tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74271027263782050282024-02-20T01:32:37.179+00:00Babies who brunch... on tourIn the land of the Midnight SonsBabies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.comBlogger225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-8664436863903591662013-01-28T21:40:00.001+00:002013-01-28T21:43:05.235+00:00The End of the World, or How Not to Do Petra with Kids<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="storyTop " style="margin-bottom: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The sign said, 'The end of the world'; as did the look on my three-year-old's face. Below us, the dusky pink desert canyons and dimpled, rocky mountains of the Jordan Valley stretched west towards Jerusalem. And somewhere, far, far below the precipice we'd scaled to 'Sacrifice View', a bright blue cap was now swirling away, whisked off my son's head by the sharp wind that greeted us at the summit.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was already late in the day, and here we were, five-month-old strapped to my chest, standing at one of Petra's remotest points, with an inconsolable small child. What had possessed us, not only to climb up 1,000-odd slippery sandstone steps to the monastery, which at 50-ish metres tall is the largest of the ancient city's vast edifices, but to continue beyond it to reach a peak?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The answer, of course, is the same reason we'd braved a two-day drive from Jerusalem, where we were living, with a car- phobic baby: for the chance to see Petra. All of Petra. Or as much as was feasibly possible to cover in a day while keeping donkey rides strictly for emergencies, which did not, incidentally, include climbing up to the monastery, but did include getting the aforementioned, now cap-less, son back to our hotel in Wadi Musa for his dinner.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Before it all went so wrong, it had all gone so right. Our trip, in December 2011, came at a bad time for Jordan: tourists were shunning the country out of misplaced fears it had been caught up in the Arab Spring. This had made Petra our own, give or take a few horse-drawn calèches weighed down by overweight visitors. And all we had to do to avoid those was clamber up to explore some of the many rose-red structures carved at neck-craning height, or higher.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Every visit starts, however, with the Treasury, the building immortalised in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This columned marvel, seemingly superimposed on the jagged mountainside, bursts out of the cliffs as you exit the Siq, the 1km-long winding gorge through which all visitors must enter. Ropes bar you from going inside these days, although plenty of the other 800 buildings and monuments that the Nabateans carved out of that famous pink sandstone some 2,400 years ago are still accessible.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We'd mulled over bringing Louis's scooter, but the Siq's cobbled pathway is quickly replaced by the ancient city's sandy streets, so it was just as well we hadn't. A buggy would have been similarly useless, for anyone tempted. But the baby carrier, or carriers, for I packed a spare in case Raf faced a change of perspective, was just the ticket and made taking a baby around Petra a doddle.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It's the sense of isolation that awes you, once inside, as well as the immense scale. Climbing that peak really did have an end-of-the-world feel to it. As I trudged the 6km or so back to the entrance, I felt I'd short-changed the Nabateans by sacrificing just the one cap. But it turned out I needed not to have worried. The vomit-strewn sheets of a sunstroked child combined with the news that our London home had been burgled almost exactly while we were looking at that view, meant I ended up more than paying for my Petra experience. Not that I had any regrets.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">(This was something I wrote for the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/middle-east/jubilation-in-jordan-the-top-of-the-peak-felt-like-the-endoftheworld--but-what-a-view-8463713.html">Independent,</a> but as I'd never posted from our side trip to Petra while living in Jerusalem in 2011 I thought I'd add it.)</span></div>
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Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-75019874885328619892012-06-29T22:35:00.002+01:002012-06-29T22:41:35.907+01:00LEGO lessons - by Daddy J<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">WHEN A child-oriented Scandiplan was first mooted, LEGOLAND was the first place on my hit list. A huge fan of Lego ever since my underage urban planning days, I've always assumed Lego towns to be faithful replicas of Nordic city life: thoughtfully laid out streets, old-fashioned shops, and ubiquitous emergency services. When Londoners moan about London it's normally because it's not Lego enough. And travelling around Scandinavia, it's clear that if the ideal small town or manageable-sized city life that we idealise so much still exists anywhere, it's up here. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">Yet ironically, for me, our visit to LEGOLAND actually threw the limits of the Nordic model into sharper focus. Because what lies at the heart of LEGOLAND, amid the pint-sized monorails and nobbly-bricked replicas of Hanseatic streets? LEGOREDO: the plastic piece people's homage to the harsh individualism of the Old West, complete with right-angled Rushmore. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">And which ride did Louis (and all the other kids) want to do most (alas he was too young this time)? The Lego driving school of course. Bikes and buses might turn on enviro-snobs like us but everyone from the Beatles to the Beach Boys to the good people at Volvo (hi guys!) knows that the car is still the most exciting invention in the history of mankind. Pootling around Copenhagen with the kids up front in the Christiania bike was fun for sure, but the biggest thrill of the trip for me was a stunning 300km meander along the snowy hairpins high above the Norwegian fjords. I really hope the well-planned cities of Scandinavia do offer a model for future urban life in favouring buses and bikes but LEGOLAND made me wonder if that's the case. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">Above all, the place is an exercise in nostalgia. It's not just the grown ups groping at memories of childhood happiness with every entrance fee or box of bricks they shell out for. The replica landmarks themselves seem to be the faded project of a more innocent time. LEGOLAND has now expanded beyond the street scenes and famous feats of civil engineering rendered in plastic bits that made up the original park. The newest sections feature two giant rollercoasters of the kind found in theme parks the world over. And the two coolest Lego models I remember seeing as a kid - Concorde and the Shuttle - are weather-beaten and a little forlorn, their real-life counterparts discontinued. The greatest inventions of my adult life - the Internet, GPS, the mobile phone - are already miniature if not invisible and certainly beyond replication in pimply rectangles. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">So the irony is that while the ciabattaring liberals of London like ourselves fawn over everything Scandinavian, viewed up close Nordic life and it's Lego replica are both deeply old-fashioned and, whisper it, conservative. And while life here is certainly good and possibly the best, it took a wannabe-actor waitress in Copenhagen to perfectly express the downsides of the Scandinavian way of life which we'd started to wonder even existed. Because people are so genuinely happy here, she said, nobody ever wants to do anything differently, to stand out, to strike out on their own. For that, she added, you need to go to America. In Copenhagen a waitress will always be a waitress, only in big old gas-guzzling America can a waitress talk of future movie stardom without being told to get a contented life. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large;">We admire Scandinavian society because of its equality, but only those who know they will never be the best stand to gain from an equal society. What if inequality - and its (cloakroom) attendant unhappiness - is not such a bad thing? Inequality breeds restlessness and restless people learn, explore, invent. Before coming on this trip I was pretty sure of at least one thing - I want my children to grow up happy. I still do, but now I'm less sure. Maybe they need to be a little restless too.</span>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-84033639815343092482012-06-25T14:44:00.000+01:002012-06-25T18:57:42.954+01:00Bornholm: an underwater pearl<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I SHOULD have known better than to moan
about camping. Not because bitching about how miserable it was would force me
to issue a retraction once we hit theoretical canvas bliss on the
“Baltic pearl” that is the Danish island of Bornholm. But because with camping
there is always worse to come.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For starters, there was the disappointment
of rolling off the ferry into 14C and heavy drizzle as we drove off in search
of our campsite. The only thing pearl-like about Bornholm is that it's also under water. I can’t believe I bought into the myth that it's Denmark’s sunniest
spot. Had I not spent hours watching the horizontal rain in The Killing? Not to
mention fixated on Sarah Lund's attachment to <i>that</i> sweater. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That said, I’d kill for mere drizzle now:
I’m lying in our tent, a storm raging overhead. It’s a moot point what’s
loudest: the rain thundering down on the canvas overhead, or the tent blowing
in on itself with every new gust of wind. I’m not sure how both boys are still
asleep but I am quite sure that they won’t stay asleep for long. The fact that
I’m here solo, with DJ ensconced in a dry bar down the beach watching the
footie isn’t helping. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s his toilet I’m most jealous of: the
cruel irony about being stuck in a tent in the pouring rain is the pressure it
puts on your bladder. And that’s without even drinking anything this evening
for fear of having to trek half a mile back across the sandy pine forest for
the loo. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I should be glad Bjorn, the Dane who runs this campsite with exacting precision, at least
lets me pee for free. Precious little else is included in what’s a fairly hefty
nightly charge given that we brought our own four walls. There’s even a
20kr fee to watch each quarter final, on a telly he removes at the end of each
evening from what is allegedly a communal dining space next to the kitchen.
