Un Vacances De Neige

Look happy?  In reality it's a cocktail of subsiding fear, relief that the fear is in fact subsiding, and red wine sweat.

According to Google translate - that's "A Snow Holiday" - see how muthfucking cultured I bloody well am.  Shit yeah.  Not only am I incredibly cultured and gifted in many of the world's incredible languages, but I most definitely imagine that I'm much more hard core than I really am.  Whenever I imagine myself snowboarding down a mountain it's always really fast and I look stylishly cool - might even pop up the side and do a little flip on my back edge - yeah that's right - bring it scragrats (did I just make a new word up?).  Sadly the reality is more like me making that god awful scraping sound as I'm sliding down a steep bit and simultaneously wailing that "I haaaaaaate ice".  Well, either that, or sookin' for my Mummy cause I'm stuck on top of a small snow covered bush and sinking into the branches (this actually happened - teamed with a kind of gasping panic attack while my husband waited patiently for me shaking his head - he knows the tune well by now).

It's all about the image - look tough don't I?

But it was with images of the whooshing me, the me pulling a 'roast beef' (back hand grab through the legs to the heel edge - for anyone stupid enough not to know this basic move - like duh) that were floating around in my incredible gutsy, little bit cray-cray head, when myself and my husband took off for the shores of La Belle Francois......ok, not exactly the shores, but to the mountains....inland.  And to be more to the point we took a flight to Geneva first.  It was quite an interesting day.  We were in Israel, Italy, Switzerland and France all within about 8 hours.  I love that about Europe - and I also love that Israel is close enough to Europe so you can love that about Europe as much as you like.  Also to love, was that it was a "leave the kids in Israel" project funded by the incredible goodwill of Hannah and Alex Blau - 2 legends who basically have a slim 2 week opportunity to ask us for anything they can think of - after that expiry date, they're back to fair game again.

Freeeeeeeddddooommmm

It's unbelievable to me that I have reached that stage of my life where my children can survive happily without me.  Very happily in fact.....perhaps a little too happily I might add - we were only welcomed back with open arms by the fortunate stroke of luck that saw us buy a giant stuffed toy for each of them on our return.

I've been skiing with my kids several times, and while they might look unbelievably cute in their ski outfits, and we may cheer when they snowplow about 10 metres before stacking into a rubbish bin shaped like a frog, kids are a major pain in the a-hole at the snow.  For a start you have to get all their gear on and this is an unbelievable feat.  There are thermals, overalls, jumpers, ski jackets, neck warmers, helmets, the fricken ski boots which always bring on a howling fit (mainly because you accidentally do them up so tight that they cut off the blood supply until lunchtime).  And the gloves - don't talk to me about gloves - have you ever tried to get a 2 year old's 10 fingers into a pair of ski gloves?  You need a degree in engineering, a set of tools, some lubricant (not the pervy kind), a tumbler of whisky and a large joint.  My top advice - only buy mittens - you just have manoeuvre one thumb a piece, that is all, one thumb.  Plus once you've  got them zipped up in all that insulated crap, they need to go to the toilet and will probably piss themselves while you're trying to get the gloves off.  It will take you 3 hours to get them out on the snow.  Then they will get so excited that they will roll in it, eat it, and it will all go down inside their clothes, melt, and then make them freezing and they'll start bawling again.  Kids and Snow.  It's a shit world people, a shitty crappy world.

Shitty. Crappy.

But not for us.  We could sleep in, spend the mornings lazing round, have a soup bowl of cafe au lait at breakfast and 2 plates of croissants, piss around with our bindings and give the goggles an extra special spruce up, and still be on the first cable car up the mountain.  Bring it the fuck ON.

Sickeningly beautiful - like Miranda Kerr 

The Chamonix Valley is a place of unbelievable beauty.  It's like when you go to some fancy pants art gallery and your eyes are overwhelmed as to the amount of gorgeousness they are flooded with.  It really was a text book case of winter wonderland at it's most glorious.  This is the part of the world where the whole skiing winter cosiness started in the 1800s everyone.  Everybody else are just copy cats.  *Ok, I just tried to verify this with my old friend wikipedia and it seems like the Ruskies might have got into this about 5000BC (I'm sure this is bullshit, and that Putin just altered all the Russian text books - he always has to come out on top doesn't he?).  The Chinese are also claiming skiing for their own (dream on - you've got chopsticks ok, you don't need skis too) - and the Scandenavians are right up there as well (give them their due, the term 'ski' does come from some word in Norwegian meaning stick of wood).  Basically nobody really has much of an idea when it all kicked off if the truth be known, but I can tell you this much - snowboarding kicks the anus hole of skiing and that started when all the best things started - in the 1960s.

Mummy???

