Lots of ground to cover today, so let’s get started.

First up: I took a certain amount of (albeit muted) flak from one or two people the other week when I made a passing reference to the fact that Esther is pregnant. They were surprised that Bernice and I had not told them earlier that Esther and Ma’ayan are expecting; Esther is due in mid-March. So, my first New Year’s Resolution for 2022 is to tell people earlier when we are expecting a grandchild.

This is actually very exciting, because this is a resolution which I am able to keep, within the first week of the new year. I’m delighted to tell you that Micha’el and Tslil are also expecting. Tslil has just completed her first trimester, so we are looking forward to somewhere in early July. 2022 is already shaping up to be a busier, and better, year than 2021.

If we’re already talking about Micha’el, Tslil and Tao, then you might like to know that they have a new, 30-minute(!) video on their YouTube channel, which will take you through the whole process of what they have been doing on their land over the last year or more, with a particular focus on all the work involved in erecting the tipi. (As you can see, I still can’t decide how to spell ‘tepee’. I must say, using a variety of spellings makes me feel rather Shakespearean.) You can find the video here. (And for those of you who are less interested in teepees than in Tao, he features as well.)

But, getting back to resolutions, the end of January will mark four years since I retired – or approximately 9500 working hours, but who’s counting? Reflecting on those four years, I remembered the witty little ditty I composed for my farewell party at work, in which I shared some of my plans for retirement. I’ve just revisited the poem, and I’m afraid it looks remarkably like all those New Year’s resolutions I used to make before I made a New Year’s resolution not to make any New Year’s resolutions (which is, unsurprisingly, just about the only New Year’s resolution I had ever kept until just now).

I planned, for example, to finally read Ulysses. I dutifully bought the book, although I did not help my chances by choosing, from the various options, the Oxford edition that reproduces the original 1922 text, typographical errors and all. What I hadn’t realised until the book arrived was that this copy also faithfully reproduced the original font, in its original size. This makes the actual physical task of reading, in your 70s, just a little more of a strain. If there’s one thing you don’t need as you wade through Ulysses, it’s a little more of a strain.

This volume also boasts multiple aids to reading, prepared by the scholarly Jeri Johnson: a 50-page introduction, three appendices, and 218 pages of explanatory notes. A point can be reached where the distinction in meaning between ‘reading aids’ and ‘reading impediments’  becomes blurred.

Not content with that, I also bought, as recommended, Harry Blamires’ excellent The New Bloomsday Book, and then, when I found a second-hand copy of Anthony Burgess’ legendary guide to Joyce’s work, Here Comes Everybody (albeit hiding under its American title of ReJoyce), how could I resist it?

I made a noble start. I read Johnson’s 50-page introduction, then decided, on the basis of recommendations online, to tackle the novel not from Page 1, but, rather, by cherry-picking the more accessible chapters first. I started at the end, with Molly Bloom’s famous monologue (whose driving rhythm I rather unfairly hampered by flicking to and fro between text and notes).

After another chapter, I decided that I would actually prefer to read from beginning to end, and managed to negotiate four or five chapters. This involved prepping from Burgess and Blamires, and keeping one finger in Blamires’ notes and another in Johnson’s, while reading the text.

Around this time, I discovered RTÉ Radio’s 1982 dramatisation of Ulysses. Broadcast to celebrate the centenary of Joyce’s birth, it is widely regarded as the definitive adaptation of the work. It is faithful to the text, being basically a dramatized audiobook, rather than an adaptation, with actors taking the parts of the narrator and the various speaking characters.

Having come across it, I wrestled for a couple of weeks with the philosophical question of whether hearing a book read constitutes reading the book. Having decided that it did – good heavens, I have read several books this last year to Bernice, and she certainly qualifies as having read them – I now find myself liberated.

I am ingesting Ulysses through my ears rather than my eyes, in a far more authentic Dublin accent than my imagination could ever conjure. (I’m currently reading Shuggie Bain aloud to Bernice – another laugh-a-minute novel – and my working-class Glasgow accent makes even me wince.)