Hence why DJ’s elsewhere. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s 5kr a pop to charge a phone or
similar, although I snuck a few extra percentage points on mine earlier by
unplugging the microwave. He earmarked us as trouble makers after we mistakenly
left our dishes in the kitchen for ten minutes on our first night while we
finished setting up the tent and putting both kids to bed. And as for Louis
parking one of the toy cars outside our tent while he played on the
beach, well, it turns out Bjorn would rather they were all lined up, unused,
outside the reception. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What with the fee to shower, to use the
baby bath, etc etc, we might as well be staying in a hotel. Which, if this rain
continues (which is what’s forecast), is exactly where we’ll be come tomorrow
night. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-7567016784779919182012-06-25T14:26:00.001+01:002012-06-29T22:45:25.753+01:00Cycle not-so chic<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BORGEN!! </td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">IF HELL is other people, then hell for
babies is other people’s ideas about happiness. Especially if they involve two
wheels. Or three wheels, in the case of a Danish cargo bike. Or, possibly, in
the case of our car-adverse child, four wheels. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This I proved after our day cycling
around one of the world’s best bike cities was less living the dream, and more
living the nightmare for the 11 month old. To be fair, it got off to a bad
start when having strapped them both into the front of my three-wheeled Christiania
bike I couldn’t even manage to steer out of Baisikeli’s parking lot. Those
things are heavy! Even without two extra people on board. So much for my plans
of peddling the kids effortlessly around town, their Scandi-esque blonde bouffs
blowing in the breeze.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Things only got worse when the squall that
blew in after I’d reluctantly switched saddles with Daddy J meant we had to
abandon ship (bike?) until it had passed. We were now well into lunchtime
territory, and for a growing nearly 1 year old, a slurp of milk just didn't hack it. Plus it's a safe bet neither child enjoyed getting togged up in
their Scandi POP raingear as much as I enjoyed – finally – getting some use out
of the damn things even if the rain meant I’d look more Copenhagen cycle shit
than chic in the Sindy pics. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In retrospect, I should have twigged that
sitting up front in a Christiania bike was always going to be murder for a baby
who hates being strapped in anything that isn’t also strapped to me. And the
stormy skies meant that each time Raf was in the slightest danger of getting
into any sort of groove, we had to stop to take shelter. He couldn’t even nod
off come naptime because there was nowhere for him to lean his head, his big
brother being accommodating, but only up to a point. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Where Raf really suffered, however, was
that although he’d clocked up his Scandi telly hours in front of The Killing
and Borgen while nursing of an evening, he hadn’t taken in any of it. So he
couldn’t share in what ended up making us happiest of all about our cycle tour:
peddling through Borgen itself. Or clocking Troels Hartmann’s Rathaus (Copenhagen's town hall, and the other star of the Killing along with that sweater), which is possibly the city's prettiest tower. Perhaps the key to happiness is
just watching more TV, especially if it’s Danish. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-35379645424839081642012-06-24T16:33:00.000+01:002012-07-01T20:20:39.485+01:00Wonderful Copenhagen?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Louisiana, by Louis</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">HAS ANYONE ever thought about the downsides
to living in the world’s happiest place? Because that’s where we are, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/copenhagen-really-wonderful-reasons">according to the UN’s survey of global happiness</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What if you wake up in a bad mood? Or on a
campsite with the rain thundering down on your tent (see previous post)? Or
maybe you’re childless and stuck in a job you don’t like, paying exorbitant
taxes to fund the amazing nurseries that allow Scandi mums to live the feminist
dream. Heck, maybe you’re a petrol head who hates bikes, or potentially worse,
given the city’s reputation for two-wheeled glamour – the <a href="http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/">Copenhagen cycle chic blog</a> is now a Thames & Hudson book for goodness sake – perhaps you just
like cycling in a fleece.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Two days in and the pressure is on, I’ll
admit. Yesterday’s wet start was a challenge but a run along the sea front from
Charlottenlund Fort helped me out (if not Daddy J whom I left battling the
baby’s morning nap). Not least because I ticked at least three boxes on my
Scandi stereotype scorecard: naked Danish man emerging from a dip; modernist
architectural gem of a service station; and a PH lamp dangling
in someone’s front room. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And with enough breaks in the clouds, I’d
defy anyone to feel miserable after a trip to the stunning Louisiana modern art
museum, half an hour’s drive up the coast. Then again, perhaps I’d have been
happier had my bank account stretched to more in the shop than a Copha watch
for Father’s Day. I know DJ would have smiled more if I’d allowed him to feast
on the café’s Nordic buffet rather than picnic on my rotting avocado and
Camembert rolls. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The real test, though, would be today and
the cycling trip we had planned around one of the world’s top cycling cities
for an Indy on Sunday photo op. Would the baby live the dream in the
Christiania bike I’d lined up from the guys at <a href="http://www.baisikeli.dk/">Baisikeli</a>? Or would he reveal his
London roots by grumbling his way round? What’s more, could I be happy peddling
around in a scratch outfit pulled together on a campsite? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Screw it up and I might as well be in the
UK where at least there’s no pressure to smile all the time. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-62945774217465691972012-06-24T16:17:00.000+01:002012-06-25T14:27:29.223+01:00Camping: the lowdown<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievRr4rdLOifwt79GgOhIJcp_Bq2THSklFSNXQpPZMKYrIA0HqhD-4MswawPdsKmRIsVySJ5ofIVzCuWETyOneE24DSo_ZQKs3f_XMTlnxFpF2D_UeWtz4ejprYcStwklc_Z9zoFOTaQA/s1600/IMG_0128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievRr4rdLOifwt79GgOhIJcp_Bq2THSklFSNXQpPZMKYrIA0HqhD-4MswawPdsKmRIsVySJ5ofIVzCuWETyOneE24DSo_ZQKs3f_XMTlnxFpF2D_UeWtz4ejprYcStwklc_Z9zoFOTaQA/s320/IMG_0128.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breakfast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">FOR THE record, while hatching our plan to
come away I was adamant about one thing. We couldn’t keep moving around because
the constant packing up would drive me mad. This much I knew from the two weeks
we had spent road-tripping in the US, back when “we” was just the one extra
small person. At the very least, we’d need an RV or its Euro equivalent, even
if that put us in the same bracket as German retirees. And there was no way
you’d catch me camping. Not on a traditional campsite. With two children,
including a small baby. In northern Europe, for goodness sake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But then I dreamt up the Scandiplan. Only
somehow I’d forgotten to factor in the cost of living in countries where the
only reason residents get so much back from the state, such as fabulously cheap
childcare, is because everything is so darn expensive due to sky-high taxation.
My dreams of a Sodermalm flat swap remained precisely that, dreams, so rather
than bankrupt ourselves with hotel bills, a tent was bought. Not by me, I
hasten to add. That would have made me complicit in the camping part of
the plan. And that might have meant I couldn’t complain when things,
inevitably, didn’t go as envisaged. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s hard to narrow down exactly what’s
worst about camping: the rain; the cold; the not having a clue where anything
is; the looooooong walk to the loo in the night; the claustrophobic sleeping
bag; the lack of sleeping bag as I discovered after Arctic temperatures
rendered useless my plan to sleep under only an Ikea duvet; the light; the
dark; the sick baby with a fever of 40C despite the aforementioned night
temperatures…… Shall I continue? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even DJ pitched in with his own bete noire
this evening: the smug gaze from within a – dry – campervan awning as two
wrinkled pensioners, who ran out of anything to say to each other back in the
1980s, watch our attempts to pitch a tent at gone 8pm with two feral children
on the loose. That said, shortly after he said that, the Danish campervanner
opposite came over proffering a thermos of coffee “because you both look so
tired”. Which almost made it all worse! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then there’s the horror of watching the
battery percentage tick down on the various pieces of thirsty electronics I
own. And that’s forgetting my biggest camping casualty: the Kindle I trod on
while trying to locate my mobile phone so I could turn it off to save the
battery. Oh, the irony. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To be fair, camping has the odd plus. But
I’ll need to warm up – and dry out – before they trip off the tongue. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-23270097896667396962012-06-13T20:41:00.000+01:002012-06-13T20:47:10.888+01:00Lax understanding<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0y-KZAGDsfaHo353N8dQIBFBi75mEX94SMJkjYnM6C50bIit1p2vAhWDndkQ_yjeZt_zVf30CbGe30ObBTykxjjnrBZf5CyPG5v1gToLoW1zEBvEXG9C8HOtv8370tb8JgXn4b4qY4PQ/s1600/IMG_0722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0y-KZAGDsfaHo353N8dQIBFBi75mEX94SMJkjYnM6C50bIit1p2vAhWDndkQ_yjeZt_zVf30CbGe30ObBTykxjjnrBZf5CyPG5v1gToLoW1zEBvEXG9C8HOtv8370tb8JgXn4b4qY4PQ/s400/IMG_0722.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fjallbacka at dawn</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">NOW THAT we all think we can speak
Scandinavian (and by “all”, obviously I mean all those who’ve lost 50 hours of
their lives to The Killing, Borgen, and The Bridge), mastering the lingo for
this trip should have been a doddle. But beyond “thanks”, which is helpfully
something approximating “tack” in all three of the Nordic languages we’ve
encountered, our Scandinavian remains embarrassingly sketchy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Given how well everyone here speaks
English, that shouldn’t matter. (So well, in fact, that one of the writers
behind the BBC’s next Scandi show Lillyhammer – the Norwegian comic drama
starring ex-Sopranos’ Steven van Zandt that will air this Autumn – told me
local TV audiences didn’t mind characters speaking Norwegian and English because
they could understand both languages.) </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But I’ve run into trouble here in
Fjallbacka because I can’t find what I want to read in English. The pretty
coastal town is home to Sweden’s premier crime writer, Camilla Läckberg, whose
detective series has outsold even Stieg Larsson on his home turf. She was born
and brought up among Fjallbacka’s red clapboard cottages, and despite now
living in Stockholm uses the town as the backdrop to all of her novels. A lack
of British tourists, thus far at least, means that the local
ironmongeress-cum-celebrity (Berith, the owner, is one of just two locals to
feature as themselves in Läckberg’s books) only stocks the author’s original
Swedish versions. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’m told that this will change once the
latest Läckberg TV series hits the airwaves. It’s being filmed now, and has
already been snapped up by the French. My money is on the Beeb following suit,
given its quest to mop up Nordic noirs.