The first day was spent as most first days are - an uncoordinated mix of joy and exhaustion.  The second day we booked a guide to take us off piste.  We were imagining piles of powder, forest trees and lots of gliding.  What we weren't prepared for were avalanche transmitters, harnesses, ropes and backpacks containing longer ropes, a shovel and a probe for poking into avalanches to locate the broken body of your skiing partner.  This is what I mean by masquerading as far more hard core than I actually am.  I felt sick on my way up to the very top, packed more tightly into that cable car than my ski pants felt on the last day after 5 days of melted cheese for every meal.  It wasn't good.  And the wind at the top was also a bit alarming, although not as alarming as when our guide Phillipe - a small insane mountaineering fruitloop with bad teeth and a jacket that said "Catch Me If You Can" on the back of it - said " We go here".  The "Here" he was referring to was under a rope and past a sign that said 'CREVASSES" complete with a picture of a body tumbling down a rocky tunnel.  "Are you sure Guide Phillipe, are you sure? - we told you we were pretty shit right?".  But we were assured, it was perfectly fine for two spazzas to be riding blind, with gale force winds onto a giant glacier littered with dangerous cracks.  Fine - I was up for it.

Higher than a group of 18 year olds at a Legalise It Festival

Descend to the start

Really?

Go Glacier!  Apparently they are actually moving you know

Down there?  Fuck me, Dude.

Glacier up close

Wow

It was of course incredibly and insanely beautiful, fun and exhilarating.  I only had one spaz out - on a tiny track above a steep slope leading directly onto the edge of the icy glacier.  I literally couldn't move. But didn't shame myself by crying for my Mummy on this occasion.  She wouldn't have come to get me anyway, she hates heights - the cable car would have finished her off.  But the rest of the way down saw us going past sights that were so naturally stunning we had to stop and just soak it all in.  We actually got what skiing in that part of the world was all about - not so much the quality and quantity of the snow, but the incredible beauty of the place, the height of the mountains, and the peaceful tranquillity that permeates through you while you're up there on top of the world.

For miles......

Talking of the top of the world. the next afternoon we decided to visit the Augille du Midi - an extremely height point in the mountain ranges of the Chamonix Valley.  Some people ski off here but you really need to know what you're doing.  Most people go for a look/see.  The top station is over 3700 metres high, and you reach this in 20 mins.  It sure is a fast ascent.  Unfortunately for some, this fast ascent proves to be a little much and they can't adjust to the altitude.  I was one of these some.  I felt fine at the mid station.  But as the cable car ascended the final steep rocky outcrop I began to feel terrible.  Like everything was swaying and I was going to faint.  When we got out at the top I couldn't even look at the amazing view. I honestly felt like I was going to topple off the mountain.  Such a bizarre sensation, and one I've never experienced before.  I've never had fear of heights or anything remotely similar.  I jumped out of a plane at 10 000 metres without issues (apart from pooing my pants - ok that didn't happen....).  But this was so strange.  Every step I took left me shaking and swaying, and finally I was really having a good old howl.  My husband had to hold me up and escort me back into the cable car.  It was again so squashy in there that I really had to talk myself down from a panic attack, and when at last at the bottom I couldn't contain my relief.  I have not fucking idea how they built that top station or cable car (and I hope they got paid an absolute truckload of cash).  Absolutely crazy beautiful view - just a shame I was bawling too much to look at it.  Pictures are nice though.  Next time I'l just stay home and watch it on the television.

I'm sure it was swaying

Icy Exit

You'd have to be a total nutjob to ski down here

I'll stay here next time

But of course 5 days flit by fast, and before you know it you are squashed up in your crappy plane seat playing arm rest wars with the Italian dickhead to the right of you and asking the chick in front of you to get pull her dreadlocks out of the gap between the seat because they are resting on your leg.  All this pain, plus a hangover from lunch time wines, and mourning for the loss of your too brief holiday, as you touch down in Tel Aviv at 3am on a Monday morning bites it big time.  You then spend the next couple of days really missing the snow, and watching the weather report at all the European resorts just to see where's getting the most snow.

We've had a storm of a different variety here in Israel the last few days.  Dust and sand.  It's horrific.  Everything is covered with a thick sandy coloured coating, and your mouth feels crunchy every time you have to go outside.  There's bit of trees, guttering, and a various assortment of junk flying round the air - I nearly wore my ski helmet when I went to the shop yesterday, but decided I would rather have my scalp gashed by a flying piece of iron than look like a dick, so I didn't.  The good news is that Mount Hermon in the north of the country appears by all reports to be getting over a metre and a half of snow in 3 days.  That is some serious dumpage.  Very serious indeed.  And with all the roads closed for now, it looks like Sunday could be unbelievable up there.  We may just get another mountain adventure in sooner than we thought.  Hummus in the snow - who knew?

I think I prefer 2 tons of melted cheese though.....

Right Back Into It

The old port of Jaffa

West St Kilda Summer Street - ahhhhhhh

When you have an international departure at 6am that means you have to be at the airport at 4am - well you may as well not even bother going to bed.  Especially if you're a last minute packer like I generally am when on holidays.  We'd been staying in a little weatherboard house in West Kilda that Judy Davis stayed in for 3 months just before us (a neighbour told us - I love her!), and it had lots of trees around it, and parrots living in them.  They usually woke me up, but not that morning.  I dressed the kids in their clothes the night before.  That is a genius plan by the way, and I'm thinking about adopting it in everyday life.  One of the school mothers used to do it with her daughter.  Just load her into the car asleep in her clothes from the previous night, load her out, shove a peanut butter sandwich in her floppy little hand and get the teachers to wake her.  I was inspired - and at least you'd save on pajamas.  