I highly recommend the experience of the radio dramatization. The Irish national broadcaster RTÉ offers a very spirited performance of the book, with very few distractions from the words themselves. You might want to pay it a visit (as long as you have 29 hours and 45 minutes to spare, for that is its total running time). At this rate, 2022 may well be the year of War and Peace, if I can only find an unabridged reading.

Another of my self-assigned post-retirement projects was to explore in depth Schubert’s Winterreise – Winter Journey, a cycle of 24 songs for voice and piano that reflect on the last stage of life and the movement towards death. (Oh yes! We love our light comedy!) It took me a long time to grow fond of classical song, particularly for male voice. Decades ago, I bought Bernice a CD set of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert lieder, including Winterreise. It is only in recent years that I have started listening to it.

I then learnt about the phenomenon that is Ian Bostridge, an Oxford history professor, who transitioned from academia to professional singing in his thirties, bursting onto the scene with an acclaimed Wigmore Hall performance of Winterreise (a work which has fascinated him since his youth). He is a very dramatic performer, fully playing a character rather than simply singing the song.

So, I downloaded Bostridge’s Winterreise, and also bought his highly praised study of the work, Schubert’s Winter Journey – Anatomy of an Obsession. (You may be detecting a pattern here: ‘first buy a book’ is the part of every project that I can manage without any difficulty.) I fully intended to work through the cycle, song by song, comparing Fischer-Dieskau’s interpretation with Bostridge’s, and accompanying each song with the relevant chapter from Bostridge’s book.

I still do fully intend to do that, and in fact I’m tempted to make that a 2022 resolution. If I aim to explore one song every fortnight, I should finish the cycle by the end of the year.

As I talk about it here, part of my heart soars at this exciting prospect. Bostridge writes beautifully: his translations of the poems are poems in their own right, and his exploration of his own reflections is fascinating. In addition, the two singers, Fischer-Dieskau and Bostridge, have such contrasting styles that listening to them in tandem will be a wonderful way of helping me determine what I feel is the essence of each song.

At the same time, another part of my heart sinks. I can’t escape the feeling that I am setting myself up to disappoint myself again. I am reminded of Che Guevara’s words (although I may have slightly misread the quote):

“The resolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”

But who knows? Perhaps 2022 will be the year when I really, finally, manage to shake the resolution tree hard enough for lots of apples to fall.

Either way, 2022 is a year I intend to embrace with both arms. (Can you embrace with one arm? I wonder how Nelson managed with Lady Hamilton. But I digress.) Whatever! I close by wishing you all a wonderful 2022. May you always feel confident in your own skin; and remember: what looks like a pile of dirt might turn out to actually be fine-sifted soil perfect for your tipi floor.

But before we get to that….

Housekeeping 1: I apologise for being, as one of my readers put it, a ‘despondent Penamacorrespondent’ last week. A couple of people contacted me clearly concerned that they might have to talk me down from the window ledge. Please always remember, dear reader, that this blog is, as they say ‘based on real events’, but might sometimes take liberties in order to create a more interesting story. It’s probably fair to say that the ‘low’ I sustained over 1400 words last week represented a low that I was in for only a few moments in real life, but I decided that it made good copy.

Housekeeping 2: Last Monday morning, I was able to get through to TAP on the phone. I explained the situation, and was assured that I could request a refund on our entire ticket (both outgoing and incoming flights). The rep explained to me that, if I requested the refund on the phone, I would incur a service charge, but, if I did it online, there would be no charge. So, I naturally hung up and attempted to request a refund online. However, at the critical moment, the website informed me that I could not complete the process online and I should contact the carrier.

I phoned TAP again, and, astonishingly, was again connected within seconds. I told the whole story again, and the rep was happy to process my request. When I asked about the fee, and pointed out that TAP was directly responsible both for causing me to request the refund and for forcing me to request it by phone, the rep assured me that there would be no fee. So, it looks like a good result. Now ask me whether we have received the refund yet….Not yet. Watch this space. The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.

