Husband is complaining he is tired, poor thing.\u00a0 Says he can’t sleep at night what with the\u00a0stress of us being homeless, impending arrival of new baby and Jojo waking up.\u00a0 (He doesn’t like sleeping in his cot here, still a bit unsettled from all the change.)\u00a0 I told him the only reason\u00a0I am sleeping so well is the sheer exhaustion of pregnancy combined with unending heat, and he will have to manage somehow, after all I am the one who usually suffers insomnia! Still, he is wonderful about night duty so I am not planning to\u00a0trade\u00a0him in just yet.<\/p>\n
Have been using israeli washing powder now for almost 2 weeks, and I have to say I think our clothes would react better to hydrochloric acid.\u00a0 I remember binning most of my clothes after my gap year, thinking I was just rather crap at doing laundry, and wishing\u00a0I had paid more attention to my mum when she was chatting about spin cycles and things.\u00a0 Turns out it wasn’t me after all.\u00a0 We have now made the link between doing laundry here and holes in our clothes.\u00a0 Not to mention the fading.\u00a0 This is a very dramatic leap for me, who previously only used eco-options with vinegar or lemon.\u00a0 I spotted some Ariel in supersol the other day, with a generous discount and lots of english writing on it so I grabbed it in desperation.\u00a0 Can’t wait til my soapnuts turn up in the shipment (oh the glamorous life of a housewife).<\/p>\n
This morning we pay a visit to the WIZO Gan, which I am informed has a discount for olim doing ulpan.\u00a0 Jojo seems a little shy there at first, but there are a lot more children so I couldn’t really blame him.\u00a0 Luckily kids don’t really notice such things as\u00a0old buildings, strip lighting or faded toys.\u00a0 I noticed that the women were very loving with the kids, which is the most important thing in my opinion.\u00a0 It was obviously not as glamorous as the mishpachton option, but the kids did seem happy, the meals looked healthy enough and the whole place was getting a thorough clean.\u00a0 We went to talk to the manager about signing Jojo up for\u00a0September\u00a0who informed us that we both <\/em>have to do ulpan simulatneously to receive the generous discount.\u00a0 I thought perhaps she hasn’t noticed I was pregnant (who I am kidding, I have a watermelon <\/em>under my blouse for goodness sake) so I drew her attention to it and asked if there was some sort of exception as I clearly could not start full time ulpan just before my due date.\u00a0 I didn’t quite understand the reasoning as despite my reminding her I am an olah chadasha she couldn’t seem to speak slowly, but it was something to do with strict government guidelines.\u00a0 So here’s the bad news folks,\u00a0even if you have a newborn baby, your mum used to work for WIZO, your mother in law has worked to raise goodness knows how much money for them and you yourself have been to the odd WIZO fundraiser, there aint nothing they can do for you.\u00a0 Bummer to that.<\/p>\n The other problem was that the full fee covers 6 days a week, 7am til 4pm, and I am not ready to let my little one go for that long just yet.\u00a0 18 months is still “little” to my mind, so I would prefer he were at home with me at least half day.\u00a0 If he’s going to learn bad habits anywhere, I prefer he learn them from me.<\/p>\n Entering the\u00a0canyon (mall)\u00a0we spot a couple of those stands selling brands of Judaism that we might not have previously considered.\u00a0 We see\u00a0a Lubavitcher from Latvia helping a huge beefy bald\u00a0bloke with enormous tattoos and a goatie lay tefillin.\u00a0 Absolutely fabulous.\u00a0\u00a0 We are truly one people.<\/p>\n In Superspol we felt decidedly yok-like purchasing a chicken there.\u00a0 Now I know how the local watford massive feel buying chickens in Tesco for \u00a32.50.\u00a0 The difference in price to what I am used to is unbelivable,\u00a0 at 15 shekel they work out just over one quarter of the price I would pay in London.\u00a0 I was so shocked that I asked the guy behind the counter if there was anything wrong with them as they were so cheap.\u00a0 “Cheap?” He says.\u00a0 “We had 10 shekel ones earlier, you missed those”.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 Can’t imagine what those ones looked like.\u00a0 My guess is they didn’t have the most fulfilling life, but let’s not think about that for now.\u00a0 I told him I would normally pay the equivalent of about 60 shekels.\u00a0 He smiled at me and welcomed me to Israel.<\/p>\n One problem though.\u00a0 It’s not as pretty as I am used to.\u00a0 I mean it really looks like a chicken, bits sticking out of it, funny colour\u00a0and evidence of feathers.\u00a0 Not like the shiny clean ones I am used to in their neat packets.\u00a0 A friend of ours, who kindly shlepped up to welcome us from Tel Aviv informs me that he himself purchased a similarly ugly bird a few weeks back, and it was fine once he roasted it.\u00a0 It seems I may have to abandon my usual healthy fresh herb-and-spice concotions and pour some sort of Israeli Rotev (sauce) over it to avoid touching the thing completely.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oh how the mighty have fallen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Husband is complaining he is tired, poor thing.\u00a0 Says he can’t sleep at night what with the\u00a0stress of us being homeless, impending arrival of new baby and Jojo waking up.\u00a0 (He doesn’t like sleeping in his cot here, still a bit unsettled from all the change.)\u00a0 I told him the only reason\u00a0I am sleeping so … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aliyah"],"yoast_head":"\n