Apparently it's not as cruel as it sounds....

Bangkok was just a stopover, but a long stop over that involved a night in a new Japanese owned hotel.  It was like being back in Japan but with a Thai edge.  There were a lot of Japanese staff who were trying their best to hold on to standards in Japan, but all the Thai staff kept fucking it all up for them.  In other words, blowing their cover that they were still basically in Thailand and not Tokyo no matter how much they bowed.  We ate some sushi, swum in a crazy pool that actually hung out over the side of the building, and I discovered my 5 year old likes fois gras - all pretty standard stuff really.  The fois thing is a bit disturbing, but I hate to say that I too really love it.  I do.  It is unbelievably delicious - and this is coming from a former vegetarian who still shuns meat on most occasions.  Sometimes I think it's embarrassing that I originally became a vegetarian at age 13 because I found out River Phoenix was one, and I thought if I ever got to meet him, at least we would have something in common.  I usually decide it's better that nobody knows that kind of thing, and then I just accidentally just blurt it out for everyone to know my shame.  I started eating meat again once he died (ok, not really, but strangely it could have been around that time).

Just floating - 60 stories about the ground

I wasn't looking forward to the flight to Tel Aviv.  For a start it was the same leg as the one last year when we actually moved to Israel, and on that flight we'd lost an engine over Eritrea (http://twintravelling.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/unexpectant-entrance-into-eritrea.html).  Plus, the weather in Israel was horrifically bad - storms, snow etc - and also all that horrible shit in Paris was going on - police shooting the gunmen and that other dude going sick nuts at a Jewish supermarket.  I was sure that they would have bumped up security on an Israeli airline going from Bangkok.  But still, the anxiety filtered through.  I'm forever scanning the faces of my fellow passengers and trying to spot the tero (terrorist).  I though a had a small group of men picked out who were sitting near me and NOT speaking Hebrew.  It turned out that they were Druze and from a village near my brother in-law lives.  They seemed to love me - I felt sure they didn't want to see me in tiny bloody pieces.

Holding it together - just.....

The flight itself was pretty bumpy, lots of "ladies and gentleman please fasten your seatbelts" going on.  However, as we came over Israel things took a turn for the worst.  The plane was lurching around like crazy.  Even though Cordi was belted down I still had to hold her still, the flight attendants were strapped down tight themselves, and me and my fellow passengers were exchanging "Oh Fuck" eye language.  Suddenly there was a massive jolt and a giant blue flash and explosion on the wing.  Yep, we'd been hit by bloody lightening.  You know it's not good when you can see the flight staff with their hands over their mouths, while their eyes bulge with fear, all looking round at each other in panic.  There was the whiff of doom in the air.  But nothing happened.  We just kept on bouncing around like there was nothing going on.  No announcement from the pilot, like - "Ladies and Gentlemen we have been struck by a giant bolt of lightning please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for death".  Luckily that baby just kept on flying.  Fifteen minutes later we touched down in Tel Aviv, as lightening struck the ground nearby.  So there you go everybody - getting hit by lightening does not necessarily mean that you will crash.  Isn't that good to know???

I think it took me a week before I felt settled again.  There was a rather nasty stabbing of 12 people on a bus by a Palestinian guy in Tel Aviv a couple of days later which never helps.  A good old heroic 23 year old nutcase stabbing old ladies in the neck - so that's always heart warming.  Jesus, if I ever had the inclination to take a bus around here then that was stamped out quick smart after hearing that news.  Apparently he stabbed the bus driver first so he couldn't open the doors.  It meant that everyone was trapped inside the bus with the nutjob going stab crazy until one of the passengers got them open and everyone piled out, stab victims running hundreds of metres in fear and before they collapsed in shock.  Great stuff.  Nice one dude - shouldn't you be having beers at the pub and tuning chicks on tinder or something?  Studying for uni exams?  Having a toss in your room down in the basement under your parents house?  Anything????  Fuck - some people's life choices.  Imagine his morning "to do" list........"Hmm let's see what to do today.....drop Ali at school, pick up something for dinner, stick a knife into a bunch of people going to work".  He was eventually shot in the leg by the cops, and I'm positive that nothing better than that will happen to him for quite some time.  The Israelis probably already demolished his parents home or something.  It's a common deterrence tactic - they just bulldoze down the home of any stabbers/bombers/car smashers.  Does it work?  Well, I guess it depends on how much you like your parents.  Parents shitting you?  Just run over a baby and then their house will be flattened - "No, I'm not doing my homework - take that bitch!".

The other major thing that happened was of course the greatest annual event in the northern hemisphere.  My birthday!  I am such a suck for birthdays - I would like it to be a birth month really, but really its more like a birth'end. Two days is enough I guess.

"I love Rock n Roll putta nother dime in the juke box baby"

I brought it in the night before, with a throat stripping karaoke session.  A week later and my throat is still ulcerated.  My poor nieces and nephews did not what they were getting themselves in for.  I have had significant amount of karaoke experience, and despite being a horrendous singer, I am not shy with that microphone.  In fact I employed my favourite technique of going through the list and deleting any songs other people had put in that I didn't like.  Anything in Hebrew - cut, anything too soppy - cut, anything that wasn't sing-a-long enough - cut.  That basically left everything that I had chosen plus a couple of others.  Listen if I can get away with that kind of behaviour anytime, it's on my birthday.

