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