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My lack of Swedish means I can also only
guess at the recipes in the <a href="http://www.camillalackberg.com/fest-mat-och-karlek">cookbook</a> I found today in Berith’s store. Penned by
Läckberg herself and her childhood buddy Christian Hellberg, who just happens
to be Sweden’s top chef and another Fjallbacker, the book is a Nigella-esque
tome that combines the requisite lifestyle porn and enough glamorous friend
envy to make it an immediate hit in Britain, were it to be available in
translation. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the Beeb should stop looking for
Scandi thrillers and get Läckberg fronting her own Nordic cookery show. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-53147949406418055642012-06-12T21:43:00.001+01:002012-06-13T20:46:54.868+01:00Fiskpudding and fun<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbHoHrco7n1xxcr3mNcMjL-rhf8vgUC2XziEuJQdbb2qRuM7QLGXXtqiYFKvhXks_C7HmKDq9n5TtFZzajh9TxUX-HRNyLGLBzuUOdr1MUhWDkW2GpQ_JmEw9fy1rhUHYsVA-fPkVohIs/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbHoHrco7n1xxcr3mNcMjL-rhf8vgUC2XziEuJQdbb2qRuM7QLGXXtqiYFKvhXks_C7HmKDq9n5TtFZzajh9TxUX-HRNyLGLBzuUOdr1MUhWDkW2GpQ_JmEw9fy1rhUHYsVA-fPkVohIs/s320/photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swedish fiskpudding</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“ARE YOU having lots of fun?” someone asked
me on Twitter today. Fun? On a six-week gruel-a-thon of a holiday-cum-extended
work trip? Knocking off three countries in a car? With two small children? Now
there’s a question.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What’s odd about being away for so long,
and trying to squeeze so much out of such a large chunk of time off, is that
sometimes it seems as if fun is about the last thing you remember to have.
Experiences, yes, by the bucketful. But fun, when the Volvo’s speaky lady keeps
telling you the time it will take to reach your campsite halfway across Norway
is increasing; or when yet again there’s no hope of glimpsing any sun, let
alone midnight sun; or when you realize it’s gone 7pm and the only restaurant
in sight for under £100 a head is McDonalds; well, that’s a tricky one. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s not that I don’t adore being away. And
certainly not that Scandinavia isn’t living up to my – admittedly exalted –
expectations. And most definitely not that I’m not loving the chance to be with
both small people, and their Dad, 24/7. But sometimes it seems like we’re so
busy being on the road that simply having fun falls by the wayside. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The beauty of this trip, though, is that
magical moments just creep up on you. Some, like today, are pretty clear-cut.
Our day out on the Weather Islands, Sweden’s most westerly point, reachable by
boat from the coastal town of Fjallbacka, was always going to be special. And
despite the unpromising weather, we all had a ball: the highlight being a tie
between the unfortunately named “fiskpudding” for lunch, and a rocky scramble
around the largest of the 365 islands in the archipelago. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Other times, though, creep up on you. Like
a pitstop by a snowy road in western Norway, when the half-hour it takes the
saucepan of water to boil for tea is the perfect opportunity for a then still
three-year-old boy to magic himself into Lightning McQueen out for a drive in
his snow tires. Or that time when two brothers are so engrossed in the wonder
of each other that they’re utterly absorbed while you pack up camp. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Those, yes, are the moments when you
realize that this trip is special for a whole mountain of reasons, fun most
definitely being one of them. And that’s before we hit Legoland, our next
destination – provided we make our 9am ferry from Gothenburg tomorrow. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-12896491295324712152012-06-09T21:52:00.004+01:002012-06-09T21:58:43.604+01:00Tripp-Trapped<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">NORWAY: LAND of fjords, fish, ferry boats and..... Tripp Trapps. Which, to the uninitiated, are highchairs. But not just any highchairs. Somehow Tripp Trapps, made by the Norwegian firm Stokke, stand like a parental badge of honour in middle-class British kitchens: owning one catapults mums and dads into some kind of super league. Or so I used to feel, strapping Louis into his Ikea hand-me-down while quipping that if we really loved him, he'd have had a Tripp Trapp (rrp £159, excluding the baby bar, cushion, harness, tray, etc etc).</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not so in Norway, where to have a child is to have a Tripp Trapp - or Tripp Trapps when numbers two and three come along. This was something I got to witness at first hand in Alesund, the coastal Art Nouveau gem that just happens to be home to Stokke, when a Norwegian family we met over a Lego session on a rainy Sunday in a local museum ended up inviting us back to their house for dinner. Salmon and Stokkes. Two kids, two Tripp Trapps. </span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Indeed, my fact of the trip may just turn out to be that Tripp Trapps are used as standard in Norwegian nurseries. Well, that and the fact that Norwegian mums get something called breastfeeding leave AFTER they return to work: for ten months they can spend two hours of their working day nursing, meaning they get to arrive an hour later and leave an hour earlier each day. And that's after taking ten months off at full pay (or 12 months at 80 per cent). I shudder to imagine what Tripp Trapps round a table at a London nursery would do to the fees (£1,000 minimum per month compared with £320 maximum in Norway). </span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Norwegians, it seems, just suck up the cost of stocking up with Stokkes. Perhaps because they don't seem terrible value in a country where a beer and fish snack at an Oslo street market costs £20. Or I guess they may just love their kids more. It goes without saying that my top interview to date is Mr Tripp Trapp himself, aka Peter Opsvik, who designed the chair back in 1972. Be still my beating aspirational mummy heart! No prizes for guessing my souvenir of choice were we actually driving our Volvo estate back to London. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-17070461763985472442012-06-04T21:51:00.001+01:002012-06-09T22:01:25.082+01:00Snow joke<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-NtEllrTAN5bA-AgBwiOYiX2PXY3SBYwKcJOrk4rRz8Q4euT9ESmJCTtfifAP5jX7oIwdiBYBtnu9Sil4-M9ER845PczHVc6-MrB2X6NOMax_nGosEt1IPh4REgiYCosEkJLtRMyDao/s1600/IMG_0249.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-NtEllrTAN5bA-AgBwiOYiX2PXY3SBYwKcJOrk4rRz8Q4euT9ESmJCTtfifAP5jX7oIwdiBYBtnu9Sil4-M9ER845PczHVc6-MrB2X6NOMax_nGosEt1IPh4REgiYCosEkJLtRMyDao/s320/IMG_0249.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ASIDE FROM Daddy daycare (Pappi playtime?),
living the Scandi dream for kids means swapping an indoor existence for an
outdoor one. And I don’t just mean frolicking about on lakeside beaches when
it’s sunny. No, Nordic babies toughen up from birth by taking all of their naps
outside, even in winter. If Pappi wants to warm up with a coffee, he leaves the
sprog in buggy outside the café. This continues at nursery where toddlers play
and nap outside in anything down to minus 10C. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The trick is in the clothing, for as the
old Russian saying goes: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong
clothes.” To be fair, this meant in “olden times”, to coin Louis’s phrase,
children pretty much sat out winter, snoozing their way through the long, dark
days in countryside cabins because their home knitwear wasn’t up to the task.
