Neve Tzedek in the Rain

Despite our New Year Celebrations we rose at a reasonable hour on the morning of the first.

Breakfast was a simple continental not the Israeli breakfast extravaganza of 4 and 5 star hotels. And when most of the guests appeared at the same time it got a little crowded but the fruit juice and the coffee were fresh and the food tasty.

Normally our visits to Tel Aviv are spent on the beach or strolling along the promenade but then normally we visit in spring or summer. January 1^st in the middle of a storm the Tel Aviv promenade was so blowy we could hardly stand and the waves were racing up the beach in an exhilarating manner.Making headway against the wall of air was a struggle but I had plans!

Stormy Tel Aviv Beachfront

As we made our way South, leaving behind the 5-star hotels and entering the more rundown area of the city, a cloud rather violently dumped its quota of rain on our heads. We cowered in a bus stop and considered retreating to somewhere more sheltered. Instead we walked a short way farther and having turned down a grim alley entered into the charming beauty of Neve Tzedek.

Neve Tzedek was one of the first areas built outside Yafo (Jaffa) and is an enchanting oasis in the middle of bustling Tel Aviv. 

Its maze of narrow streets and historic architecture makes it an extremely pleasant place to stroll around, window shopping and maybe enjoying a coffee in one of the cafes.

We took our morning caffeine in a delightful gelateria that will require a return visit in a more ice-cream compatible season.

Of course at 11am on a Tel Aviv Friday most places are only starting to open up. Most of the people on the streets are walking their dogs. It seems as though everyone in Tel Aviv owns a small dog.

After winding our way through Neve Tzedek we continued down the wide boulevard of Nahalat Binyamin – surely home to most fabric shops than the rest of Israel put together.

A detour down Shefer St led to the hustle and bustle of the Carmel Market and then we were out on Allenby at the corner with King George opposite the famously trendy Shenkin St.

By this time we were hungry and I was curious what we would find to eat in a street which has lent its name to Israel's most well-known type of non-kosher ham.

The street itself is pleasant and there are plenty of people to watch so we braved the cold and sat at a table outside, warmed by mulled cider and a patio-heater, and did just that.

After lunch we trekked back to the beach front to retrieve our car and returned home to wish our family a Happy New Year having made a wonderful start  to 2016.

New Year 2016

For some inexplicable reason in Israel New Year is named after St. Sylvester.

Who? You may ask. And you would not be alone. Most Anglos (Israelis-from English speaking countries) have a similar reaction when their visit first coincides with the end of the secular year.

In the England I remember, New Year is more closely associated with images of the Roman Janus and wild bacchanalia than anything religious. During my childhood in the 1970s the BBC turned over its programming to BBC Scotland with Gaelic celebrations of Hogmanay involving haggis and sword-dancing.

And for most English-speakers Sylvester is a lisping feline constantly and unsuccessfully scheming to devour 'Tweety Pie'.

However it turns out that Sylvester is also the name of a pope who became a saint who is quite popular in Scandinavia.

St Sylvester and Constatine

I can only guess that the reason Israelis decided to name New Year after an obscure Scandinavian saint is due to the influence of Swedish kibbutz volunteers!

We haven’t ever made much of an attempt to celebrate New Year except for 1999-2000 when Israel was one of only 2 countries in the world not to hold millennial celebrations. We marked the occasion by trekking to a local dance club in the middle of a field. Nobody seemed to notice that we were the oldest there by several years except security guard who gave a broad grin at the sight of our child seat.

Oher years we tend to 'celebrate' by filling a glass with alcohol, falling asleep on the sofa, waking at 1:30am to make a half-hearted effort at emptying our glasses accompanied by a kiss and a 'Happy New Year' and then we drag ourselves to bed. Last year(I mean 2014) we just had a drink at 10pm and went straight to bed.

The reason for this apathy is that most years Eyal spends 31^st December stock-taking so that even if he arrives home on time he is exhausted – hence the falling asleep on the sofa. In addition 1^st January is an ordinary workday – hence the dragging ourselves to bed.

In Israel New Year is only really celebrated by young Tel Avivians – who are pleased for any excuse to party, and Israeli-Russians - who celebrate Novogod, an Orthodox Christian celebration that was drained of all religious significance by the Soviet authorities and is now considered a secular celebration by many Russian Jews.

Anyway in 2015 my husband moved to a different position at his company, one that involves no stocking-taking. Also 31^st December was a Thursday so no work the morning after!

