1st night in Jerusalem's Old City

We had lovely, frank chats with Jews, Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, British people living and working there... we made some dear friends, who we will always remember. We finally met Gila and hubby, Heime, in the modern part of Jerusalem.

Mum being with us made it all the more special. It's been a dream of hers always, to come to Israel... and when we decided to go, we took her with us... she came to London from South Africa, then onto Tel Aviv, with us.

Why is Colin Firth so charming?? *sigh*

The Lion Sleeps (full version)... funny funny funny!

Parent arrested...

I had a lovely start to (end of?) the week... with my birthday on Saturday - had a low key day with a lunch at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park with hubby and my sister... and a stroll.. then had a friend pop round for tea later... so all good!

I often look after a child (about once every one/two weeks) from 8am to 8:30pm... as mum is a professor and she has late talks/seminars sometimes. No problem with this... until Tues night.

I got a text asking if it was okay to have him till 10pm as she was running late....

'No problem' I said.

10pm comes and she rings me... 'Jen, I've been arrested!'

She was caught for speeding and had failed the breathaliser!

Panic stations my side (!!!)... I am not reg for overnight care... will I have to let Ofsted know re this? SS? I chat with Pauline who verifies what I need to know (thanks again Pauline! )... I was also trying to get a hold of the father (also a professor... but at a uni in Essex, so he only comes home on the wkends... and I cannot get a hold of him... they know no-one else in the area...)

We got to bed... and are awoken at midnight by this mum and two policemen... who are taking her and little one home ... she's not rip roaring drunk... just over the limit.. so isn't a danger to herself or her child.

Phew... all done... we go to bed. Knackered.

Now comes the interesting part...

On Wednesday morning she tells me how embarrassed she was about last night... and goes on to say how professional she thought the police were... then says 'you know Jen, the evening started off so well (she launched her latest book - on international politics - and had about 50 people celebrating with her) I am 38 and I have never had anything so exciting happen to me before! I had such fun in the back of the police car and at the police station'

Now, here I was stressing about the possible repercussions of her behaviour.. and how it affected me as he CM, and her little boy (he was asleep the whole time, so knew nothing of what was going on thankfully... good thing he wasn't in the car with her!)... and here she was, just grinning about it all.. saying what *fun* it was. Never thought that being arrested gave one such glee!

Lovely!!!

The kids

The year has started off with a bit of a bump, in that two of the kids are leaving! Two daddy's have been headhunted (one in Johannesburg and the other in Singapore), and they are both going!

Blessed that I am, I have already filled those vacancies... but I'll miss those two very much. Their giggling, belly laughs and funny sayings... the hardest part of this job is saying goodbye to the lil ones.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was amazing - we had my mum from Johannesburg, South Africa with us for a month... as well as my brother Shaun, his preggie wife Becks, and their two lil ones for nigh on a month too!

What a blessing to have one's family with one at Christmas ... this rarely happens with my immediate family living on 3 different continents.

It was snowing for much of the time... which lent a magical air... it was just splendid.

A great shame my brother Les and his wife and kids couldn't be with us too... there is always someone missing.

South Africa slide show

Watershed - Cloudy Day... love their music, and I discovered a school friend is married to the lead singer :)

India calling....

I am at my wits end... for the last 3 weeks or so I've had 3 (sometimes 4) calls from some company from India... and they ask for me by name and say they're doing a survey for electricty blah blah blah... I was polite at first and asked them not to call me, 'I am not interested', 'please take my number off the computer system', 'I am registered with TPS' (so they can be fined for calling me like they are)... NOTHING WORKS!!!!!!!!

My politeness has now left the building!

Hubby says when I hear the long delay (and so can assume it's them - apologies of it's any of my family overseas phoning! )... I should set off the little mobile squeeling alarm I carry with me... which I cannot do when the kids are here of course - would scare them half to death! Plus it's not pleasant for me either to have to always do this. It's an awful noise.

Today's three calls got no response at all, I picked the phone up and said nothing... they put the phone down on me. I just cannot carry on like this though... it happens at any time... and is often when I've just got the kids down to sleep or am in the middle of a pooey nappy or something.

We have two phones and neither have numbers that come up... and they're phone fax systems so would be very expensive to replace.

What can I do to get them to stop harrassing me???

HEEEELP!!!!

Our new home

Here are some photos of our new home. 3 bed, 2 bath, and a lovely size, even by South African standards.