But it was all change in the 1970s when Polarn O Pyret, the iconic stripy
Swedish kidswear brand, hit the scene with its durable, weatherproof overalls
and trousers. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This made the Nordic feminist revolution a
happy triumvirate of working women, warm children, and proliferating nurseries,
which expanded rapidly from the early 1970s to give mums somewhere to dump
their kids. Indeed, Polarn’s MD, Maria Oqvist, told me the main reason the
company churned out so much outerwear was so Scandi mothers could earn a crust
happy in the knowledge that their children were snug. Not to mention stylishly
clothed.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Given our camping plans and northern
European summer weather, I figured I’d need to waterproof both boys before
setting off. As it’s annoyingly cheaper to buy Scandi in London than shop
locally this meant a trip to the Polarn concession in House of Fraser rather
than a fun shop in situ. Having the right gear somewhat eased the pain of
driving into winter as we clocked up the kilometers north. But I somehow still
managed a walk in a Roros blizzard, in JUNE, with both small people woefully
underdressed because I’d forgotten to pile on the layers. You can take a mum
out of London......</span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-63502639849502533492012-06-01T22:14:00.000+01:002012-06-09T22:01:42.780+01:00Scandequality - by Daddy J<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgou3P1VMZTCiNJ9vDqB6K1VeqJieFwAlKGFZ6tNQ3bxX8ILkzIETzbCL9nnnNfbWhq2BPPo9tGZeoorkhwoGyUKGg1e2JDxzlF-3LndW8JwJho5tXHRmtZRYg5DxhyzQK-NpAcnIfwxIc/s1600/IMG_0149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgou3P1VMZTCiNJ9vDqB6K1VeqJieFwAlKGFZ6tNQ3bxX8ILkzIETzbCL9nnnNfbWhq2BPPo9tGZeoorkhwoGyUKGg1e2JDxzlF-3LndW8JwJho5tXHRmtZRYg5DxhyzQK-NpAcnIfwxIc/s320/IMG_0149.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Helvetica;" type="cite">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">NOT QUITE 48 hours into our trip and we’d already been offered the forest sauna. Two days after that Sweden douze-pointed it to Eurovision glory. So by the time it got to Monday morning in Stockholm we were on a hatrick for national stereotypes. Safe to say what’s drawn us to Scandinavia isn’t the chance to sit starkers in a hot room or reach euro-disco nirvana. For work-life tightropers like ourselves it's the idea of Scandinavia as Mecca for gender-bending metro parenting that really thrills. It was time to take to the equality streets.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="font-family: Helvetica;" type="cite">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Having lunched in a suitably trendy deli in suitably trendy Sodermalm I thought I was in the perfect spot to find kindred daycare Dads when Working Mum left us to go bag an interview. When the time comes to write the guidebook on hipster playgrounds the one on Nyagatan will be right up there, but even so I was the only Dad there for at least 30 minutes and when one did turn up he was American. So much for Scandequality.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="font-family: Helvetica;" type="cite">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By the time we caught up with WM at the Nordiska Museum, Boy 2 who'd been peaky overnight had taken a worrying turn for the worse and so did our pretence at Modern Parenting when it fell to Mum to jump in a cab in search of a doctor post-puke.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="font-family: Helvetica;" type="cite">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That left me and Boy 1 killing time in a museum dedicated to Swedish folk history. Among the empty exhibition halls we did find other Dads out with their kids at last – perhaps they knew better than to take a sickly infant to an outdoor playground in the chill of a Nordic May. So for a brief hour or so we lived the genderless parenting dream cruising exhibitions on dolls houses and interior design. Male bonding, Scandi-style.</span></blockquote>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-23538006292389164502012-06-01T22:09:00.001+01:002012-06-09T22:02:12.569+01:00The car's the star<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgajJGJGtQk8SGGaILdtLdm6IrqWe1WW5WWTMpD23HjKCzDA-YAQpWReaHHRRgEVBNsfgIsb9dxVJwB-9tSNepbpAzzSP9RgGn5Ug9qdVkCqq72iTXt5rBkyDEWJnUVr9IYY_EZcllCUk/s1600/IMG_0119.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgajJGJGtQk8SGGaILdtLdm6IrqWe1WW5WWTMpD23HjKCzDA-YAQpWReaHHRRgEVBNsfgIsb9dxVJwB-9tSNepbpAzzSP9RgGn5Ug9qdVkCqq72iTXt5rBkyDEWJnUVr9IYY_EZcllCUk/s320/IMG_0119.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As taken by Louis</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ASK THE soon-to-be four year old about his trip highlights and
barely a few days in I know what they’ll feature. The car. Or, to be
precise, “the Vol-vo car” as he calls it. And who could blame him. Not only is
the car a joy - even for a passenger a four-hour stint zips by - but a session on
the open road affords the perfect opportunity to cross several stereotypes off
the master checklist. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">First up has to be conformity, from the
number of fellow Vol-vo drivers out there, to their absolute dedication to
conform to what is expected of them on the roads. Chiefly, sticking to the
speed limit. Even when it’s set at an absurdly low 80km/hr on a deserted road
north that passes through never-ending forests. And never over-taking, not even
when crawling after a log carrier for kilometer after kilometer after kilometer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Brushing 110km/hr on the motorway (speed
limit 100km/hr) west out of Gothenburg instantly earned us the raised eyebrows
and a glare from a motorbike-riding policeman, who just happened to pull up
along side us. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then there’s the nagging voice of Vol-vo,
which butts in to interrupt your driving reveries if your attention so much as
falters for a second. Cross the dotted white lines between lanes without
indicating and it will beep: “Don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t that”. Get
too close to the car in front and the engine will slow down for you, and as for
swerving, momentarily, into the hard shoulder: an image of a coffee cup flashes
up on the dashboard, warning: “Driver alert, take a break.” If only it could brew up a cup on the spot.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ultimately the lack of speeding underlines
Swedes’ rationality: it’s bonkers to risk one’s life for the sake of arriving
somewhere five minutes earlier. Or not at all, if all goes wrong. But mankind
isn’t designed to be rational, especially not when cosseted inside the
comforting frame of a Vol-vo car. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not that Louis is fussed about national
stereotypes. He mainly likes the electric windows, and the button on the key
that lifts the boot automatically. Not forgetting “speaky lady”, the
authoritative voice of the in-built GPS that must have saved countless
marriages the world over by taking the rap for dodgy directions. I guess kids
just defer to authority, much like the Swedes, or so it seems. </span></span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-11840894308960955602012-05-31T20:57:00.000+01:002012-06-09T22:02:26.995+01:00Land of the Midnight Sons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0k8-1ZiEFOHX4jd5x5lVX5wapng7iUMgCsQB2V385zbG5Eyo7L5FXs6bH3dXsie2hvCXux71kOSSKaTtHVY1u_0mc0cYPnJbObJfX7prfPDlXK3VYPkOrX5tmiFiOVZVvlM4gV6N43c/s1600/IMG_0108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0k8-1ZiEFOHX4jd5x5lVX5wapng7iUMgCsQB2V385zbG5Eyo7L5FXs6bH3dXsie2hvCXux71kOSSKaTtHVY1u_0mc0cYPnJbObJfX7prfPDlXK3VYPkOrX5tmiFiOVZVvlM4gV6N43c/s320/IMG_0108.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">EXCUSE THE (London-based) hiatus, but babies who brunch is back, for a while at least. After surviving our three-month stint in Jerusalem, life back home seemed a little tame, so we've headed up to Scandinavia to eke a few more adventures out of my maternity leave with a Nordic roadtrip. For once, Daddy J isn't working: instead, he's making like a Scandi pappa and has taken some time off unpaid.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Our six-week trip will take in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, starting and ending in Gothenburg, where we're picking up a Volvo, naturally. In true Borgen fashion (for non-Scandi TV obsessives, that's the one about the Danish mum-cum-PM, this time I'm the one working. If you call traveling round, visiting cool places "work". (Although with two small kids in tow, it really is....) I'm writing a big magazine piece about why Brits love Scandinavia so much. Unless it's just me, which I don't think it can be considering Britain awarded the Swedish Eurovision winner Loreen the full 12 points the other night.<br /><br />With two non-sleepers along for the ride, Scandinavia is proving less the land of the midnight sun, and more the land of the midnight sons. Did anyone say "fika"*?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">*Scandi for coffee and cake</span>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-30896679631826449462011-12-24T19:58:00.007+00:002011-12-24T20:58:50.525+00:00'O sprawling dump of Bethlehem'<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicGRZ4KdCfiDFeL95g-aNToy72w69PkdYQcY9H9dVRhyphenhyphenAOf1SRHeVmDa0g_jpTyHXiGo_C_GLH7lUycqpCAqvq3mcotJpKYj-SSSZl3c7KEcHvOxCytpon18lfD8chHLhDuMxzJ9or_dQ/s1600/IMG_7829.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicGRZ4KdCfiDFeL95g-aNToy72w69PkdYQcY9H9dVRhyphenhyphenAOf1SRHeVmDa0g_jpTyHXiGo_C_GLH7lUycqpCAqvq3mcotJpKYj-SSSZl3c7KEcHvOxCytpon18lfD8chHLhDuMxzJ9or_dQ/s320/IMG_7829.