I remember my first karaoke experience in Japan.  I was the brand new teacher at my school so they had a welcome party for me.  I didn't quite realise that this meant 40 people all in a giant room with unflattering lighting, me being handed the microphone and expected to go first.  It was a little daunting to say the least.  The last time I sang anything was in year seven choir when Mrs Wright stopped everyone mid song to point me out and say that I was so off tune that I was putting everybody else off and that I could stay in choir for the upcoming eisteddfod as long as I mimed.  Basically I was not to make a sound, yet appear like I was enthusiastically singing.  The tragic thing was that I did stay in that choir and mime for the eisteddfod.  Why didn't I just drop out?  I'm humiliated even to this day.

These people actually have talent - this was one of the rare occasion the mike was seized from my vice-like grip

Oooh - it's my famous drunken bung eye

Fortunately I am a big show off, so I really gave it my all for all my new students despite my shortcomings.  And thus my karaoke career took off in a major way.  The more shots, the better you think you are.  And you can believe it too, until some wise guy makes a video and shows it to you when you're sober.  I used to love karaoke so much that sometimes me and my husband, on our way home from the pub in Tokyo, would stop in at a karaoke club for a couple of hours of Madonna and The Guners.  Those clubs are everywhere - it's perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour ok.  The other great thing about karaoke in Japan is that there's a telephone on the wall which you can use to order food and drinks.  They bring it all to you, you don't even have to miss a beat.  They had that telephone service in Israel too - hence the number of shots.  I was reasonably seedy the next day, but not so bad.  None of this vomiting in the rose garden at my parents house in my undies (quietly, so the neighbours over the fence can't hear), as what might  have happened after Camille's Christmas Champers Soiree last month.  Twenty five glasses of the stuff does nasty nasty things - plus the rest.  Apparently I was chicken dancing at my friend's nightclub - actually pecking bogans with my hand, and then ended up taking over a buskers guitar and belting out a bit of "Danny Boy" down at Salamanca at about 1am.  The poor man handled it pretty well - I think he only offered a "Gimme me a break sister".  At least I had the opportunity to cure myself the next day with 3 Mikonos potato cakes and a litre of Coke - the food of kings.

Nanna's house - the serviettes were old tea-towels

My husband had planned a birthday surprise trip to Jerusalem to have lunch in what is considered the best restaurant in Israel -Machneyudah - for anyone who's interested.  Granted, it was pretty amazing - the whole thing decked out like you were some Israeli Nanna's country home in the '50s.  The food was unbelievable - I especially enjoyed that they had a sort of chocolate ball thing called "The Iron Dome"(named after the kind of force field that protects Israel when nutcases are chucking long range missiles at us).  Thank god for a sense of humour in this country.  That's the problem with the bloody religious fantatics everywhere I reckon - shizenhausen senses of humour.  Just have a few laughs buddy - take it easy on the murder and stuff.  Talking of murder and stuff (as you do)  the Israelis dropped a bomb on some Hezbollah guys just over the border in Syria last week (The Hezbollah are a Lebanese terrorist group which now makes up part of the government in Lebanon).  There was also an Iranian general hanging out with them who copped it as well.  That's the thing here - things are going along swimmingly and then "Pow".   So everyone's been kind of waiting for the retaliation that was thought sure to come.

Creamy polenta, mushrooms, truffles and asparagus - insane

Rock wall carving just outside the restaurant

Painted building - Jersusalem

We were up in the far north on the weekend.  Staying near the Sea of Gailee (where old Jesus did his water walking and fish thing if you get into that stuff) at my sister in law's.  We decided to go and have a look at the snow on Mount Hermon which borders Syria and Israel.  It used to be part of Syria but during one of the wars was won by Israel.  It's pretty beautiful - but of course they weren't after it for it's wild flowers - it is of course a very important strategic position, you can see for miles.  Last weekend though it was covered in snow.  We drove part of the way up and watched a few Arabs piffing snowballs at each other behind a sign that said "Do Not Enter This Incredibly Dangerous Area" - or something to the same effect.  I would not be mucking around with that shit - there are mines everywhere up there.  Mines and grapes - interesting combo.  Apparently the snow gets pretty decent up there - but that was not the case now.  Still very very pretty but unless you wanted to ride rocks you better leave your snowboards at home.

Snow in Izzy - what are the chances?

Thanks for the apple dude, but I'm not paying $40 for a jar of honey

So maybe I won't do a wee on the side of the road then....

UN Post in the North

There's a lookout point where you can see Syria, and actual Syrian villages.  The border is well and truly closed - I'm pretty sure there's a large amount of no-man's land between the two countries monitored by international forces.  We drove up to the UN checkpoint but the guard refused to have a photo taken with me (he could of told me earlier - I waited ten minutes for my bloody iphone to recharge in the car).  Anyway, things are a bit dicey up there at the moment, but even so we were shocked to see, hear, and feel a major explosion on the Syrian side of the border.  This was accompanied by an earth shaking boom.  You could see the smoke rising from above, the sunny crisp day made it completely visible at about 20km away.  The there was another explosion, and another!

