A Work in Progress

You won't be surprised to hear that we haven't been doing much or going anywhere in the last month. Generally there's nothing to report that you can't read about in the news. We are relieved to have had both our vaccinations, but despite a lot of talk about a green passport and its benefits nothing has actually happened - a state of affairs we have become used to. Our vaccinations took place in Maccabi Tel Aviv's stadium where the ticket office was also being used - for Covid testing. I don't know about in the rest of the world, but taking photos whilst being vaccinated doesn't raise any eyebrows here. In fact the nurse who gave me my jab got up and stood behind me to do it to make it a better picture!

Fortunately for us it is sunny and warm most of the time and although our walks have been restricted to the local area, it's a nice place to walk especially the local nature reserve between our area, Poleg, and the beach, and of course the beach itself. We sometimes walk with friends and are able to meet outside for a coffee. This week the national parks have reopened and the restriction on staying within a kilometre of our house has been lifted. It felt liberating to drive down to Jerusalem to visit Gila and Tzvi, the first time in months.

Malcolm continues to work full-time, but tries to make time to practice his clarinet. Unable to surf at the moment I have purchased a skateboard to help me improve my balance... and because it looks fun! There's a great skate park near us, but I'm going to need a lot of practice..... and protective clothing before I head there (and according to Malcolm increase my life insurance!). I don't remember finding it so difficult when I was a child! We have also finally unpacked and built our bicycles, but they are going to need a little more work before they are fit to ride.

Apparently this has been an unseasonably mild winter, but it seems to me that that's what Israelis always say. It's either unseasonably hot or cold, dry or wet. Israel doesn't really have seasons as we would recognise them. It's just hot and dry for most of the year, but there are clear signs of new growth on all our fruit trees, including blossom on our lemon tree. There are also some lovely new flowers and blossom in the neighbourhood.

But my main project over the last few weeks has been my mural outside Malcolm's study. My first tasks were to prepare the wall with two coats of white paint and to do some preparatory sketches to help Malcolm decide what he wanted me to paint.

This was followed by a trip to a local DIY store to buy paint. I needed outdoor wall paint and as this doesn't usually come in the vibrant colours of the seaside, I chose a shade of each of the primary colours and the shop made the paint up for me, first by adding colour to the white and then putting it in a machine that thoroughly mixes it. I was working on the principle that I could use them plus white to make up any other colour I wanted.

The wall is 4 metres wide and 3 metres high, with a grill above it meaning I can only work on it when it's dry.

In the end I had to mix in some of my own acrylic paint to get a wide enough range of colours, but after making some changes as I went along, I'm happy, and Malcolm is very happy with where I've got to so far.

I'm not going to do anymore until Gila and Tzvi come to us next Shabbat as I want Gila's opinion on a few things before I carry on. So with rain forecast for the rest of the week I have started planning my mosaic. It's going to be on the wall outside the front door, the facing wall in the picture. You can also see the grill above Malcolm's office in the picture. I've been given old tiles by our builder and by friends and found spares of the tiles used in the building of our house. A friend who lives round the corner has done a few mosaics and is currently working on one on her garden wall. I went round to her this week for a lesson in mosaicing (is this a real word?!). As with the mural, my first task is to make some preliminary sketches and then to buy the necessary additional materials. And then the fun can begin!