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689796168065407666" /></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The star marks The Spot</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">IF EVER a place name over-promises, it's Bethlehem. Only a fool would expect the town to deliver on the Christmas magic even hardened atheists have sung about over the years, yet still the word teases, playing havoc with expectations. To minimise the disappointment, we saved our trip until well into December; a sweaty walk around Manger Square and its year-round Christmas shops holding zero appeal.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I felt bad using a copy of the Christmas Story to prime Louis: he was hoping for straw and an actual stable at one point despite all my caveats. Luckily his inner consumer was as excited about the wooden crib scene I'd promised as finding the actual spot of the birth.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">While our journey, in the borrowed work jeep, was always going to be easier than that fabled one on a donkey, Bethlehem's West Bank location means getting there is never straight forward - something even Dubya found out after Condi forced him to swap his helicopter for a car. "It's awful," he admitted, Rice's memoirs revealed, despite sweeping through the checkpoints that make life such hell for Palestinians. The town is barely 10km from Jerusalem but might as well be on another planet for most of its residents, something we found out later on while driving around, lost, trying to find the gap in the separation barrier we needed to leave. With no road signs to Jerusalem we had to stop and ask, yet queries about the location of our destination were met with shrugs from several locals.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">"O little town" it most certainly isn't; sprawling concrete dump being more apt, with the graffiti on the monochrome wall that hems the town in on three sides providing the only colour on the way in and out. With a wave of the passport we popped through the small gap, and into a dystopian Alice in Wonderland where nothing was as it seemed and the street names on Google maps are bizarrely blank.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">We were headed, naturally, for the Church of the Nativity and the star that marks That Spot. Or, the spot as randomly decreed by Emperor Constantine's mum, St Helena, who decided where to build the church. Maybe it was because my expectations were as blunt as one of our kitchen knives, or perhaps carrying our own baby gave the occasion an additional poignancy, but I did find the church atmospheric. I guess all the candles lit for blessings must have got my inner pyromaniac into the mood.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Church aside, the real draw was the turning on of the Christmas lights in Manger Square. We waited patiently for what felt like hours along with thousands of locals. Personally, I think they should have turned on the lights BEFORE the interminable speeches because all was as dark as the carol says until the Palestinian PM flicked the switch. A highlight was the hiatus while the mosque opposite the Church of the Nativity called its faithful - two-thirds of Bethlehem's population today - to prayer. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">This being Israel, or rather Palestine, something as simple as celebrating Christmas feels like a political act, essentially because it's such a big deal for the Palestinians (who get a day's holiday) and such a non-event for Israelis. Not that the politics bothered the three year old; what with the fireworks that followed the tree lighting and a souvenir snow globe with Mary and Jesus, Bethlehem's magic lives on - in his eyes at least.</span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-82555826127030016832011-12-20T19:50:00.004+00:002011-12-21T21:02:23.641+00:00The city that Christmas forgot<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEsVXP5SjbYvT7ypnLAII3fASbp4Hw69tCZh_RPtRYarOFx11l-zQINXGtNZy5hW6NIMq6_D5SbeQd-Y9qtlpGRaqfplUmSYFVp68sIXiUknAbbtJ4gibn2BfRRVg2Yz7FE5rmrAle2q4/s1600/photo.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEsVXP5SjbYvT7ypnLAII3fASbp4Hw69tCZh_RPtRYarOFx11l-zQINXGtNZy5hW6NIMq6_D5SbeQd-Y9qtlpGRaqfplUmSYFVp68sIXiUknAbbtJ4gibn2BfRRVg2Yz7FE5rmrAle2q4/s320/photo.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688689728886937282" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">IT'S A magnet for Christian pilgrims and capital of the Holy Land, yet somehow Jerusalem is the city that Christmas forgot. Imagine getting to five days to go - or is it four, I've lost track - and not hearing a single Cliff Richard tune in a shop, eating a mince pie, overdoing it on the festive drinking, maxing your credit card on pointless presents, or preparing to spend hours queuing for that Kelly Bronze you'll overcook only to remember why turkey is a once-a-year dish.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Not that I'm complaining; December here is proving something of a joyous release from the consumerist celebration formally known as Christmas. Not to mention an excuse for being stingy and lazy. Luckily Louis at three is just about young enough not to know any better, although I fear it's the last year I'd get away with giving him one of Daddy J's socks to hang up on Christmas Eve (yes, really - well, it fits a tangerine, what more does he need?). </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">My initial excitement at spending the Christmas build-up barely miles from where it all - allegedly - kicked off was somewhat tempered when a Jewish friend pointed out that even the handful of Christians here are largely Orthodox so don't celebrate until January 7 or even later. And to the Jews and Muslims, the 25th really is just another day. In any case, the Jews are busy with their Hanakkah festivities, which the cynical might say conveniently overlap our own and include the main tenets, namely gaudy lights and presents, but I couldn't possibly comment. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">All that aside, I feel we've done our bit: the tree - small and plastic and adorned with homemade origami decorations - is up and twinkling with some lights I picked up in the sole Christmas shop the Christian quarter of the Old City had to offer. All nine Christmas cards we've received (and that includes the extra ones for Louis and Raf from the grandparents) are up and I've listened to Stevie Wonder's Christmas CD. I've even scored us a table at Jerusalem's top restaurant for lunch on the 25th: try doing that in a city that actually celebrates Christmas. Best of all, turkey will be strictly off the menu. Turns out being here is win-win. With apologies to anyone who might have hoped for a card. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-20955222655756545922011-12-09T18:00:00.006+00:002011-12-10T06:44:13.814+00:00Shopping in the shuk<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpexoQFsProx35GTyfojIgX6W_NZi3xlZu2YAOgMVrtvK-LcHFN_zStGzP3VRjlnksIGzlf-8hyUsYK9cr1ZrqMD2yMSmeJ8Kvi5NuuMn1Fn7oHHGJ8GUEqEW8zVlcixB4Y_SWbfBuUB8/s1600/photo-38.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpexoQFsProx35GTyfojIgX6W_NZi3xlZu2YAOgMVrtvK-LcHFN_zStGzP3VRjlnksIGzlf-8hyUsYK9cr1ZrqMD2yMSmeJ8Kvi5NuuMn1Fn7oHHGJ8GUEqEW8zVlcixB4Y_SWbfBuUB8/s320/photo-38.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5684222831571748258" /></span></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">OCADO IT is not. There's the 3km walk there for starters: uphill, with two children in tow, naturally. And back again. Buggy laden with more plastic bags than the Daily Mail could hope to persuade Brits to save in a year. Such is shopping in the shuk, which sounds remarkably like souk, but is actually Hebrew for market, something I've been doing since our second day in this city and something I will miss more than just about anything else about living here.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">It has its downsides. That walk, for starters. Especially the day Louis insisted on scootering. Or the one I left the buggy behind, but still bought two massive bags of produce, including a litre of olive oil. And I invariably pick the busiest of times to go, like the day before Yom Kippur and both the Shabbat-rules Sukkot holiday days. Not to mention most Fridays, including today, when seemingly all of Jerusalem piles in either to stock up for the one day that the shops are shut or to watch everyone else stocking up. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Me, I like to do a bit of both: stockpiling and watching, although as today was my third trip this week Louis got off relatively lightly on the shopping front. Best are the bearded, black-hatted Haredim men, armed with ancient buggies-cum-shopping trolleys, who clearly scout out the best bargains going. I saw a few scuttle along this afternoon barely minutes before the shuk shut to nab everything going cheap. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I used to lure Louis up there with the promise of a tram ride: the track goes down Jaffa Road, perpendicular to the shuk, or Machane Yehuda to use its proper name. But now he's ridden the entire line he's a bit more blase, so I'm left with tummy-led temptations. For a while I used the ice cream at Mousseline (on Ha-Eshkol Street next to the Khachapuri bakery if you're in the area): sublime. But now it's colder we're back to "pink pasta" at the Italian we found on that first trip, which I know now is called Pasta Basta. Back on day two, I was desperate for somewhere to feed both the little people and the tiny cafe, on a corner inside the warren of bustling streets, happened to have a seat. I was too daunted by the Hebrew menu initially to order much more than a salad and a juice, a mistake I quickly rectified. They keep it simple, with just three pastas and several sauces, onto which you can pile any number of toppings. It's quick, unusually cheap for Jerusalem, and exceptionally delicious, Louis' top pick being wholewheat fettuccine with beetroot, oil, and garlic. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The pasta place is emblematic of the changes to what must rank among the world's top food markets, with a number of new cafes opening in the past couple of years, not to mention upmarket cheese shops, olive oil stalls, and even shops selling locally designed pottery and jewellery. Come night time, when the vegetable (and meat and fish) sellers have gone home, cafe tables spill out into the shuk's inner streets and take over (so I'm told; I have yet to leave our flat). All very Borough, but with the bonus of coming home with change from £20 for more freshly picked produce than I know what to do with. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I used to think I'd be glad to get back to Ocado but after tasting the dinner I made tonight, which was nothing fancy (green beans, dill, onion, garlic, and feta, baked in olive oil and lemon juice with bulghur), I'm already in mourning for all the vegetables we'll leave behind. Air flown, polystyrene-packed Kenyan green beans just aren't going to cut it. </span></div></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-44572509194337803732011-12-07T18:46:00.007+00:002011-12-09T17:59:57.021+00:00Dead buoyant<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnAO39zr7aFUZUfd6Ep6NlnK_lMg-dtNWIHNJWpU46IHmEJbL0QO26KAaTcyamOUo020ThBSV2GGJiEhTf8Q_Gb5iycP7OH_NSTqKv0ESQCX3Lu4KUNkBsegUPtTVvE8akBOKClE5U34/s1600/IMG_7631.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnAO39zr7aFUZUfd6Ep6NlnK_lMg-dtNWIHNJWpU46IHmEJbL0QO26KAaTcyamOUo020ThBSV2GGJiEhTf8Q_Gb5iycP7OH_NSTqKv0ESQCX3Lu4KUNkBsegUPtTVvE8akBOKClE5U34/s320/IMG_7631.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683471921915916530" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">"HOPE YOU get treated to a couple of days in a Dead Sea spa," a friend wrote, on hearing of my 13-night sanity testing stint as a solo mum (with apologies to single mothers who have to do it day in, day out). The very idea got short shrift in the car on Sunday as we headed south along the Dead Sea coastline towards Masada, an ancient Jewish fortress high up in the Judean desert. Louis looked briefly panicked, before realising it was such a crazy suggestion that I had to be joking. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The sea - an inland lake where there's no need to hire deck chairs because you can just read sitting up in the water - stretches out below the vast hilltop palace, reflecting the intense blue of the sky most days. In the background is Jordan, all jagged hills rather than bands of angels but no less beautiful for it. The history is haunting: the site, built by Herod the Great, he of Nativity play fame, was the location of the Jews' last stand against their Roman oppressors in 73 AD. It ended with a mass slaughter, by Jews, of Jews, rather than become Roman chattels. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Staring at the sea was too much even for Louis, who had been warned he couldn't paddle because it's too salty (not worth risking getting it in children's eyes apparently), so we took the cable car back down after an explore and a picnic lunch and headed for Mineral Beach, one of only a handful of places you can swim because of the sinkholes. We made it with minutes to spare before the sun dipped behind the now pink desert ridge but there was time enough to slather on some mud and fulfil an ambition held since I was barely older than Louis after seeing a picture of someone reading a newspaper in an old book about the world I used to own. We gave the freshwater paddling pool a miss because it was too chilly. Ditto the hot sulphur bath: too many fat Russians hogging the water. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">It was hardly that spa break, but fun nonetheless. And I spotted a shop in the Old City that sells the mud, although given the rate<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/now-you-dead-sea-it-6260450.html"> the Dead Sea is drying up</a> I should probably stick to face wash. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-79847145315985008082011-12-04T19:25:00.006+00:002011-12-05T19:12:29.607+00:00The Olive Mountain<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBHnBfD4zFEYX-kFLnQTqa1Cejk10Vf6I2WsW8od5mxFpIcJYHqFzT2G11jebA1cgsZkrvXWb2wVgwXO5xQDlQq5_0SdmrnqKTIlgW2ciE31GO6PxtSdMDI_srOG35MLMNFE0odMJ9ks/s1600/IMG_7547.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBHnBfD4zFEYX-kFLnQTqa1Cejk10Vf6I2WsW8od5mxFpIcJYHqFzT2G11jebA1cgsZkrvXWb2wVgwXO5xQDlQq5_0SdmrnqKTIlgW2ciE31GO6PxtSdMDI_srOG35MLMNFE0odMJ9ks/s320/IMG_7547.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682366258131333378" /></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Olive face</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">IF EVER there were a site to appeal to Louis, it's the Mount of Olives. The bitter, salty Middle Eastern staple after which the hill is named is, inexplicably, his favourite snack, so his eyes lit up when I suggested a visit. To lessen a three-year-old's disappointment at finding little more than a giant cemetery - Jews have been buried on the slope since Biblical times and it is home to more than 150,000 graves - I packed plenty of olives for our picnic.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The coach loads of Christians (who comprise two-thirds of all tourists to Israel) have to walk up the steep hill because the hair pin bends up are too sharp for a tour bus, but with DJ finally back in town we had some (borrowed) wheels, so were saved the hike. We might not have earned our lunch but out came the olives anyway. And quickly disappeared into Louis's stomach. With any luck, the stones will help to make up for the lack of olive trees there today. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">From the top you can see not only the Dome of the Rock in all its golden glory, but also some of East Jerusalem's most contentious neighbourhoods, including Silwan, which is today home to Palestinians but the Jews value because it flanks their precious Mount of Olives. Hence <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/stories-from-the-old-city-we-are-not-living-like-human-beings-6269727.html">the efforts by Israeli settlers to evict Palestinians from their homes</a>, citing in some cases claims that Jews owned the houses before the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1930s. Laws favouring Jews help, but the legalities are always murky and judicial battles can last decades. Settler victory comes with flags attached, reams and reams of blue-and-white Israeli flags, draped from every corner of their new home, like the one atop the ridge. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Hearing the afternoon muezzin call made me think that even settlers can't have it all: the thickest double glazing in the world couldn't block out the cacophony of prayer calls that bounce off each side of Jerusalem's many valleys five times each day. And there's no hiding from the glare of that golden dome. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-39614237278210920752011-11-29T18:37:00.004+00:002011-12-01T19:48:46.192+00:00The toilet lady<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDS-jGcSn0yWll_vOfKDV5fTS-xL3zYZFHTOOKZTOHgWOE0TUaEjtdUOFNcE1uKMWWYcO1dzPsXm-NZk_SJdTjJPJW5shXAFCCfS2gjs9uCJR7docJfp2DZUYoWfgMEsVJ8fJUvacp6k/s1600/photo-34.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDS-jGcSn0yWll_vOfKDV5fTS-xL3zYZFHTOOKZTOHgWOE0TUaEjtdUOFNcE1uKMWWYcO1dzPsXm-NZk_SJdTjJPJW5shXAFCCfS2gjs9uCJR7docJfp2DZUYoWfgMEsVJ8fJUvacp6k/s320/photo-34.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5681249096573660034" /></a><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; ">IT WAS Louis who spotted her: the stenciled lady on the side of a bus shelter, just up the hill from our flat. She'd appeared overnight, the familiar silhouette that adorns toilet signs the world over, rendered unfamiliar in the context of a Jerusalem advertising hoarding.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">"What's that?" he asked, probably wondering where her habitual male companion was. I couldn't read the Hebrew daubed alongside but I could guess what it said given the city's unofficial ban on women appearing on public billboards. The image had to be part of the spiraling protest against rampant sexism that is turning Israeli women into second-class citizens. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">It was still early - we were on our way to the yoga class at a local playcentre that keeps me semi sane - so I left the lecture on female equality for later in the day. But even our destination reminded me that gender segregation is commonplace here: all but three of the yoga classes are women-only. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">From the army, where religious conscripts are being urged to walk out of events when women sing, to religious schools, which are banning dads from watching their daughters perform in end-of-term plays, women are getting an increasingly raw deal in public life thanks to pressure from the religious right. The situation is worst in Jerusalem, where even retailers can't use female images in their ads, but is deteriorating elsewhere. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Segregation starts in the synagogue, where men and women sit separately: at the Western Wall, a smaller wall divides the sexes. On the street, gender division is most blatant on buses, where the Orthodox men take the front seats, leaving the back for the ladies. