We Made It.

Immediately after I last posted the lock down in Israel started to be relaxed and the National Parks reopened, so we celebrated with our first tiyul (hike/trip) since lock down, visiting Bet She'arim, an ancient city, about an hour's drive north of Netanya. Founded around the 3rd century BCE, there are remains of various buildings and also several caves, some of which were used as mausoleums. Set in beautiful countryside it was also a perfect place for a picnic and a spring walk.

The following week we went on a Shul tiyul. Normal these take place several times a year, but it had been a year since the previous trip, so everyone was very excited to be on the road again. Only half the usual numbers were allowed to allow for distancing on the coach. The guide used by the Shul is extremely knowledgeable and very easy to listen to so as well as a good way to meet new people it was also a very enjoyable day out.

We drove up to Metula in the north,overlooking Lebanon, via the Roaring Lion at Tel Hai. We then visited waterfalls at the base of Mount Hermon before our final stop at the heritage site of the armored tank division at Katsavia Junction.

This time last year the festival of Purim, where Jews gather to hear the story of Esther ( The Megillah) and party to celebrate escaping being destroyed, turned out to be a super-spreader event, right at the beginning of Covid. Although rules on gatherings had begun to be relaxed a curfew was put in place over Purim to prevent evening parties and control the numbers in synagogue. We went to the reading at our Shul, at the bottom of the road, where services are being held outside, and many adults as well as all the children were in fancy dress. One of the many issues of moving to a new community during a pandemic is that everyone wears a mask so recognising people in fancy dress made it even harder to work out who was who. It was quite impressive that Malcolm could still get into his school blazer, but even more impressive - or barmy - that we had schlepped it out to Israel! We celebrated in the evening with a barbeque just for the two of us, but then had three couples over for a festive Seudah (brunch) after the megillah reading the next morning. It was interesting to see how different the traditional festive food is here and whilst we missed some of the flavours we are used to we were excited to try meaty hamentaschen.

You may have read in the news of a large oil spill off the coast of Israel. As a lover of the beach and a regular user of the sea it seemed appropriate to answer the call for volunteers to help with the clear up. The national parks organisation were organising the volunteers, providing them with protective gloves and explaining what to do. I was pleased to see a large number of volunteers, of all ages, and the army was out in force - as were news crews from around the world. I was given a sieve and asked to take a patch away from the sea. Although I was able to collect quite a lot of tar with each sieve I could see fine grains of tar falling back into the sand. A Sisyphean and disheartening task. I remember routinely cleaning tar off my feet as a child after visiting a beach, but fortunately my children have never had to do it. I do hope our beaches will recover.

Our next outing was to the Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. We had been there on our 'tour' last summer, but it had been too hot to do anything other than sit in the shade. We had agreed we would come back in the Spring and fortunately we now could. We still only managed to cover a section of the park, but found a tropical garden, all cactus type plants, and a rock garden full of, well, rocks! We planned to take out a boat on the river, but ended up on a pedalo on a lake. Great fun with a highlight being a fox wandering down the path towards us. Bold as brass!

We also managed to fit in helping Gila and Tzvi move apartment. The hotels and restaurants opened last week - so exciting. we stayed overnight in a hotel in Jerusalem - what's a hotel Grandma? - and then picked up a van to collect some furniture from IKEA to take to the new apartment.

Not bad for three weeks, but all this time we have had our fingers crossed and watched the government announcements to see whether we would make it back to the UK for Pesach -Passover. When we made aliyah we thought it would be the last time we spent Pesach in the UK. Our family all had tickets to Israel from Pesach 2020 which they had changed to 2021. Whilst it was obvious that no one was going to be allowed to come to us it was less clear whether we would be allowed out. For the first time ever the airport had been closed and even Israelis were unable to get in and out of the country. Even during its wars this had never happened. When the airport was reopened, only 3,000 people were being allowed into the country a day and special permission had to be granted to get out.

Our first flight on 11th March was cancelled so we moved our flights to Sunday 14th. When friends of ours finally left on the Tuesday after three cancelled flights we dared to believe it might happen and so we booked our pre-flight Covid tests. Since our fateful trip to Dubai a drive thru' testing centre has been opened at the airport which we now booked our test, although as our flight time was changed three times it was tricky getting the timing of the test right. Most of the forms can only be filled in 24hrs before you fly so it took us about two hours to complete the check in process on line. It is a UK government requirement to pre book tests for day two and eight of quarantine (£240 per person) but we also booked an early release test for day 5. We traveled with empty cases as we still have clothes in our flat in the UK and had things we wanted to take back to Israel.

After a quick flight we arrived at Heathrow and made our way, with some trepidation, to Border Control having read horror stories about wait times of several hours. (we obviously had emergency sandwiches and water with us). The queues looked long but snaked and were constantly moving, and in the end it only took an hour to get to a desk where we showed all our papers. However after providing our proof that we had ordered the testing kits we were then asked for proof of payment of the kits. I don't understand why, but fortunately I found the email and we were sent through to the passport machines. Arriving in the baggage hall, for the first time ever we found all the cases were through and had been neatly lined up. Our fancy new luggage labels were redundant.

Settled back in our lovely flat we had to do our Covid test on day two. We coped with the step by step instructions, but opening the plastic bag was more challenging! We were allowed out of quarantine to post our test in an approved letter box. In nine days we each had 4 negative tests, not surprising considering we have both had Covid and both our vaccinations!

So as Malcolm seamlessly continues with his work and I clean and cook for Pesach the Amazon parcels start appearing at our door. It may not be how we expected to be spending Pesach but we made it back to the UK and, within the limits of the restrictions we hope to see as many people as possible.

Have a safe and happy Pesach and Easter.