More Gordons

Prior to June 13, on a personal level we had had a lovely few months. We hosted a Burn's night supper for some American and English whisky loving friends, with Malcolm making the Haggis. Fortunately it tasted nicer than it looked, just as well as the whole thing was a little puzzling for the Americans!

Mum came out to Israel with my sister-in-law Jenny for three weeks and although the weather wasn’t great, for Israel, it still broke up the English winter for her and gave us all much needed quality Mum, Granny and Great Granny time. We took Mum back to the UK at the end of her trip and had a  lovely week with the family. I even managed to get to a Chelsea match with Ben.

For Pesach Sam and Sophie and Ben, Tali and Noah joined us in Israel and we had a lovely couple of weeks all together.  I was able to indulge my passion for dressing my boys ,and occasionally Gila,  alike,  moving on to the next generation.

Best of all, shortly after Pesach, we had a private chuppah (religious wedding ceremony) in our garden and Samuel and Sophie got married. We were delighted to welcome another Mrs Gordon to the family.

On Tuesday 10th June we flew to the French Alps for a few days, via Zürich. We had forgotten how beautiful the Alps are in the summer and we were having a lovely time until

things kicked off between Israel and Iran on Thursday night 12^th June.  Israeli airspace was immediately closed and initially we assumed that the bombing was a one off. As our flight back to Israel was from Zürich the following Tuesday we hoped that by then that Israeli airspace might be open again.   However, even before our flight was cancelled it was obvious that no one was going to be flying into Israel for a while so we took a flight to London and, maximising this bonus family time, Samuel and Sophie met us for coffee at London City airport.

We are fortunate that we still have an apartment in Borehamwood and lots of family and friends that we enjoy spending time with. We tried to find a more positive expression than saying we were 'stuck' in the UK, but it wasn't without its stresses and complications. We had deliberately travelled light, on our trip to France, only taking a cabin bag each. Malcolm had made the momentous decision not to bring his laptop with and we took the equally momentous and unusual decision to only bring spare medication for a week. Never, ever again. We will have been away for five weeks when we finally get home. Fortunately my brother David was able to write prescriptions for us for our medication but if I tell you that one of Malcolm's medications was so expensive we put it in the safe, you will understand that we were not very happy!

With all flights suspended we put our names down for a repatriation flight but then agonised over what we would do if we were offered one! With Tali due at the beginning of July we were due to be back in England in two weeks anyway! We were obviously anxious about our family in Israel, especially Alexander in Tel Aviv, and felt guilty for being safe and enjoying ourselves. This was compounded by our concern over using up too many of our 90 UK days allocation. In the end, by the time flights had restarted there was no point going back to Israel and we didn't want to risk not getting back to the UK.

So after a lovely Shabbat with Ben, Tali and Noah in Muswell Hill, we set off on Sunday, to pootle around Northern France for a few days in Malcolm's left hand drive MG TD 1951 - why he has it is another story! Northern France was the only part of Europe that wasn't hotter than Israel! He had been to Norfolk with his brother Clive on our previous trip to England in May, so was confident it was roadworthy, but given that it's maximum comfortable speed is 50mph we had planned a modest route taking Le Shuttle to Calais and booking a hotel an hour's drive from there. The rest of the hotels we intended to book as we went along.

Can you tell what's coming??!!!

Just outside Dover we noticed that the oil pressure had dropped significantly. Ok, not a problem. Malcolm was a boy scout and had brought a spare 3 litre container of oil with us. It wasn't ideal being on the hard shoulder while lorries thundered past but needs must and we couldn't see a leak. That was our first mistake - not turning back. After taking the train through the tunnel there was only a little bit of oil under the car so we thought we'd be ok - mistake two. To cut a tortuous story short, after multiple oil top ups after arriving in France, and with the engine making increasingly ominous noises, we limped into our hotel.

The next morning we called the RAC and after a rather complicated conversation - my French is pretty good but doesn't really cover vintage car parts - the inevitable happened....

By Wednesday, when the car had been moved to another garage, but not yet assessed, we moved to Lille to wait for updates and on Friday we got the Eurostar back to the UK. We achieved our goal of spending a few days out of the UK, in somewhere under 40 degrees, but apart from that.... Not until the following Friday did the RAC confirm that the car was fixed and so Malcolm will be going back with my younger brother Jonny, this week, to collect it. I'll believe that when I see it!!

Amongst the pluses of our extended trip was being able to celebrate Jonny's 60th birthday with him and we got to read a ridiculous number of books... but best of all was the birth of a beautiful new grandson, another boy for Ben and Tali and a 'bruvver' for Noah. Born on Friday afternoon 4th July we quickly popped down to Barnet to say hello and Malcolm was able to bless his 2hr old grandson. A lovely first.

We spent all Sunday cuddling the baby and playing with Noah and look forward to spending the week doing more of the same (other than Malcolm's trip to France!!!) before we finally head home - after five weeks - next Monday.