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">There are some unusual flipsides - some might say benefits - to such draconian notions about women: on Fridays there are more Haredi fathers than mothers stocking up for Shabbat in the shuk, the city's main food market. But there are downsides too. Consider the school textbook that teaches children about the virtue of respect. The illustration? A man. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">With some leading questions, I managed to make Louis see the light but it's worrying to think his Israeli peers, including a new generation of kids whose parents have "made aliyah" (what Jews call emigrating to Israel), might ask the same question about a real female image on the side of a bus shelter elsewhere. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-2070477216470460612011-11-25T18:17:00.007+00:002011-11-29T18:13:28.051+00:00The Israel Museum<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxf7q9C0FMtb8L4M2geQj8nNXFlwh2xjDGLwRPANrBesu9abhQkRMOz9L1_mjUX-9AmNljmOZJfX1yA8C3tfML65Cd9I-H8WuhSCOHcUXSEYbrbkP-QjSL-wf_bD9Oda483D5gbLMmCPU/s1600/photo-32.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxf7q9C0FMtb8L4M2geQj8nNXFlwh2xjDGLwRPANrBesu9abhQkRMOz9L1_mjUX-9AmNljmOZJfX1yA8C3tfML65Cd9I-H8WuhSCOHcUXSEYbrbkP-QjSL-wf_bD9Oda483D5gbLMmCPU/s320/photo-32.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679018502200726418" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Contemplating the Shrine of the Book </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I HAVE discovered the secret to taking a three-year-old child round a museum. It's not the interactive kids' section (or, at least, it might be but I tend to avoid them - can't bear the other children), but rather the video art installations. Louis adores them. The more esoteric, the better, too.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Take today's trip to the Israel Museum: once he'd got over the excitement of the fountain spraying water over the white domed Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls (the oldest bible ever found, for any heathens), the exhibit that most captivated him was a video of a pair of boots sinking into a frozen pond. Because every display had to have some kind of Israeli message, the boots had been first dunked into the Dead Sea to cake them in salt crystals, and then taken to a frozen lake in Gdansk where the salt was left to do its work. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">To say the piece was light on the action is an understatement, but still he watched, spellbound, for the full 20 minute or so cycle it took to complete. Another favourite was a man spinning round on his stomach on some tarmac holding a piece of chalk. Yet another was some sort of take off of Eve and the apple, involving a naked lady, lots of watermelons, and some sea. It was supposed to represent the founding of a new country, but the nuances escaped me. And him, I imagine. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The only video installation that left him cold was the one I liked best, <a href="http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2005/waked">Chic-point</a>, by Arab-Israeli artist Sharif Waked. Filmed on an "occupied catwalk", it featured outfits suitable for an Israeli checkpoint. Each one was cut away to reveal a slash of midriff, thereby saving the IDF guards the bother of stopping and searching each Palestinian hoping to pass through. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">What with the scale model of Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, Anish Kapoor's polished-steel hourglass "Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem" sculpture, and the fun scooter trip, on an olive tree-lined path zig-zagging the hill up to the museum, the trip was a hit and one we will repeat - if only to brave the Youth Wing to see if it's worth the fuss.</span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-68682471896002565072011-11-24T18:44:00.005+00:002011-11-29T18:17:35.665+00:00Jerusalem, Jerusalem<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfIhewQnz5JvQO3vn6krzMVoiYBPG6JFaJY5ha63qxUpEF-_g2EKtyitkkFvItyJ52HH_oienQJUNNkI-sVMltNRhhxt4BK7BxcUKaRZoBNI2KbCrIPvCAMHWukYTd7itxY6guCzoOamk/s1600/photo-33.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfIhewQnz5JvQO3vn6krzMVoiYBPG6JFaJY5ha63qxUpEF-_g2EKtyitkkFvItyJ52HH_oienQJUNNkI-sVMltNRhhxt4BK7BxcUKaRZoBNI2KbCrIPvCAMHWukYTd7itxY6guCzoOamk/s320/photo-33.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680483128825510722" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">The Old City from the Haas Promenade</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I STILL find it odd that I've wound up in Jerusalem. It's one of the rare cities in one of the rarer countries that I've never wanted to visit. Not that it isn't fascinating: as a historian, I could hardly ask for more to have happened in what is, after all, something of an outpost in terms of great geographic locations. It isn't on the coast, and nor is it on a major trade route. Yet it's been fought over more than most other cities in the world, changing hands some 26 or so times. </span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">It's also beautiful, stunningly so, something a brief trip out to the hilly Ein Kerem suburbs yesterday underlined. Even the man made is easy on the eye thanks to British Mandate-era laws that prohibit building in anything other than limestone. How many new city centre shopping malls, such as Jerusalem's Mamilla arcade, which lies just feet away from the ancient city walls, chime in so well with the old ? </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">And yet Israel's contentious recent past has always put me off. It's been easier to avoid the country, then attempt to make sense of its domestic politics. We've still more than a month left but I know I'll go home more confused than ever about what to think. I'm fairly sure I won't succumb to the toddler-sized Israel Defense Force t-shirts on sale at the shuk but living here has killed any knee-jerk sympathies with the Palestinian cause. And I've yet to visit Yad Vashem, the country's Holocaust memorial museum. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I enjoy being here far more than I thought I would (and far more than I probably let on). We're spoilt with the location of our flat, bang in the middle of West Jerusalem. Which, incidentally, is politically incorrect - most Brits live in the East, in a show of Palestinian solidarity. But life is undeniably easier in the West, speaking as someone with kids in tow at least. There's a playground every few hundred yards, not to mention cafes a plenty and miles of beautiful promenades. Best of all is seeing the desert hills of Jordan from Louis's bedroom window, bearing in mind that just about every night since his birth I've sung him "Swing Low" in various ill-fated attempts to get him to sleep. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Even being on my own - if you can call looking after a three year old and a four month old being on your own - for two weeks isn't making me wish the time away. That said, Shabbat is looming, and another wet weekend. Perhaps we'll finally make it to the Israel Museum and nail some of that history. </span></div></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-74103512342341162862011-11-19T18:46:00.005+00:002011-11-19T19:49:10.321+00:00Jerusalem's Train Theatre: destination somewhere dry<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vnOx8okDiD1Xy2ZHA6tHUE-5wggSDrEy1ttMQBPcPFHgOleeWVyZZmOZQCQwgGwVS7kKe9q-4kQCu4DhVJPsetmt4WTvJnHi-Wtzf9GiKIMFMgduyydtiWbXUbm2sheTigkjrsOMPLI/s1600/photo-30.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vnOx8okDiD1Xy2ZHA6tHUE-5wggSDrEy1ttMQBPcPFHgOleeWVyZZmOZQCQwgGwVS7kKe9q-4kQCu4DhVJPsetmt4WTvJnHi-Wtzf9GiKIMFMgduyydtiWbXUbm2sheTigkjrsOMPLI/s320/photo-30.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676795745635985970" /></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Watching the show</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">IF, LIKE me, you stumble across <a href="http://www.traintheater.co.il/english/home/">Jerusalem's Train Theatre</a> and think you've hit kiddie gold then a word of warning: the company's repertoire is distinctly engine free. And it's no longer based in the old train carriage to which it owes its name, and hasn't been for longer than anyone working there now can easily remember.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Instead, what it is, is a charming little puppet theatre that puts on a wide mix of shows two or three times a week all aimed at children of varying ages. Given Louis's Hebrew is somewhat patchy, I'd been giving it a wide berth. But desperation and a Biblical weather forecast - I'm thinking Noah, not Moses's locust plague - forced me to reconsider, especially as it's based in Liberty Bell Park, a mere stone's throw, or short scoot, from our pad. Even better, it looked like today's show, The Cubes Circus, was set to music, making it the perfect choice for the Hebrew challenged. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Alas, one of the dancers was sick so they switched the performance to a story for the 5s and up: <a href="http://traintheater.co.il/english/shows/rain_bird">Rain Bird - A Paper Tale</a>. Not to be defeated, I paid up for two tickets and scanned a brief synopsis of the plot - broadly, "the most beautiful bird in the world" finds it tough to cope with life in the 21st century - and we settled down, Louis on one knee and a squirming Raf on the other. Despite understanding just the one word in the whole show ("tinoch", which means baby) I think I made a fairly good translator, especially as Louis could hardly argue with my rendition. