Dance Mat & Settlers

Happy New Year!

New year's eve was spent with J & S and a few friends who persuaded us to show our John Travolta and Olivia Newton John skills on a dance mat - for those who haven't had a go on one you need to. Unfortunately we forgot our camera so you will have to imagine the elegance and artistic interpretation expressed by two semi-retired ballroom dancers. For a demo see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTBkdy1XjOU&feature=related

I retired to the lounge to let Jane have more time to resurrect her disco skills. I joined in a game of 'Settlers', and having never played this brilliant strategy game before I managed to come last on a regular basis - this game is a must for board game enthusiasts and is now top of my Christmas/birthday list for this year. P

Star Street

Crowds approaching Manger Square along Star Street on Christmas Eve to see Jane appearing again with the college choir, this time in front of TV cameras and thousands who had travelled from the four corners of the earth to see her. The performance clashed with the Anglican service in the Church of the Nativity, which President Mahmoud Abbas and I attended, we were both were disappointed to have missed Jane, but there's always next year. Jane and I got home from our Christmas Eve party at 4am and we were clocking in for work at 9am. Looking forward to the Orthodox Christmas, is there an Orthodox Santa? P

A Frosty Christmas Morning

We have the BBC as our homepage and the weather is set for Jerusalem (4 miles away). Its going to be a frosty Christmas Eve, much like home.
Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and may 2008 be peaceful for us all. P&J

Spot the ginger Santa!

The local tradition is for a 'stranger' to play Santa, they had to look no further than the Bible College! The House of Hope is a school and home for people of all ages who are blind or have learning disabilities. Jane is a regular visitor and volunteered me for the central role in the Christmas party. Previous rugby experience proved invaluable in dealing with the scrummage that commenced when I entered the room, I only had time for three Ho's before I was surrounded by a flood of children, I can't remember there being a session covering this at CMS training. P

Jane on the road

After a brilliant first performance Jane was centre stage for the next choir outing. This concert was in the centre of Bethlehem as part of a two week long festival. The weather was very cold (jumper & trousers under the dresses), it is mild during the day 16c down to 1c at night. Friday and Saturday the choir are on the road again and then Christmas Eve in Manger Square - look out for her on the BBC!! P

Spot the Blonde Arab!

Singing in Arabic is a totally new experience for for me. The occasion is a concert for World Vision, who are regular donors for the college. I hope my interpretation of the beautiful Arabic songs were not too much of a distraction, they continued with our donation anyway. I am joining the choir for a Christmas tour of the West bank and will also have the opportunity to sing in the services around manger square. The dresses were specially made for the occasion are are similar to the Bedouin women who live in the Judean desert. West bank and then the West end, somehow I don't think so! But you never know.
PS if you ever want to enlarge a photo in our blog, a double left click on the mouse will fill your screen with wonderful portraits and delightful scenes.

The Green Room

Here am I in my counselling office. It was painted a few weeks ago by a team from Bath. Some of the students were quite horrified that it was not the usual sterile white colour that is normal out here; green is seen as radical! I am looking quite austere and professional, however I want the room to be a relaxing place to chill and dump issues and problems. There are 2 comfy chairs to relax and curl up in. Mostly I counsel in English, although I do have an excellent translator, some things do get lost in translation. I have started having booked appointments but eventually I will start and build up the drop in sessions. I have many jobs here, but this is the one that I slot into the easiest despite the massive cultural change. J

The birthday optical illusion

Please do not tell Jane that I only bought her 6 roses for her birthday. They were quickly put into a vase and placed in front of the mirror - she is so grateful for her dozen roses!!! We spent the day before her birthday in Jerusalem and went to the American Colony Hotel, as you can see from the website it's in keeping with Jane's expensive tastes. I bought her a mineral water and then made an excuse to leave before she saw the menu. http://www.americancolony.com/

As you can see, Jane's cards were in keeping with the huge bouquet of flowers she received! Some of my birthday cards have already arrived (hint-hint) and even a Christmas card, they don't have Christmas cards in Bethlehem! P

Work...work...work!!

Honestly we are working, although you wouldn't think it if you read our blog. Last weekend we felt called to visit Beit Immanuel at Jaffa, our room was actually bigger than our flat! We supported a local restaurant which just happened to overlook the beach and was about 20 yards from the sea (the light blue building on the right). The other big disadvantage was having to watch the sun set into the Med as we tucked into our meal - tables were restricted to a 2 hour reservation - it was quite popular. As you can see the weather was very disappointing - is was too hot. This was our first whole weekend off and we escaped Friday morning and returned early Monday - the bus service is excellent (four buses in under two hours @£7.50 return). We hope to produce a letter with something more about the real life here, although the photos will not be as interesting! P

My new Best Friend !

This is Ringo, our new friend, he has replaced Kel, our neighbour, who has taken a well deserved holiday for a couple of weeks. Ringo has settled into our flat just after J put her glass on the table. The moral is to always check your glass after you have finished your drink because you may find your new best friend has just dropped in. He is a multi lingual beetle so he can understand Hebrew, Arabic and most other languages. In fact he is an excellent listener. We do not know his pedigree but he his most obliging when we need to sound off. I think that you will notice from the picture that he is quite vain. Ringo is definitely making an effort to show his best side here. Any comments will be passed on to Ringo and will be kept in the strictest of confidence. P and J

A little bit of England

One of our home churches is St Georges Cathedral in Jerusalem. It really does look like a bit of England has been dropped into Israel. We enjoy going there and being at ease in the familiar services and prayer meetings. Oh and I expect you know (because his website is probably one of your favourites) the AB of C popped in this week, I think we must have been out when he called on us

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/071030.htm

Not one off the most exciting blogs in the world but we have to keep the AB of C, vicar, PCC and CMS happy, and show that we haven't gone totally off the rails!