***

Luckily I had realised that our favourite pub Molly Blooms might be a bit busy and made reservations so when we arrived at 10:30 we were shown to a small table. It was somewhat squashed but we all shuffled round and soon made friends with our neighbours.

On one side were a family group covering a range of ages, their accents giving away their Irish ancestry. On the other side were an Israeli couple about our age who soon started chatting. Standing close to the bar were the younger contingent with any late comers that could squeeze in. And in the middle of the room were a couple of groups each including an woman aged about 50-60 with extremely short white-grey hair and long flappy designer dresses (a la Vivienne Westwood). So quintessentially Tel Aviv, at least for gauche Northerners like us! J

The wait staff were all charmingly friendly even though they barely had room to squeeze past and we quickly ordered drinks and some supper.

Guinness and burger for him, Fish&chips (with salt&vinegar not ketchup yay!)

Once the band started up with traditional Irish tunes everyone relaxed into the celebratory atmosphere. We were sitting close to the flutist and it was mesmerizing watching his fingers fly over the keys. He played such a variety of flutes and recorders and barely had time to drink his Guinness!

The band

Soon it was midnight, shot glasses of champagne were passed out and after the count down we all tried to remember the words to "Auld Lang Syne".

Pretty quickly after that people started to leave for home taking advantage of a break in the pouring rain.

Our table was next to the window and for most of the evening the view was of a blanket of rain, droplets tumbled this way and that by the howling wind. A few people passed by and some of the more curious gazed in most people retreated from the streets to somewhere warm and dry.

About 1am there was another break in the cloudburst and we trotted along to our hotel wrapped up tight in hats, scarves and gloves thankful for the decent winter coats we had bought last year in England.

After a short battle of strength with the wind in order to open the front door we were soon snuggled cozily in our room. The room was warm but opposite the hotel  was a building site and throughout the night the wind serenaded us, strumming an eerie lullaby on the metal construction spikes.

Who Dreams

So the other night I dreamt I met Doctor Who.

 

I don't mean a brief encounter - "Hi, I'm a fan! Please sign this."

Oh no! There were hugs, kisses and smiles of pleasure at meeting me.

I was at a gathering similar to a con but more intimate like a book signing. Looking round the room I spied the 11th Doctor.

Except there was no bow tie or stetson, instead he was wearing a shiny silk suit in a green gold which looked surprisingly good on him. (I, for some reason, was in evening dress and wearing a black hooded cape!)

And yes I did get a little fan girlish, all breathless and chatty. But he seemed to find it charming.

After an enthusiastic hug with 11, I turned round to see the 12th Doctor. 

He was also wearing a shiny silk suit, this one in blue, and staring at us with a bemused look on his face.

He also seemed pleased to meet me and more hugs ensued.

We, the three of us, were just becoming involving in a very engrossing conversation when......

I woke up. 

How disappointing.

Herons at Dawn

In a rare occurrence on Friday my husband took a day-off. A great opportunity for us to lie-in and have rest, right? Well no. The alarm went off at 4am and we staggered out the door a few minutes later armed with sandwiches and my husband’s camera.

A group from my husband’s work had arranged a sunrise photography trip to the Hula Nature Reserve. Israel is located on the Syrian African rift valley and is the land passage for birds migrating from Europe to Africa. Many of these birds make a pit-stop on the lake in the Hula Valley. And we went to photograph them.

The mobile hide pulled by a tractor

The trailer was packed with amateur photographers all waving around gi-normous lenses. For the first 10 minutes most of them wrestled with their tripods but Eyal is blessed with a very steady arm and was glad he had decided to leave his tripod at home.

As the sun rose the birds took to the air, circling above the lake with the hazy hills of the Upper Galilee in the background.

After awhile we moved around to get a closer look at some of the wildlife gathering in the smaller pools and in the surrounding fields.

an otter - a South American immigrant

see the otter in the foreground?

a kingfisher

kingfisher close-up

heron

I felt a thrill of familiarity at the view having spent many mornings during my first 2 years in Israel gazing blearily at this pre-dawn landscape as I walked to work in the factory or while some kibbutznik explained to me how to pick persimmons. The most pleasant (only pleasant?) part of working in the kibbutz dining-room was the post-dawn panorama of the surrounding hills.

