Sweet and sad

Israel, see above, was an amazing experience. We stayed with Hannah on her kibbutz which was a real milestone-staying at our child's home. It was lovely to be in Israel with someone fluent in Ivrit. We went to the wonderful market at Akko originally built by the Crusaders and found amongst the smutter beautiful glass balls that now hang in the garden, saffron, incredibly cheap embroidered cushion covers and stunning coffee. In the Akko market is a hummous resturant that people will cue to get into-they sell tea, coffee, coke and 3 types of hummous with various vegetables and pickles and pita. The food is almost thrown on to the table but is really lovely.

The daughter's new boyfriend is lovely and incredibly tolerant-the first time they went out she made him get changed. He cooks beautifully in this lovely simple Italian way-interestingly no onion in his tomato sauce.

The kibbutz is beautiful we has a meal with Joseph's kibbutz family-their home overlooks the hills of the upper Gallilee and to the left is Lebanon-all the homes have a bomb shelter.

The elderly members of the kibbuts all have golf carts and all 18 year olds get their own flats.

Everyone sorts of gets dressed up for Shabbat dinner but they also serve pork-all somewhat contradictory.

Hannah will be working with problem children in a boarding school preparing them for the army as her army service. Ah karmic revenge-she will be dealing with vile teenagers having been incredibly vile herself.-I will probably enjoy it all too much.

Then we found out that Clive's Mum was very ill and she passed on Shabbat. We were due to come home on Sunday anyway. The family had problems getting the death certificate and Jewish tradition requires we bury as soon as possible.

This meant finding out at 11am yesterday that she was to be buried at 2pm on the same day-I have never got food ready so quickly. Clive is sitting shiva at home. People were amazing -between the post levaya eating and the prayers at 8pm soup for everyone in the house appeared on the stove. Endless cups of tea were made and dishes washed-I have loads of meals in my fridge already and more cakes and biscuits that a small shop.

Clive is up and down but at times like this I realise how precious community is.