First boom

More booms

Picnic in the sun

As I watched from my completely secure position(???!!!) on a hill not so far away, I started to think about what it must really be like right there where it was actually happening.  Was it a military target or were there people there?  Was it ISIS, the Syrian government forces or Hezbollah?  It was close enough to be shocking, but not close enough to be frightening - I mean there were Arab ladies having a picnic and making people cups of coffee next to me.  Basically it was war tourism.  

However, yesterday rockets were fired into Israel from Syria, and Israel of course responded as they always do with more rockets. The mountain we visited was closed and evacuated.  Then this morning there was a mortar attack from Syria.  Mortar shells hit an Israeli vehicle and injured 4 Israeli soldiers, 2 of whom have died since, while one Spanish UN peacekeeper was also killed in a separate attack.  Of course it's all over the news here - I can feel the very slightest amount of creeping tension, there were a lot of helicopters going north this afternoon.

All I can say is fingers crossed everyone, fingers crossed.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Last family shot before I get bumped by my darling innocent looking child

It's started.  Those jolly times when your kids get so mad at you for something so small that they start wishing your demise.  I can't complain, I was the queen of "I hate your GUTS I wish you would DIIIIIIIEEEE" when my poor hardworking mother told me we were having brussel sprouts for dinner.  Fair call though don't you think? - they're pretty gross.

Anyway, so yesterday morning my five year old was harassing me to put up a "chart" up on the fridge.  I've done it before - there are all kinds of columns such as "Make Your Bed"  "Tidy Your Room" "Sleep All Night In Your Own Bed".  They get stickers every time they do something and once the chart is filled to the brim with piles of coloured stars, they get some cheapo toy from the toy shop.  Basically it's bribery.  A kind of complicated manipulative bribery that is pretty more effective than "put your shoes on quickly and I'll give you a spoon of nutella" - *you can take stickers off the chart for being naughty, but you can't scrape that nutella off their tongue and put it back in the jar no matter how hard you try.

So back to the harassment.  It was 7.30am on a Sunday morning (the kids go to school on Sundays here - everyone say "Yaaaaaaayyyyyy"), and I hadn't washed my face or brushed the filthy overnight flavour out of my mouth. Basically, I wasn't coping with being upright.  So with both of them at me, I snapped and said something like "STOP it with the stupid chart talk I don't want to hear about it".  At that moment my husband walked into the kitchen.  My daughter's eyes lit up and they both exclaimed "Daddy!!!!".  Then one of the little buggers said "If one of you dies would the other person marry someone else?".  I replied "Did you just say that because you hope I die so that Daddy's new wife will make you a chart?".  She looked confused that I could read her mind (I'm sure she thought she was being very sneaky and complicated), and then that turned to shame and an unconvincing reply of "Noooooooooo".  Sprung.  My 5 year old wants me dead.  Not so she can have a new mother exactly, but so she can have a new mother who will make her a chart, which will then lead to her filling it with stickers and getting a toy.  Basically my beloved child would rather have a ten buck piece of shit from China than her loving mother guiding her through life and adoring her for the rest of her days.

Ouch.  But that's kids for you, they are so preoccupied with instant gratification that they cannot conceive how that hasty momentary decision could possibly go wrong some time in the future.  Meanwhile the rest of us are being encouraged to "live in the now" and fed some kind of shit like "the present is a gift, that's why it's called the present".  Ok, fine I get it - have a good time now - I'm all about the good times - but surely there are limits.  These limits had already been discussed at length at Glastonbury by myself and a friend in 1997.  We decided if we really only did live only in the now that would mean we would put our entire hash supply in a chillum and call the entire camp group over for one big smoke up.  Luckily we discovered we didn't quite want to live that much in the now, as it would have really sucked to not have been wasted in those final days of knee-high mud, over-flowing portaloos and tent robbery.  I thought that was pretty insightful at the time seeing as we were up to our eyeballs in hippy mantras and liquid acid.

Beautiful

But in saying that, it honestly felt like our entire trip back to Australia for Christmas was one big giant hedonistic joy of living in the now.  We didn't really make any plans, apart from buying plane tickets to Byron, Melbourne as Tassie, and we just let the whole thing unfold.  What resulted was glorious days and evenings of spending time with a large chunk of the people we love most in the world.  Highlights involved 3 days of perfect weather spent at my parents beach house 30 minutes from Hobart, long chats with my Granny in her house overlooking the Derwent River, cuddles with my two brand new nephews, eating a giant bag of good old mixed lollies with my sister and sitting up late at night while her babies slept in the next room, going out for great dinners, including to a brand new restaurant opened up by my friend's husband, drinking champagne with old friends and wrestling them in the backyard, and really just spending heaps of time with my family.  And the best thing was that Mum didn't make brussel sprouts once.  In fact she did so much for me that I honestly forgot what it was like to look after my own family and kind of got a shock when I realised how much washing I needed to do on a daily basis once I came home.  

Alternatively, when I asked my daughters what their highlights of the trip were - expecting them to go on how much they loved my mother's dog or the 10 kg of presents they got for Christmas - one replied that stabbing a flathead in the eye was her favourite thing (yes, this is the one who wants to kill me), while the other one replied that collecting "jelly blobs" on the beach was her magic moment.  Remind me to go out and buy a dead fish and some beach jellies instead of spending thousands on a family holiday across the other side of the world next year would you.

