Second Time Lucky

I think I have described our life as a rollercoaster at least once before in my blogs, but I really can't think of a better way to describe the last couple of months. After the joy of Eliya's birth and Brit at the beginning of September we looked forward to the visits of Eliya's Uncles and their partners from the UK. With restrictions still in place we applied and received permission for them to come. Samuel and Sophie came for 10 days and had to spend 7 of them in quarantine, but as they were in the house with us, Gila, Tzvi and Eliya they were able to spend quality time with our new family member - which was the main purpose of their visit!

Fortunately by the time of Ben and Tali's trip the quarantine had been reduced to the time it took for the PCR result to come back, usually well under 24 hours. Just as well as Tali was only coming for 5 days! Despite Eliya being a bit under the weather and having a cough it was lovely to be together.

I was determined to finish my mosaic before the rains came and just managed, although it has only rained about once a fortnight. In between, the weather has been glorious, sunny and hot during the day, but cool in the evening and my fruit trees have been thriving. It's such a thrill to eat our own fruit straight from the trees.

A couple of weeks later Malcolm and I set off on a Sunday for a week in England, specifically to visit Malcolm's Mother to celebrate her 90th birthday. Waiting at the airport Gila called to say that Eliya's family doctor had referred him to Hadassah Hospital. After various tests and some too-ing and fro-ing they were discharged on Friday morning only to have to rush back on Friday evening. Enough was enough. As soon as Shabbat was out I booked a four hour PCR test and an EasyJet flight back the next day, Sunday. Malcolm stayed as he was going up to Manchester that day to see Leila and also to bring my parents out to Israel as per our original plan. Eliya was out of hospital again so I stayed with the kids in Efrat to give them some help and then drove back to Netanya picking Mum and Dad and Malcolm up at the airport on the way home. When the phone rang at 6am the next morning I knew it couldn't be good news. To cut a long story short, Eliya spent the next three weeks in hospital. He was diagnosed with a milk allergy and a bacterial infection. He was on iv antibiotics for ten days. Gila and Tzvi slept on mattresses on the floor, Tzvi occasionally being tagged out by one of Gila's fabulous friends or Alexander. Once Eliya was clearly on the mend Bianca and I persuaded Gila to go home for a night so we had a sleepover with Eliya. The photo of Alexander 'guarding' Gila and Eliya after the nurses tried to move them to a different ward, made me smile, despite the seriousness of the situation.

Unfortunately, this meant that Eliya was in hospital for the entirety of Mum and Dad's visit. My brother Dan and his partner Judith were also staying with us so they were able to take Mum and Dad out on the days when I was at the hospital. We took them to visit Eliya a couple of times, but it was obviously not how we had expected the trip to go. Despite the worry they made the best of their fortnight, loving the weather and enjoying the food. We also, belatedly, celebrated our 35th and Mum and Dad's 60th wedding anniversary. Danny and Judith escorted Mum and Dad home and they agreed that next time they would come for longer. A month in January/February. Haha, how stupid of us to think that Covid was on the wane.

We were supposed to go back to the UK for Chanukah, but obviously with Eliya in hospital that didn't happen. It was a relief when Eliya was discharged in time for Chanukah.

A few weeks earlier Malcolm realised that the last Grand Prix of this season was going to be in Abu Dhabi. One of our friends here, Charles Coleman, is a lifelong F1 aficionado so Malcolm messaged him to see if he and his wife, Lucy, fancied a weekend in the UAE, culminating in the Grand Prix. The answer was an emphatic 'YES' and so another crazy plan was set in motion. With Malcolm and I focusing on Eliya, Charles did most of the planning, but it was nice for us to have the distraction of thinking about the trip and watching the races in the build up. We are all Hamilton supporters so it was really exciting, but very tense watching the penultimate Grand prix - especially as we didn't have race tickets yet!

It didn't escape notice that our previous trip to Dubai, almost exactly a year ago, had resulted in us rushing home after 24 hours to beat Israel's changing Covid restrictions, and friends delighted in teasing us, but as I said earlier - Covid was on the wane! With Eliya home and doing well, and now with race tickets we were confident our trip would go ahead. Omicron?! Never heard of it.

Our group doubled in size to include two local fathers and sons, Doron and Gavriel Rosenfeld and Mark and Joshua Baker. Although we did a different tourist trail, we ate at the various kosher restaurants together in the evenings and, staying in suites in the same hotel, we spent Shabbat together. The boys had become interested in F1 through the Netflix F1 series and their excitement and enthusiasm enhanced the whole weekend for us. Their visit to the track on Thursday was the main topic of conversation on Friday night and their support of Verstappen definitely added spice to the conversation!

On Thursday and Friday we did the site seeing we had missed out on last trip. The Burj Khalifa was as extraordinary as people say, both from the bottom and the top.

Attending an Expo was a first for us and was a very interesting experience. Israel were not included in the original plan, but after the Abraham Accords they were invited to attend. Their exhibit was underwhelming, but the fact that they were there was very emotional. We were no less excited about being Jews in an Arab country than on our previous trip. The men were totally comfortable walking around wearing kippot. Everywhere we went we were greeted with 'Shalom' and when asked where we came from we were proud to say Israel. The immediate response was 'Welcome'.

Sunday was race day. We drove to Abu Dhabi and staked our place, within the circuit, on Abu Dhabi Hill, by turns 5 and 6. The day exceeded my expectations - except for the result! We had been warned that it would be noisy, we wouldn't be able to see much, we wouldn't know what was happening on the rest of the track - but it was fantastic. Despite being surrounded by a sea of orange (Verstappen supporters) there was a great atmosphere. A big screen enabled us to see driver positions and incidents on other parts of the track and being on the hill rather than in seat in a grandstand meant that we could get really close to the track and stand by either of the corners. It was a great race to watch although we were very disappointed by the result - knowing that the Dads and Lads were happy was no consolation.

We stayed in Abu Dhabi overnight, and despite being warned that there wasn't much to do there ( why are people so negative?!) we ended up not having enough time to do all the things we wanted, our flight was from Dubai later that evening. We had been overwhelmed by the architecture in Dubai and initially found Abu Dhabi tame by comparison, but after spending time in it, found it a very interesting city. The Qasr Al Watan Place was extraordinary in its size and opulence. Not a residence, it is used by the President and Crown Princes to entertain foreign dignitaries. Israeli Prime Minister Bennett was in Abu Dhabi that morning and I'm certain, from the pictures, that he was there - the others were not convinced!

So despite Omicron, we successfully completed our trip and need only spend three days in quarantine at home! Just in time as UAE is now on Israel's red list! We have Alexander for company as he returned the same night to quarantine with us from the UK, just before it turns red in Israel. Yet again we are uncertain whether our family who are due to visit will be allowed to, or when we will be allowed to visit the UK. However, we have the memories and photos of a fabulous trip, the pleasure of our new friendship with the Dads and Lads and our deepening friendship with the Colemans (great company) and, most importantly, Eliya feeding and thriving.

Merry Christmas to those celebrating and a happy - and healthy - New Year to everyone.