Inc. (aka Ikea) and dropped the payload off at yafo and collected more furniture.

Upon returning to the girls, lauren was in a heated sweat from carrying baby and clutching all the vital essentials we would need for a proper absorption into the country. The car behaved impeccably as the couple fitted in a massive bookcase, wardrobe, shelving unit, table unit, buggy, travelcot and loys of miscellany, as well as a rather gorgeous baby! All in time to pick up orly from gan!

"Mummy and Daddy ani ohevet", "excellent shmorgy well done!".

Odelia came over to play in the late afternoon and the kids all had a ball! Laughter fun and games. She can come again

Time to build ikea stuff........

pretty blossom

kangoo working hard, but brushing off any challenge in its path. yael can be seen squashed in the corner

in the park today :)

2 girls watching peppa pig

pretend going to sleep before odelush was collected :)

tuesday in jeru

major unpacking occurred today. good headway into the boxes dilemma.

orly has learnt a couple more phrases like "yafeh me'od" which orly thought meant "dont break the things". interesting to think about how that interpretation came about!

we went to rami levi for a major shopping excursion to fill our house even more with stuff and came home to finally cook our first non-toaster oven meal! o what a joy :)

Post shabbat chulent bowel de-clogger

pomelos mmmmmmmmmm

how our hob/oven currently reaches the plug socket...

eating our first non-toaster oven cook meal, the joy!

Lauren's birthday

Lauren had a wonderful morning going out to see some friends for a coffee.

Ben held the fort at home helping with some more unpacking and various chores. when all were home orly was unpacking all of the goods from the old flat. its like a birthday all over again!

we had some more leftovers at sophies and celebrated lauren's birthday with a birthday muffin :)

late at night josh came over for general shmoozing which was great.

a nice day :)

Lauren's birthday muffin

the lone ranger patiently absorbing her surroundings (kestrel in the back garden)

spotting a rustle in the ground... she dives!

Lifehack. what a model! our very own cardboard shelving unit.

a glorious day in the holy land

after a late journey back from Tzfat we were all exhausted.

Lauren and Ben got started on the flat whilst orly went to gan. we've got most of the furniture in place now and cleared a few boxes. still no sign of daylight in the house... ikea will befriend us soon!

the report from orly's gan was that she plays amazingly. talking continuously, befriending everyone and keen to get stuck in with activities.

orly and ben played 'clearing the garden of rubbish' again'. it involved making up stories for how all the pieces of rubbish arrived in our garden: an ice-cream tub, a 5m spring, cables, clothes pegs, tea bags, t-shirts, a rubber toy person, etc. the list goes on...

we spent the afternoon in the garden; sophie and gavriel came over for fun and games. the afternoon sun beat down on our freshly washed clothing (now from our own washing machine!), freedom :) the first wildflowers are coming through and trees are already blossoming. the palestine sunbird dashed repeatedly across the herbage with its lightening blue-green flash, spectacled bulbuls sang to their hearts content, the woodpeckers were heard thumping the bark in search of an afternoon snack whilst a juvenile kestrel perched high atop a barren tree scouting his next meal before diving out of sight. WOW - a good time to be in the garden, always.

more unpacking and off to bed.

our very own micro-wilderness

Yael not quite understanding how to eat food

a present from the garden

Shabbat in Tzfat :)

We eventually left Jerusalem on route to Tzfat via Haifa to visit safta Tzila. We arrived after a couple of hours and the wise generation was joined with the fresh generation. Safta was so thrilled to see Yael and Orly. They shared jokes, kisses and peanut butter sandwiches together. Orly loved the balcony and showed Safta how to look after Yael. Was gorgeous :)

The road to Tzfat was rather dubious, we got there in time though. We were greeted by the Peles family who took us is very warmly. we had the neighbours house to ourselves with a stunning view of the valley with the kinneret and Tiberias in the distance.

Rabbi Peles took Ben to an old turkish shul, carlebach style and we came back for dinner. Rebbetzin Chaggit put on a wonderful spread of food whilst orly helped cut the mushrooms, which she now loves ("one for the bowl, one for orly"). The Peles children all contributed to the meal at all levels, really good to see! Orly found a friend in Hallel and by the end of shabbat really opened up with some hebrew. There were interesting discussions and general calm, lively and contented happy faces across the room.

Shabbat day and ben went to shul... the girls stayed back with the Peles's and helped get lunch ready. orly had 4 breakfasts and 'helped chop the strawberries'... no wonder she didn't eat lunch properly! we had an early kiddush and did some more preparing for lunch. Orly was saying "beseder", "ken", "loh" and "hineh" (when passing something to Hallel)! All the Peles children were so helpful: playing with orly and Yael the whole time and providing a loving kindness with general entertainment.