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">I'd like to say he was entranced by the stunning origami puppetry, which spanned the set to the protagonists, but typical Louis, a single plastic car turned out to be his highlight. That and the police siren used to help create the illusion of the village, where life for a paper bird was easy, turning into a city. At least the car made up for the lack of trains, although Louis bought my ill-informed claim that the mini stage was based in an old train carriage happily enough. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Actually, I'm being unfair: he loved the whole thing, and best of all, it set us up for an afternoon of our own origami, which was useful given the rain is making me regret bringing just the one Snuggle Bunny and Mummy Nelly with us to Israel. If it keeps up for much longer, we'll be able to put on our own show. </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-77259119382113910242011-11-10T20:03:00.010+00:002011-11-11T07:34:13.381+00:00The giant candlestick<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HCZakcEphHRagdDUGzMpxPu_nAGi_pSLo-Bvm72oaqFhnHY8ncWmNzoVCfzHqdda5kHU7n1-roeUKtuOmyLb-4RVFmiqUk-O71_rdGu-M4dqUH6vJ7StsAr6ekM9ihvrnKNex5sjR3A/s1600/photo-23.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HCZakcEphHRagdDUGzMpxPu_nAGi_pSLo-Bvm72oaqFhnHY8ncWmNzoVCfzHqdda5kHU7n1-roeUKtuOmyLb-4RVFmiqUk-O71_rdGu-M4dqUH6vJ7StsAr6ekM9ihvrnKNex5sjR3A/s320/photo-23.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673469522747351682" /></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Photo #36</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">NEVER LET it be said that Louis is having a dull time here. Today's treat was a visit to, wait for it, a giant candlestick. It had captivated him ever since he'd spotted its image on the mini Jerusalem jigsaw we picked up in a gift shop on our first weekend. He'd remark on it every time we saw a picture around town, and I'd promised him we could go and find it one day. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">The candlestick, or menorah, sits opposite the Knesset on what felt like the highest of the city's seven hills. And that was my legs talking; goodness knows what our vertiginous scramble felt like to a three year old. It was a 6km round trip from our flat, which Louis initially insisted on doing on foot, but then conceded to take his scooter. As if that wasn't exercise enough, he stopped at a playground on both the outward and homeward legs of the journey. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Our trip took us through Gan Sacher, the city's largest park, which is somewhat hard to navigate as there are hardly any entrances. I'm sure we didn't go the authorised route, mainly because we were greeted by vast rolls of barbed wire. Then again, considering there were about three checkpoints even to get to the screening gate for the Knesset, maybe the barbed wire was par for the course; this is Israel. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">My fears that what is essentially a 5m-high bronze sculpture would disappoint were entirely misplaced: Louis loved it. The 38 photos he took on my phone bear testament to his delight. I'm still not quite sure of the appeal. It's not as if he took in the ravages of Jewish history, as depicted by British-Jewish sculptor Benno Elkan on each of its prongs, or noted the irony that it was a gift from British lefties: the Labour Party in 1956 to celebrate Israel's eighth Independence Day. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">But I guess to a three year old, it really is just a giant candlestick. Atop a very steep hill. And what's not cool about that? </span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-73105231890781998392011-11-09T18:01:00.008+00:002011-11-16T08:23:17.307+00:00Picnic for peace<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">WITH THE Palestinian quest to join the UN on the same footing as their Israeli neighbour a no-go, the army of lobbyists and activists kept in business by the doomed peace process will be scrabbling for a new strategy.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Given that simplest solutions are often the best, has anyone tried a picnic for peace? Sniffing the air this week in Liberty Bell Park, which is the city's nearest park to Arab East Jerusalem, makes me think they should. The place was packed with Muslims from East Jerusalem - making them either Arab Israelis or Palestinians depending on your political sympathies - celebrating Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, but if you shut your eyes, the holiday smelt like a Jewish one. Like their adversaries, the Muslims are fond of a barbecue, and smoke filled the sky, much as it did during many of the city's parks during last month's Sukkot holiday. The only difference being the Arabic on the bags of charcoal. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">And it isn't just grilled food where the opposing faiths overlap on the culinary front. The hijabed mums sitting around the playground were doling out pittas and felafels all but indistinguishable from those munched daily in Jewish West Jerusalem. There was more popcorn and candy floss than I'd seen but I'm willing to bet it was Kosher. Not that there were any Jewish children to share it; Louis excepted, the playground was exclusively Muslim for the entire week, a first since we'd arrived. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Next time perhaps someone could lay out a giant picnic rug and spread the word. After all, if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, perhaps the way to a nation's peace is through that of its inhabitants.</span></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7427102726378205028.post-24483586648078318492011-11-05T18:57:00.010+00:002011-11-09T15:15:09.219+00:00An Israeli roadtrip<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWXCts6wah0vOWmcQRrzwIux_Gv2FkR38-Y54-hkIvnLLsv6P-lhKiZ_zxvBdXM6jovAcsRCsU5IV2RESAq9rBK94F2PlHxO6_H79o6HHw_qmyyqs0jvrvUBxE47ggQ1puNPG0-Ku_aQ4/s1600/IMG_7296.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWXCts6wah0vOWmcQRrzwIux_Gv2FkR38-Y54-hkIvnLLsv6P-lhKiZ_zxvBdXM6jovAcsRCsU5IV2RESAq9rBK94F2PlHxO6_H79o6HHw_qmyyqs0jvrvUBxE47ggQ1puNPG0-Ku_aQ4/s320/IMG_7296.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672709646222347586" /></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;">The Golan and Nimrod Castle</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;">WITH HINDSIGHT there were always going to be flaws: it's no coincidence that the phrase "Israeli" and "road trip" isn't a classic. But remind me to check a country's car-to-road ratio (and if that stat doesn't exist, it should) before setting out on our next wheeled adventure.</span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;">Not that we didn't have fun. But spending half my birthday in a non-moving jam to do a 40-km journey from Caesaria to Akko wasn't a highlight. Especially not when a certain three month old defies baby logic by hating the car, even a $XXXXXX (blanked out to protect licence fee payers' sensibilities) BBC jeep . Nor was the near-stationery hour on our way to the mountains above the Sea of Galilee with said infant showing none of the stoicism a certain other baby doubtless showed on another journey not a million miles from our own, a couple of millennia ago, anything to write home about. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;">It took Shabbat and a drive through a minefield in the Golan Heights before we finally had the road to ourselves. We were headed north, as far north as Israel goes, and a lot further than the Syrians would like it to, in search of a medieval castle on a ridge above Damascus. Our route skirted the UN-monitored buffer zone that still separates Israel from Syria. Burnt-out tanks and abandoned Syrian bunkers from the 1967 and 1974 conflicts littered the hilly landscape, a living reminder that Israel is still a country at war. We paused at a viewpoint to take in the ghost town of Quneitra, once Syria's main Golan town but destroyed in 1967, and the red, white, and black of the Syrian flag flying in the distance. Perhaps it's the islander in me, but there's something innately thrilling about staring across an international border, especially one to a country all but off limits. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:130%;">The drive wound up being a highlight, not least because Nimrod Castle was shut when we reached it, at just gone 3pm. A real shame, as it looked amazing. Lucky, then, that Israel does a mean line in crusader castles, with the 12th-century Belvoir Fortress making the perfect lunch spot on our way back to Jerusalem the next day. Being Sunday - and the start of the working week around here - we were worried about the traffic potential, but needn't have thanks to the fact that the road went straight through the West Bank. And I mean straight through: the Israelis purposefully ensured the road bypassed all Palestinian towns when they built it, just to make life that little bit harder for them. The net effect was an empty highway, which suited us and our two sleeping boys but was something of an anomaly given the traffic chaos elsewhere. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: large; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: large; ">At least it explained the heavy traffic elsewhere if roads exist that most citizens don't use - Palestinians because there's no point and Israelis because they won't travel in the West Bank. Next time I'm sticking to disputed border byways or taking a leisurely approach to my road trip and just driving on Shabbat.</span></div></div>Babies who brunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07544240605254105392noreply@blogger.com1