What's $500 bucks of Christmas presents when you can have a few blobs?

The fish that copped one in the peeper

Us at the airport - just a bit happy!

The other major highlight for me that is, was that we could leave our kids in Tassie and bugger off to Melbourne for 3 glorious nights.  My God.  How is that feeling?  Of course we had a fun NYE with my husband's nieces and nephews ( some of which had come to Australia from Israel for summer), the crowning glory of that night was at midnight when they did the count down and then let off the glitter bombs.  The glitter was actually meant to be dispersed over the room and sprinkle down on everyone, however, it malfunctioned and dumped 3 kilos of glitter on my husband and his nephew.  That was pretty amusing - my husband is not a glitter man.  In fact, glitter is already the bane of his life due to not only having our entire house strewn with the shit regularly, but also due to me 'accidentally' packing Vali's glittery "Elsa" Dress in his suitcase - which in turn spread 2 tons of aqua glitter all over his entire collection of t-shirts.  Those tiny sparkles really show up on black.  Anyway, they were both absolutely covered in the stuff.  My husbands nephew (a doctor) had to work in the psych ward of a hospital the following morning, and despite desperately trying to scrub it off, was alerted to the fact that he had significant amounts of glitter in his ears by a patient.  My husband on the other hand, copped even more of the Great Glitter Disaster of 2015 and despite 3 showers and a bath, failed to get rid of it.  The only good thing that came out of it was that some sleazy Russian chick tried to get some of it off him that night by rubbing her boobs all over him.  What can I say - some people really love their glitter.

Yep - it's a bathtub

Go Sunnush!

Get your boobs off my man

I recently read an article about a business that started up called "Send Glitter To Your Enemy".  Apparently you sign up for it, provide an address, and a seemingly normal looking envelope explodes in cloud of glitter when he or she opens it.  Sounds funny?  Not to the owner of the business.  He has been so inundated with business that his website crashed and he has massive problems keeping up with demand.  He put out a recent plea that somebody buy his business as he doesn't have the resources to cope with it.  There's a guy who must quiver at the sight of glitter, while also permanently being mistaken for a gay man off to a rave.

You'd never turn me away for television would you girls?  Girls??? 

The rest of the time in Melbourne was spent again with a sizable chunk of all our favourites on the planet.  The events came at a steady pace, and there was not much time for anything else.  But that's always the way.  I think I half expect to be that popular when we do end up moving back to Australia.  I think I'm going to get a rude shock.  I'll turn up at someone's door step with a bottle of champers, and they'll be like "Jesus Christ Emily, didn't I see you last week? Piss off would you, I'm watching Offspring".  That's life.  Despite my misgivings at how long term popularity would work out for me, I really found it difficult to leave Australia this time.  I really truly wanted to stay.  Like my mother-in-law said, I'd put it out of my mind.  I hadn't thought about what it would be like to move back to my home country.  After all, it has been a decade since I lived there, that's a pretty long time.  

I watched an interesting TED talk the other day about the modern difficulties of saying where your home is.  For example, my husband.  He has a Polish father and an Israeli mother.  He grew up in Australia but spent a lot of time travelling around the world when he was a child.  He was a resident of The Cayman Islands for years, but spent all his time living on Japan (with me!).  He has business in many countries and currently lives in Israel.  And for our children it will be more confusing for them to say where their home is.  They get mixed up already.  They are not sure if they live in Australia or Israel. For many people this situation is even more extreme.  It is of course a by product of our modern global world.  This kind of situation was not common in our grandparents time - people pretty much grew up and lived all their life in the one place.  These days it's very very different.  So it begs the question - how do you answer when someone says "Where are you from" or "where's home?" - as I often get asked.

Of course I always say Tasmania.  To be honest I am never planning to go back there to live there again.  But it still feels like home, even though I left there for the first time when I was 19 and have only returned a for two or three years at a time before departing more permanently in 2001.  I like being Tasmanian - it's more interesting than Melbourne or Sydney.  Whenever I get asked where I'm from here in Izzy, I always drop the T-bomb.  It's a talking point.  Some people have never heard of it, some didn't actually realise it was a real place, and some have heard of it, but never in their lives met anybody from there.  So on the drawing to a close of Australia Day - also known as "The Bogan's Christmas", it makes me wistfully think of all my friends and family over there drinking VB and screaming Aussie Aussie Aussie Oy Oy Oy.  Thankfully I have never heard a single member of my family  or circle of acquaintances utter those dreaded boganic sounds.  However, if someone yelled it down below our apartment in the street right now, I would definitely throw all my snobbishness to the wind and scream it out.

Now that I've settled back in my life here, it's got easier.  Israel is, of course, a crazy crazy country.  But despite my homesickness, I do love it, and for now I can definitely state that it is my home.  My heart is here after all.  I have a wonderful, fun, exciting life in Tel Aviv.  I have amazing family and friends.  My children are thriving and so happy to be living here.  Now if I want everything to stay this brilliant.....and more to the point stay alive......

I better go make that chart.  

"There are devilish thoughts even in the most angelic minds".