It was still early morning by the time the photographers had captured our avian tourists from every possible angle and we weren’t in the mood to drive straight home so we headed upto the Golan. We had intended to visit the Golan Winery in Katzrin but we found a quiet, twisty side-road on which to test the Mito’s handling and ended up at Qidmat Tzvi.

When we were doing our military service on the Golan Qidmat Tzvi consisted of half a dozen houses in the middle of a field. Now it is a thriving community with several boutique wineries.

The Bazelet Winery is located just before the entrace to the moshav. As we opened the winery office door we were greeted with faint bubbling sounds and the strong aroma of fermenting wine that reminded me of our amateur wine-making when I was a child.So we went off to search for a picnic area to eat our breakfast sandwiches but it was too blowy and cold and we ended up slurping our chocolate milk parked in a lonely lay-by.
On our return to the winery the owner showed us to the entrance to cellar and down there we were greeted by a charming young lady who proved most knowledgeable; an excellent guide to the winery's offerings.

Because it is a small boutique winery there is no minimum requirement of visitors and we were treated to our own private tasting. After a generous and enlightening tasting of white wines and red, including both their ordinary and reserve collections we bought bottles of Chardonnay and Cabernet for immediate consumption as well as a 2011 Cabernet that she recommended we keep for a couple of years - we shall see!

Adventures While Commuting, an Election, a Kitchen and Winter-Time – Finally.

Although our car's bovine interaction did dominate our week it was in no way the only event in our lives this week.

I am still trying to figure out the best way to get to work. If you remember my colleague from work had offered me a lift to the train on the mornings he has the car.
So we arranged to meet. I waited. In Israel being late isn't that unusual so I waited some more. Then my son turned up to wait for his lift to school. We waited together. My son's lift turned up and we said goodbye. I still waited. Then I began to worry that my colleague had forgotten me so I phoned. I got a response on the second try and became immediately aware that he was suffering from 'Screaming Child Syndrome'. He promised to get to me in a few minutes which he did accompanied by his small, tearful off-spring. Luckily my appearance didn't cause further upset and he managed to transfer her into the care of her kindergarten teacher pretty swiftly.

Even though the Naharia traffic wasn't too horrendous this delay meant we had to catch the later train. As we clickety-clacked towards Haifa my colleague said his morning prayers and then read the paper while I stuck my nose in a book. After awhile I looked up and realised we had reached our station. I alerted my colleague and we dashed for the exit but the doors locked as we reached them and the train started to roll forward to the next station.

This book was so engrossing I missed my train stop

By this time I was past caring and saw the humour of the situation but my poor companion nearly passed-out in consternation as he realized just how late he was going to be for work. We got off at the next station and crossed under the tracks to the north-bound platform. Fortunately my wry view of the situation rubbed off on my companion and he stopped hyperventilating and we managed to get to work without further delay.

This week we also had local elections. Luckily for me they were not on the same day as our public transportation adventure or I would not have made it home to vote. Not that I'm sure that would have been any great loss. Despite all our best efforts and democratic convictions the two idiots of the North were returned to power and will continue to 'enhance' our lives with colourful paving-stones and little much else.

Although we have now moved North to the Shlomit neighbourhood of Shlomi, a stone's throw from my parents' house, unlike my parents our polling station was located on the main road through Shlomi in the 'Dental Health Centre'. There was quite a melee round the door and as usual the queuing was Israeli-style ('I was in the line, I was just waiting over there')

white paper in the white envelope for your chosen party

yellow paper in the yellow envelope for your choice of council leader

photo: Sharon Gefen

Then they ran out of envelopes and closed the polling station. After 15 minutes of counting and signing and recounting and signing and more counting and more signing a few of the people waiting tried to push to the front, some using excuses other just using their elbows.

If it had been a queue for anything else I would have let rip as I was tired and fed up after a long day at work but I know the guards are in a sensitive position and are just guys from the neighbourhood not professional guards. As it was they threatened to close the polling station then let the most aggressive pushers in to get rid of them faster. Finally after about half an hour we were allowed to do our democratic duty.

Following our bovine escapade I would have preferred to rest all weekend but the carpenter had put the final touches to kitchen and now I just needed to buy a stove top.

Our New Kitchen

The Dresser

 I was debating between a regular one or induction. The problem was my pots. For an induction hob pans have to be ferromagnetic (ie if a fridge magnetic sticks to them they are OK).

So I spent Friday morning pressing a fridge magnetic to the bottom of all my pans.