P

You should see the one that got away!

I had my first taste of fresh fish since being in the middle east. My Omega 3 levels were somewhat depleted so we popped into the Jerusalem Shopping Mall and ordered a St Peters fish. These are traditionally from Galilee. At this time I didn't particular care where it came from I just ate the thing. The mall was fresh and clean and most importantly air conditioned. P and I are not know for having an interest in shopping but its funny the things you do when you are an expat abroad. The only things we bought were 25 envelopes and a clip for P's new Mp3 player. We attempted to by a rather large Rubric cube but it was totally non functional! We would be grateful if somebody could send us out one, surface mail would be fine, it will arrive before Christmas. J

Returning after 23 years

23 years ago my father and I visited Israel. We stayed in Jerusalem for a few nights and I remembered roughly where the hotel was located (East Jerusalem!!) so last week we searched for it, and eventually we located it. My father spent hours on the hotel roof looking out over the Old City and the Mount of Olives, the receptionist allowed us to visit the roof so that we could take some pictures:

It was just as I remembered it, the view hasn't changed, you will have to come to our slide show to see the view of the Mount of Olives. We then continued to wonder through Jerusalem - the old city is fascinating to walk through and there are no cars, which is a welcome relief from the rest of Jerusalem. You must come over sometime! P

Another quiet Sunday night in the W B

Today has been a good relaxing day, we went to a local church just up the road. We took a big yellow taxi because of the piercing heat which is taking a little while to get used to. I constantly have a bright red 'beetroot' coloured face, which provides much amusement to our new P friends. For lunch we ate out - some beautifully flavoured lamb chunks with salad and pickled yellow cauliflower, I then had my first Arabic coffee which was dark and strong and for a short while gave me a raised heat beat. However I still managed to have a Sunday afternoon dose after saying Goodbye to 6 Americans who had stayed at the guest house.
Tomorrow a new week starts, we will plug on with the gift shop products, Christmas is coming and we need to get sorted - one of the elves has been spotted in the store cupboard a long way from Lapland!!!!
My sisters bday this Tues. Happy bday S. Birthday cards are not part of P culture so people are getting different scenes from B. Hope that will suffice. J

Just another manic Saturday

Our second weekend and our social life is taking off!! On Saturday after saying farewell to guests in the guest house we got a lift to W Jerusalem with J & S. We went to an international church (they meet on a Saturday because Sunday is the first day of the working week in Israel). Following the service we walked to a park where we picnicked with some of their friends before heading of to an English pub 'Mike's Place'. On one screen was the Man U game but more importantly the rugby world cup was being shown in the basement - the only place to see the England vs Australia game for miles around.
We then raced home to get ready for a house warming party given by a teacher at the college.
and next Saturday it's the semi-final!!

First Guests

On Friday evening we welcomed our first guests to the college guest house. We are now responsible for evening and weekend hospitality. It was very helpful that the group leader, George, had been here many times before so he could show us what to do because we only had our initiation one hour before. It was also an answer to some concern about our blog instructuions being in German - a member of the group was a computer tec and was able to show us how to change the language each time we need to made a new message. Here is the college canteen with the kitchen in the background and Jane second in from the left:

We Here!!

We've arrived and have quickly settled into our 'flat-let'.

Garden Party

So many friends in one place meant that we couldn't have a good chin-wag with everyone, this is your opportunity to chat back!

After staying with parents in Yatton we will be heading East to our Heathrow hotel on Tuesday and further East on Wednesday we'll hopefully keep you posted. P

Packing up a life

Today we packed our lives into 2 tiny red suitcases each. Twenty years of living in Nailsea are now condensed into our luggage and one impersonal wooden packing case no322, size 7 ft x 7ft x5. And yet it feels immensely liberating; we are free to start over to review the way we live, the things we buy. We are so excited about moving to the middle east, a new fresh start , living and working, learning to trust in our God.
I have lost control of my western lifestyle and await the excitement and vibrancy of B. So sad to say good bye but really wanted to say hello to the new world that awaits us. Bye to the Southwest, Weston beach, Clevedon pier, the Mendip hills. New vistas await...

J

Sad Farewells

It has been a time of many farewells. Some sad - others a little bit more cheerful, although there were some tears at the end of this one:

It has been more difficult than I thought it would be to say 'good-bye' to family and friends -

Do keep in contact. P

No more magnolia !

The decorating is over, calling the bank, BT, council etc will start tomorrow - I can't wait to listen to the wonderful tunes whilst being held in queues.

Looking forward to seeing friends at our farewell gathering on Sunday

P

The last days of summer ...

Fall has started the leave are starting to blow and swirl and the autumn rain has blown in. However early this morning the sun was blissful; I was determined to drag out what seems like those final last days of brightness, so off to church I marched wearing white summer half trousers and grey M and S breast cancer t shirt, marching against that grey ensuing tide.

Saw Simpson movie, um mediocre, anyway good for a doze. P and N and S enjoyed, I think I more of a girlie film person myself. Good to have a break from the endless packing and chucking out. J

Taxed Out!!

Today is our first blog day and I feel totally taxed out. I find it incedibly hard to believe that 2 people who are leaving the country have to fill in so many forms! We are taxed on earning nothing whether we are in or out of the country, have a house or not. Some how the excitement and glamour or moving to a far distant land is absent today. Reality hits home. J