Nor, indeed, is the musical – of which Bernice and I have seen two in the last couple of weeks: one on the big screen and the other on the stage. These were two very different experiences, for a number of reasons, and I have found myself thinking about the nature of the musical, and how I feel about it.

Our first outing was to the cinema, to see Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story. (Spoiler alert: he still dies in the end; she still doesn’t – of which more later.) Bernice had been very keen to see this, while I was a little less sure. I found it hard to believe that the remake would be very different from the original, with its various strengths and weaknesses, and I suspected that I would not get very much new from the evening. However, I’m very glad we did go. It was an evening whose plusses, for me, far outweighed its minuses.

Let’s start with the weaknesses of the original. Roger Ebert revisited the 1961 version in 2004, to mark its DVD release, and concluded his review with the following paragraph:

“So the dancing is remarkable, and several of the songs have proven themselves by becoming standards, and there are moments of startling power and truth. West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno’s fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad-boy Archies and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original, there’s no telling what might have resulted. The movie began with a brave vision, and it is best when you sense that vision surviving the process by which it was turned into safe entertainment.”

I think I would agree with all of that. Now, let me work through Roger Ebert’s checklist to see how the 2021 remake measures up.

So the dancing is remarkable: We both felt that the dancing was, if anything, even better this time round, especially in the outdoor scenes on the actual streets of New York. Less explicitly ‘balletic’, and more street-muscular.

Several of the songs have proven themselves by becoming standards: It’s still Bernstein and Sondheim, so of course the songs are still sensational (especially the music). Even better, in fact, because the actors all do their own singing. However, I was sorry to hear that Sondheim’s original, 1961-risqué lyric was not restored. Anita, looking forward to a night of passion with Bernardo, still sings

He’ll come home hot and tired.
Poor dear!
No matter if he’s tired
As long as he’s near.

rather than, as originally written:

He’ll come home hot and tired.
So what!
No matter if he’s tired
As long as he’s hot.

There are moments of startling power and truth: Here, the new version adds several extra layers. The social context of the Puerto Rican and Polish gangs is fleshed out with multiple pieces of back-story; there is a very real sense of the whole extended Puerto Rican community. All of the dialogue has been newly written by Tony Kushner, and, largely through this process, the film becomes darker, richer; it becomes less of a vehicle for knee-jerk sympathy than the original, and a slightly more nuanced discussion of the urban reality of about-to-be-redeveloped Upper West Side.  

One particular decision I felt was very effective. A lot of the dialogue among the Puerto Ricans is in Spanish, and Spielberg refused to subtitle this in English. I believe the reason given was to avoid English being seen as the default, natural or superior language. The consequence of this for me is that I experienced the ‘otherness’ of the Puerto Ricans; particularly the one new ‘song’, an alternate, revolution-minded version of La Borinqueña, the Puerto Rican national anthem, comes across as remarkably threatening. It is very unsettling to be unsure whether and just how the Jets are being insulted and jeered at by this song.

Moreno’s fierce concentration: Ariana DeBose in the role of Anita is as fiery as Rita Moreno was, and that’s saying something

If the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad-boy Archies and Jugheads: Done! The weapons the gangs arm themselves with, the fighting that is shown, the attempted rape of Anita in the final act, some of the dancing, are all uglier and more threatening this time round. Even the light and mocking comicality of Gee, Officer Krupke is made a little more serious by the trashing of a room in the police precinct building.

If the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original: Here, sadly, Hollywood still hasn’t grown up. In 2021, much to my disappointment, the same unforgivable mistake is made as in 1961. Shakespeare knew that Juliet could not contemplate life with Romeo dead; she had to commit suicide. Hollywood thinks it knows better. I ask you: if Juliet/Maria survives, where do you see her in 5, or 10, or 20 years’ time? There is no reasonable answer to that question.

I was willing Rachel Zegler to turn Chino’s gun on herself and pull the trigger, but I’m afraid she didn’t.

Setting that one lapse aside, I heartily recommend the 2021 West Side Story. Do yourself a favour, and see it on the big screen, with the big sound system.