At the end of shabbat the Peles family graced us with songs and music; every family member playing a different instrument: guitar, recorder, clarinet, trumpet, keyboard... was great. orly did some dancing with Hallel as well, and kept asking for more music! They gave us post shabbat food and even food to take home with us to last a week!

All in all, Tzfat, the holy city in the mountains, brought us peace and tranquility, and a very relaxing and meaningful shabbat.

...the long drive home, but it was worth the visit :)

The view into the valley in Tzfat, the kinneret is just visible in the distance.

what a day!

Ben awoke at the ripe old hour of 5.30 to attend an interview at Weizmann for a phd. after a rather speedy (!) 24min shul service (including all kaddishes, tachanun, leining, and kaveh...) he drove to rehovot. the 2 professors were very friendly, thorough and understanding. i would be very surprised if i got in! but it was really good experience and was going to be tough on all fronts. either way, the campus is lovely (i would recommend going there for a stroll). back home...

shipment had arrived! after establishing that the entrance was less than 25m from the van we proceeded. they were all very nice, heaving and hoeing. until the entire flat was filled from head to toe! thank G-d we have all of our stuff but i haven't the foggiest where its all going to fit. when we collected orly and took her home she was running up the walls! she was SOOO excited to have all of her things back. especially her bed, kitchen and toys.

orly has also told us some new words she learnt today like "neshika", "todah rabbah", "selicha" and "biskvit"; she's so proud of herself when she says them, its so cute! orly has also been talking about the kotel today.

we symbolically have tried to put some things away... the place looks a mess.

yael has been wriggling ALL day today. there is no stopping those legs continuously kicking and kicking and kicking it is very tiring!

Nice and snug

Orly revelling in her old toys and brand new peppa pig bed sheets (thanks Aunty Caroline)

Yaeli on night watch, guarding the payload. Thank G-d for the cross trainer.

big sister showing little sister how the cot and mobile work. aww

slightly more eventful

Whilst Orly was at gan Lauren took Yael to tipat chalav (this is the equivalent of English health visitors). We had been warned that the ladies there will get very excited over the fact that Yael is small and suggest every possible method of fattening her up. Ready and prepared Lauren entered waiting for the onslaught. We went into the room and explained that we needed Yael weighing as she is small and the lady pointed at the scales and told me to weigh her..... and that was it. No advice, no nothing. And then we left. A little disappointed that we didn't experience a true Israeli tipat chalav experience we returned home.

As Ben still had more preparing to do Lauren and the kids (and Gavriel) headed off to meet Sophie and co at Mamilla and then to head off to the kotel. We explained to Orly that the kotel is the wall that is left from Hashem's house and when we go there we can say thank you to Hashem for all the wonderful things he has given us. "Orly what would you like to say thank you for?" "for biscuits and busses and cars and for Gavriel and Uncle Neriya and Gavriels Grandma and Aunty Sophie (and then recited ALL remaining family members).

A very long and tiring walk later we arrived at the Kotel for the first time since we had arrived. There was an army tekes going on which Orly found fascinating "Maybe when we come next time Daddy will come with and maybe he will also be a soldier?".....

We then drew a picture of all the things we thank Hashem for and we walked to the wall where Orly put her note in that wall herself and then kissed the wall.

By now it was getting late and cold so laden with buggies and baby carriers and children we headed back up the 'mountain' to the car. Back to Aunty Sophie and Uncle Neriyas for dinner and bed.

All preparations in place as Bezrat Hashem we will be receiving our shipment in the morning. How we have missed our lilac/grey couches.......

Some very cold looking soldiers

at the Kotel

Orly at the Kotel

somewhat uneventful

a somewhat uneventful day...

at the recommendation of the doctor lauren has stopped eating milk, to rule out cow milk allergies for yael. so no pizza, chocolate, cheese, yoghurt, milk and so forth. basically the only things that are available for us to eat! (and no we cant eat falafel from across the street every day)

otherwise job hunting for ben (this will probably be a theme for a while...).

ben went to a lovely sephardi shul for mincha tucked away in the depths of nachla'ot, was really good. a long bearded old man played the air guitar to parts of kaddish - his way of channelling energy, i guess!

still nothing to cook with :( beans with embedded egg in the toaster oven for dinner, was actually quite good ;)

(bird alert: more parakeets flying around our streets. at one point 3 woodpeckers were quarrelling on a single tree, there was even one banging away within a grabs-reach in our garden and a great white egret soared high in the sky above, happy days)