Frozen

Do you want to build a snowman?

This year in Tel Aviv we actually attended a Christmas party before we took off for the (supposedly) warmer shores of Australia.  This Christmas party was hosted by a truly delightful friend of mine - a gorgeous Irish woman with an elfin face and and a sing song voice.  Don't you just love those Irish accents?  Let's face it - no matter how well we Australians were brought up, or what fancy pants school we went to, we all still sound like a giant pack of bogans.  It's not a great accent.  Even a New Zealand accent is better, at least we get to mock it and make fun of it (no wonder those poor bastards hate us - how many annoying Aussies must pay them out about how they pronounce "six"? - I shudder, I really do).  But the Irish accent is one of the best - I would literally pay somebody to talk to me all day in that accent.  Even if they were abusing me and telling me what a dick-knob I was, it would still sound like sweet music to my ears.  I am a sucker for an accent though, anything but Australian......

The mini jews (and my little shiksas) rock xmas

So in Israel - as already mentioned - Christmas is pretty much a national non event.  Pretty much all Israelis don't even have any idea when it is.  This fact alone seems to surprise most yoks.  They reply with an astonished - "Really??".  But then when I say - "Well do you know when Chanukah is?" they of course have no idea and the idea that this is a comparable situation is truly surprising.  So in a nutshell, Israelis don't give a shit about Christmas, they don't know when it is, what its for or what goes on.  To have a Christmas party in Israel is like having a Ramadan party in Hobart - a novelty, irrelevant, and not a big deal.  For a Jew who grew up in a Christian country, Christmas has totally the opposite effect.  My husband described it (rather dramatically I thought) as a symbol of everything relating to the oppressive dominance of Christian beliefs, and the total enveloping nightmare of consumerism hell.  You've got to admit he's got a point.  Everyone always goes on about how Christmas is really about family and togetherness.  That is bullshit.  It is about spending buckets of cash, getting stressed out of your brain and despising your own flesh and blood by the end of it all. Ho ho ho-rrible.....

I led the christmas tree cupcakes activity - shizenhousen effort by the way kids

Too harsh?? You get a bit over Christmas is the days leading up to it.....But back in early December at my Irish friend's house I was all about the Merry Merry and the "Aren't reindeer antlers adorable?"....... Vali and Cord had a great time - they were totally Christmas savvy.  But most of their little friends received a less than enthusiastic reception from their parents as they were photographed in Christmas hats and crafting Christmas cards.  One mother remarked to me "Well that's the last time I want to see my daughter wearing a Christmas hat.....".  Give her a break, she did spend most of her life watching all the little Christians of Melbourne receiving sacks of presents while all she got was a donut and a potato cake.  It's a fair call really.....

Cord got shafted for secret Santa at the party - she went first, and pulled out a shoddily wrapped headband.  I think it was used - Obviously this crappy gift was a second thought from a Christmas hater - Cord's face says it all really.

Burnt by secret santa (they always suck really - people should buy their own presents)

 Vali got lucky and pulled out a giant box of chocolates, basically, sugar for Africa - I also think her face says it all.

The gift of teeth cavities - the chick on the right appears a little jealous

So not long after the party was Splitsville. So long Tel Aviv, Hello Hobart (with a few detours on the way). I spent days packing up my crap and tidying the house.  I also found out that fabric softener and water restores doll's hair to their factory sheen.....this thrilled me a lot more than it should have, and meant that I took a long intermission during packing to really glam up all the dollies .

Look at the glamour!

Trying to love it, and failing

I packed all summer clothes and a couple of winter warmers for Paris.  Totally rooted my packing.  That is typical these days - besides it's not easy packing for Freezing Cold, Moderately Chilled and Furnace-like Heat in one suitcase.  We flew into Paris that first morning.  First destination =  Euro-Fucking-Disney.  I'm going to be harsh here, very very harsh. So brace yourselves.  What an honest to God, piece of crap, losersish, ugly, stupid craphole. Basically Cuntsville - all cunts please move here and then I'll blow the whole thing up.  I hate you Disneyland - I HATE YOU.  Wow that was actually therapeutic.  Look, I'm going to backpedal a little bit and say that perhaps on a sunny pleasant day it could have been an acceptable experience - however........on a freezing cold, raining Sunday, a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was a living hell.  Even with gloves, hats, coats and Princesses it was not good, not good at all.  My kids hated it.  There was more howling that day than at a showing of Beaches in a centre for the clinically depressed.

Wet, drab and freezing 

Numb and miserable

On the Snow White ride before the terror set in

Yes yes, very Christmassy

Hang in there love

This is basically what happened - we arrived, walked around in the rain, lined up for 40 minutes to go on a Snow White ride that lasted 2 minutes and scared the absolute shit out of them (lurking witches are never a feel-good kind of a thing), missed the Princess parade, ate 3 lots of 15 euro french fries, lined up in the dark and rain for an hour to see Rapunzel.  I must admit it though - I thought we had it bad.  Poor Rapunzel.  Standing there in a bodice dress and cape with two tons of hair on her head, and smiling like a moron as wet bawling kids were pushed next to her, and weird men put their arms around her (We noticed she leaned wide to the side for those more unpleasant cuddlers).  After that we just couldn't take it anymore.  The feet and hand were actual lifeless lumps of freezing flesh.  Then we drove back to Paris - got caught in a two hour traffic jam and arrived at the hotel 300 bucks poorer, more unhappy, still wet, and with the stale taste of tomato ketchup on our breath. Bite me Walt.

