Medical Update: Making good progress: walking unaided around the house, with a stick outside; going for 30-minute walks; very little pain; approaching the point where I will have to pretend my recovery is slower, or Bernice will stop waiting on me hand and foot.

What do you do with the estimated journey time that Waze gives you? There are some people who trust Waze implicitly, and leave at exactly the time Waze indicates. A few people reckon they can shave at least 5 or 10 minutes off the time Waze suggests. And then there are those who allow twice the time Waze suggests, because ‘You never know what might happen.’

We have all, this week, been blessing the fact that Tslil falls into the last group, and that she was able to persuade Micha’el to leave early. Let me explain.

Direct flights between Portugal and Israel have not yet resumed, and so when the kids started planning their trip, they looked at a two-leg flight from Lisbon, with a layover in Madrid. We then pointed out to them, and they agreed, that it would probably be easier, with Tao, to drive to Madrid airport. At 370 km., it is only 100 km further than the drive to Lisbon.

The only concerns involved their truck. First was the question of parking, but Micha’el found a very reasonably priced long-term car park within ten minutes’ shuttle drive of the airport. It sounded ideal for their five-and-a-half week-stay.

The other concern was that the truck’s annual roadworthiness test was due shortly before their trip. The truck failed, unfortunately, and Micha’el had to take it to their local garage, where the necessary repairs were carried out at not too horrendous a cost. Micha’el felt he was cursed with car tests, since he had a record of several failures, after one of which, on the drive home from the test centre in Castelo Branco, the car broke down irretrievably.

So Tslil took the truck for its retest, three days before they were due to fly. The plan was that, if the truck failed, they would find a taxi-driver to take them to the airport. Fortunately, the truck passed.

So, around the middle of the day, Tslil, Micha’el and Tao set off for Madrid airport, allowing about 10 hours for the four-hour drive. Since their Portuguese mobiles do not have international roaming, Micha’el had loaded into Google Maps the car park address that he had previously saved. (Hold that thought!)

It was probably not a good omen that, on the journey, when they were stopped at a petrol station, a smoking car swerved into the station and screeched to a halt, two people leapt out, just before the car burst into flames. However, the kids were so relieved to have achieved, in the previous week, all of the tying up of loose ends, bureaucratic and on the land, that they needed to achieve, that they refused to be phased by the omen.

They made fairly good time, and were able to break their journey to give them all, and especially Tao, a chance to stretch their legs. Then they hit Madrid, and found themselves caught up in a horrendous traffic jam. It also seemed that they were driving much further into the heart of the city than they would have expected, for an airport car park. However, there was not much they could do except follow Google Maps, which eventually led them to a location that was clearly not a car park.

At this point, they started wondering whether the entire transaction (which had involved paying in advance) was a scam. That’s just the kind of thought you need when you are suffering from both chronic and short-term sleep deprivation, you are at what you hoped would be the end of what has so far been a nine-hour drive, with a two-year-old who, however sunny his natural disposition, is about to start expressing the wish that the journey would end, and you are now only two-and-a-half hours from take-off.

With no internet, and no local phone, they wondered what they could possibly do, especially since the ‘ridiculous’ cushion of time that Tslil had insisted on allowing was swiftly losing all of its stuffing. Micha’el, displaying a typical combination of sound commonsense and total faith in karma, suggested that they drive to the airport, since the car park must be somewhere around there.

At the airport, they found a long-term car park, which was, however, deserted. So much for commonsense. They also found a passing pizza deliverer, who spoke enough English for them to be able to explain their difficulty. That’s karma for you. The pizza boy very kindly entered the correct car park’s address into his phone, found the location on the map and showed the map to Micha’el. Micha’el then found the location on his Google Maps map, and marked it manually.

The kids then drove to the correct car park, where the guard admitted their truck, took the keys, hung them up with hundreds of others, and then drove them to the airport, leaving the key cupboard and the car park unlocked and unmanned. We’re all hoping they will find their truck still there when they return.

‘Within ten-minutes’ drive of the airport’ of course means ‘within ten minutes’ drive of the outer perimeter gate of the airport’, which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be another ten minutes’ drive from the actual terminal. However, they arrived, without further trouble. The guard/shuttle driver gave the kids a phone number which (theoretically) they can call to order a shuttle when they return.

Astonishingly, after all that, check-in, including security and Covid documentation, was smooth and fast. A shuttle train whisked them to the departure gate, where they arrived 15 minutes before boarding started. Easy, really.

It was only some time later that Micha’el realized that he must have originally loaded into Google Maps not the address of the car park, but another address that he had saved earlier for another reason. I suppose we should all be grateful that the address was at least in Madrid.

Tao (and Tslil) slept well on the flight; our regular taxi-driver (who had driven them to the airport when they left Israel for Portugal almost two years ago) collected them, and they were on our doorstep before 7:30 last Monday morning. Despite his surfeit of vehicles – truck, car, shuttle train, plane, taxi – over the previous 17 hours, Tao arrived with his usual smile, and it took him hardly any time to make himself at home here.

For me, he has been the best incentive to recover from my op; for Bernice, he has been the best fitness exercise program imaginable; for both of us, his company, and that of his parents, has been an absolute joy; of which more next week, bli neder.