I discovered that my two favourite pots passed the test while most that didn't were old pots I had wanted to replace anyway. The exception was my favourite large pot which is shallow enough for frying schnitzel but deep enough for stir fry. Not surprisingly my Mum eagerly offered to take it off my hands but as it is my most used pan it would have to be replaced straight-away.

My husband joked that if I had cleared all the kitchen stuff out of the sitting-room by the end of the day I was free to buy as many pots as I wanted. Challenge accepted!

And mission accomplished with some help from my mother. Almost. I didn't get all the tablecloths organised but then that box was in the hall not in the sitting-room!

After all that I was totally exhausted on Saturday but I had an extra hour to sleep as Israel switched to winter-time. This time clocks and cellphones agreed when morning came around, unlike three weeks ago when the cellphone companies failed tokeep up with the changes in Israeli law and caused half of Israel to be late for work.

First a cow, then a frog.

So this is our car for the next few days. A Nissan Micra. In lurid green. It looks like a frog.
I don't mean that as a disparagement. With those bulbous 'eyes' and wide 'mouth' it really does look like frog, which is why my husband had to chose the green.
The Micra itself is a lovely city run-about and we are very glad to it in our lives at the moment.

But why are we driving around in a hire car when only a couple of months ago we bought ourselves this beautiful vehicle?

Our Beautiful Alfa Romeo Mito

The answer to that question is: a cow.

On Wednesday evening my husband was driving home after a long day at work when a local cow, who should have been safely fenced away on the farm but was instead wandering freely round the local countryside as her owner is wont to allow, decided to make a dash from the forest onto the road in order to become better acquainted with our new car. 

Unfortunately this was a completely spontaneous and ill-calculated whim and my husband was more than a little shocked when his peripheral vision perceived a bovine advancing rapidly in his direction.

Fortunately, even after a tiring day, my husband is an alert and responsive driver and in combination with the Alfa's fantastic breaking system he managed to swerve away from a full-speed frontal collision where the cow would have skidded up over the engine and straight through the windscreen causing ...... actually no, I'd rather not think about that.

As it was, and despite the fact that the car was practically at zero speed on impact, the crash buckled the front bonnet, crumpled the bumper and wing, and smashed the headlight to smithereens.

ouch!!

My poor husband was left in total shock after a near-death experience and the pulverizing of his dream motor car. The cow, on the other hand, got up and walked away.
In fact, my husband was in such a state of shock that instead of phoning the police and taking a rest on our sofa he went home to collect my daughter and then proceeded to drive to Naharia in order to collect my son from swimming and me from a friend's house!!

While on the way my husband and daughter decided to phone me and break the news.
At this time I was in the middle of a supper party at a friend's apartment. Things were a little chaotic as my friend had discovered she had been mistaken about her flight time and it was actually taking-off at just past midnight that day. .

We all ate and made polite conversation and tried to figure out when our friend needed to leave in order to get through security before her plane departed. We came to the conclusion she had half an hour.

When I answered my phone I could hardly hear what my husband anddaughter were saying and when I did hear them I could hardly believe what they told me. They love to play practical jokes on me and my husband seemed nowhere near as distraught as I would have expected. After an accident free 20+ years of driving it seemed impossible that it would be our dream Alfa that got wrecked. It was too surreal to be true.
Once I put the phone down I thought about the conversation and despite desperately wanting it to be a joke I realised that my daughter had sounded quite upset and came to the distressing conclusion that they were telling the truth.
Then I had to explain the expression on my face to my companions while at the same time hustling my friend and her suitcase out the door. One friend dropped her off at the station while I stayed  to tidy up.

My rather subdued family walked through the door to find me elbow deep in dishes and dirty water. I couldn't even give them a comforting hug.
I kept asking my husband how it had happened and he just replied that the cow had come from nowhere.
We live in a rural area so in addition to the usual range of domestic dogs and cats that play 'chicken' on Israeli roads we also have to deal jackals, mongoose, porcupines and the occasional wild boar.
In the 17 years we have lived here Eyal has managed to dodge them all as they race to get out of our way.
But the cow is a more massive beast and it seems that although she managed to skip pretty swiftly into the path of an on-coming Mito she didn't have had the speed or the reaction time to skip away again (even if she tried, and I'm not sure she did.)

After my friends apartment was sparkling and safely locked up I went down to inspect the damage.
.

I was stunned and horrified. 