Truly miserable

Although we missed out on seeing Anna and Elsa, the "Frozen" theme was pretty much the overriding experience for us is Paris.  I just wasn't mentally prepared for 5 degrees and rain.  Israel may be surrounded by lunatics, hated by the Western world, and a hotpot of civil unrest and violence - but my god, it's worth it for the climate.  Indoors was the only option for us in the reality of the northern hemisphere during winter.  I knew Galerie Lafayette would turn on the Christmas cheer and we weren't disappointed.  Christmas windows were a big attraction (seriously, they loved it way way more than Disneyland), and then 4 hours going sick nuts in the toy shop was a massive highlight.  They went absolutely mental, and I let it happen.  I didn't even bother to control them anymore.  Living in Israel has made me immune to the icy stairs of the shop assistants and the exaggerated huffing and muttering, as they tidy up the Lego shelf yet again.  I actually enjoy watching them hate me and my spawn and yet not having the balls to say anything.  Go on girls - pull a few more soft toys onto the floor, you know you want to......

Old fashioned French glory

Consumerism at it's finest - cheer up Vali, have a toy or something

Hot choccies and lights

Squeeze

Chuck it on the ground sweetie

Looks great, was shit

But after just 2 nights we boarded a night flight for Australia and off we went.  It was very exciting.  Especially to be heading for Byron Bay where we hadn't been since 2011.  Again, I'm just going to have to be bitter and twisted.  I suspect I will regret being such a cow at some stage of my life, but for now it just feels so good.  It sucked there.  I'm going to gloss over the good points - and that was seeing our old mates who are cool, funny and the best company out there.  Instead I'm going to focus on the freak cold spell that gripped the whole area and turned the 30 degrees sun and heat into 18 degrees of rain, wind and the kind of freezingness that made our big decked wooden rental with a pool pretty much useless.  There was no mobile reception, no internet and the unmistakable aroma of a dead and rotting animal coming from somewhere within.  When we tried to turn on the heating the whole place filled up with the stench of decaying flesh.  Noice.  The only other redeeming feature of our time there as far as I was concerned was the koala I spotted taking a stroll down the main road as I went for a very early drive one morning (jetlag's a bitch).  I pulled over and gave chase (nothing like a compassionate awareness of our native wildlife - but I told you I was determined for a koala pet in my last post).  Tried to pop off a couple of photos but sadly only really got it's arse as it ran away from me terrified.  My husband said my picture looked like a hamster with a shaved bum.  Unfortunate really.  At least it didn't claw my tits like my last koala encounter I guess.

Pathetic effort

Luckily we pissed off from that hellhole - yes, I am aware that it is in reality one of the most naturally beautiful places on the planet - it was just too green.  And wet.  And all those squawking birds in the morning really gave me the shits......piss off you noisy A-holes.

Ok, so it's beautiful

Where is he Mum?  

Melbourne was next - and thank god it was actually warm.  I was out of a jumper for the first time in yonks (I hate "yonks" - I was just trying to annoy myself there).....So although I wasn't exactly frozen in temperature I was chilled the soul the whole time I was there considering some nutjob was holding people at gunpoint in Sydney, which didn't end well.  But enough about that - Regarding the campaign that started to prevent a backlash against Australian Muslims "#ILLRIDEWITHYOU", which offered support to Muslims riding on public transport - I'm just wondering if it is inappropriate to republish this picture I saw on my nephew's facebook page?

Yep thought so.

So - from Melbourne to Hobart.  The last leg of a 5 plane homewards journey.  What can I say apart from, another plane trip, another disaster.  First, we only just scraped in by the skin of our nads.  It was delayed about 6 times due to the weather, and then as Tasmania suffered under the pitter patter of a million hail storms, we tried to land at Hobart airport.  After 2 aborted (terrifying and shaky) landings we circled for almost 2 hours before being informed by the pilot that we were going to have to return to Melbourne.  Bloody Hell.  However, amazingly, there was a break in the weather and we were able to touch down about 5 hours later than planned.  The best moment for me was when I decided to start a plane clap.  I've tried before and Ive never had success, but this time the applause took off and the claps were like thunder as we rolled down the runway (unless it was actual real thunder...).  It was a successful clap off that I initiated.  I was so happy - and immediately regretted that I didn't try for a Mexican wave.  Next time, next time.

So how am I bearing up in "sunny" Tasmania to date??? Well naturally with 17 degrees and rain, and a lack of warm clothing  - totally and utterly......frozen.  And no, I'm not going to "Let It Go".  Instead I decided to embrace Anna and Elsa more than ever.  And even with the crazy Christmas build up and the cars and people everywhere, the brawling with a person who was more tattoo than man in the carpark of Toy Kingdom, and the general sense that with all the chaos and craziness that everyone thinks the world is ending or something, it's bloody brilliant to be here.
Merry Christmas! - totally loving it!

Merry Christmas Elsa and Anna

Life's great