When I gave my husband a hug he was shaking and I realized he was in shock. He kept rubbing his forehead and making mental lists of what he needed to do for the insurance next day, trying to figure out how we would manage without a car.

On the way home we had to hand over my friend's apartment key. Her landlord, who is both her and our real estate agent, is also a friend and general nice guy. We meet up in a petrol station and his jaw hit the floor when he saw the state of our car. However he is a cheerful guy and he helped Eyal examine the damage calmly and they estimated that it was nasty but fixable.

yes that is cow sh*t

Neither of us slept very well and the next morning I had to go to work. Eyal stayed home to deal with the insurance. We have been with our insurers a long time and they agreed to repair the car at the Alfa garage not their usual, local place. On the way to the garage Eyal phoned the assessor, an Alfa/Lancia specialist, to be told he was already on his way. They met up at the garage. 

Even the assessor was shocked and when he was informed that the assailant had been a cow he remarked that Eyal must have been driving slowly to walk away from such a crash - "Do you know what it is to hit a cow?". "Well, I do now!" was my husband's reply. He must have been feeling better if his sense of humour had returned.

The garage and the assessor agreed to repair everything as my husband wanted. Then they had to sort out an exchange car. Of course the Alfa garage doesn't supply you with the usual grotty banger as exchange car instead they arranged a car from the rental place next door. Eyal did consider a Fiat 500 they offered but it needed a couple hours for servicing. 

And that is how we happen to be driving around in a green Nissan 'frog' this weekend.

And then at the weekend - The Kitchen

After an enjoyable week at work there was the weekend.

The Old Kitchen

Our new kitchen seemed to be progressing almost (almost) by magic. I was still at home when the base of the kitchen went in but a few days later I was back at work and I came home to a new marble counter top.

Because I didn’t want to restrict myself, or chose a colour scheme that would quickly feel old, both the cupboards and the marble are pale, creamy colours. They look lovely but I decided for the ceramic backsplash something more colourful was in order.

Naturally because I was looking for a bottle blue, to contrast with the yellow paint I had planned for the walls, beige is now all the rage. And although previously a Provence-style oval-shaped tile had caught my eye but now the pattern seemed a little dull and grey.

Eyal found a lovely yellow tile but the blue in the series which I had seen earlier was now sold out!

Finally while rummaging in the end of line corner (with the rather apathetic saleswoman wearing an expression that said ‘why can’t they take the first thing I show them. I am never going to get rid of them!’) I found a mock-collage tile strip which matched the yellow perfectly. They only had a limited amount of tiles left but because of our two large kitchen windows they were plenty.

The tiles were gorgeous but I was a little nervous about how they would look on the wall. We had some tiles put up in England when I was a child and the man had made a disappointing hash of it.

Our electrician guy promised he had found an expert tile-man but I was anxious all day until in the afternoon my mother phoned up to ask excitedly when I would be home to see my ‘lovely’ new tiles. And lovely they were.

The New Tiles

In between tiles and marble our electrician was paying us regular visits to make serious improvements to our wiring. First we upgraded then he added sockets for the major appliances. Our electrician knows I like to have plenty of choice about where to plug in so he also doubled all the above counter sockets!

And this was the stage we had got to at the weekend. We just needed the rest of the kitchen and another visit from the electrician for the kitchen to be finished.

Oh and before that happened we needed to paint!

When I was a teenager my parents’ kitchen dining room was a bright sunny yellow. Not only did the colour amplify any natural light, making food preparing much easier and more enjoyable, it also brightened up even the greyest morning helping to wake me when I was half-dead.

We had planned to use a similar yellow for our new kitchen but as the ceramic tile was quite bright we decided a paler yellow might be more suitable.

In fact, the pale yellow we had used for the sitting room and the hall turned out to be perfect and we had had some left over which saved us a trip to the shops. There was not a lot of wall to paint and on the sections that would be covered by cupboards we only made a half-hearted effort but there was a lot of delicate painting around the windows and along the edges of the tiles.

Eyal had to get out the poly-filler to repair the damage caused by removing the previous kitchen and Odelia squeezed in to paint the wall beside the fridge. We got it done quickly, though it was quite tiring leaning over at awkward angles, and were very pleased with the result.

Our Yellow Kitchen

Then we spent the rest of the weekend gazing at the boxes of kitchen utensils piled in the sitting-room and dreaming of the next week when ,hopefully, they would be gone.