Bernice and I followed this, last Thursday, with a trip to see an amateur production of Annie. Now, I’m not going to lie to you. We wouldn’t have gone to see it had it not been for the fact that no fewer than three of our great-nieces were among the orphans. Now, I’m still not going to lie to you. A cold and wet early winter evening found me still hoping against hope that the Israeli government would announce an immediate Covid shutdown of all places of entertainment. But, it was not to be, and so we made the trek to Jerusalem.

The first pleasant surprise was that the theatre in the Masorti school in Talpiot is a rather splendid small theatre, with a seriously raked auditorium. We were almost in the back row, and it brought back fond memories of sitting in the gods in the West End.

I came to Annie almost as inexperienced as Maria in West Side Story. I could hum Tomorrow, and I knew that our heroine is rescued from the orphanage by Big Daddy, but that was it. Bernice had clear memories of us seeing the film together, but in the end she grudgingly conceded that she may have gone with Esther.

The second pleasant surprise was the level of professionalism of the whole production. Of course, all three of our great-nieces were magnificent, but almost everyone else was very good as well. As is always the case with this particular theatre company, a huge amount of effort had been put into all of the technical aspects. The mere logistics of dressing and making up a cast of 63 adults and children are daunting.

A creative set and spirited performances were enhanced, as usual, by a professional live nine-piece band. It’s fair to say that the performances were a little uneven, but everyone was in very good voice and a couple of the cast would not be out of place on the professional stage.

All of which makes me feel that I can offer some comments on the musical itself. Annie is set in the New York of the early 1930s Depression era. A bald account of the plot would suggest that it is very dark. At one point, our heroine wanders the streets and encounters a group of homeless people surviving by beggary and theft. Another scene shows FDR and his advisers wrestling with the nation’s economic problems.

However, the musical itself does not really take these situations seriously; they are little more than the backdrop against which the fairy-tale story plays out. I do not offer this as a criticism, but simply as an observation. Many musicals are set at a time of social upheaval and transition. Some of them are vehicles for examining and critiquing that situation. Others use the situation simply as a way to drive the plot. Oklahoma and Paint Your Wagon, for example, recreate an America settling the West. However, they do not overly concern themselves with that. Annie belongs in that group. Even the songs whose subject-matter is bleak cannot resist cute lyrics.

Prosperity was ’round the corner
The cozy cottage built for two
In this blue heaven that you gave us Yes!
We’re turning blue!

They offered us Al Smith and Hoover
We paid attention and we chose
Not only did we pay attention
We paid through the nose.

West Side Story, particularly in its 2021 version, captures New York at a time of transition, and has at least some serious things to say about the impact of that transition on the local population. There are, of course, musicals that involve themselves much more deeply in similar serious questions. One obvious example is Cabaret. Another example, and one that always surprises me by the depth of its examination of real issues, is Fiddler on the Roof. These are two examples of serious musical theatre and each, in its own way, demonstrates how song can add another layer of atmosphere, emotion and context to serious drama.

And speaking of musical comedy (as we almost were):
– Do you know you’ve still got your coat on?
– No, but you sing the first verse and I’ll join in the chorus.

In any normal week, Sunday morning finds me leaping upstairs after breakfast, taking the steps two at a time, my twin titanium hips working overtime to get me seated in front of the computer with not a moment wasted, as I struggle to keep the ideas that are bouncing around my head from bubbling over before I can capture them on the screen.

Not this week. This week I have taken pains to put off the moment when I flip open the laptop, open a new file in Word, and start to write my post. I lingered in shul after the morning service today. Once I got back home, I found various ways to delay starting to dice the fruit for our breakfast, even emptying the dishwasher, taking care to count the various types of cutlery, to ensure that nothing had gone missing.

After breakfast, I disappeared upstairs to do some vital filing until it was time for us to leave for the trip I had insisted we take today to IKEA. Because we were looking for items for ourselves and also for Esther and Ma’ayan, this involved over two complete circuits of the store, and then, of course, it made no sense not to stay for lunch. As soon as we arrived home, I simply had to assemble the standard lamps we had bought for the salon.

The result of all this elaborate avoidance strategy is that it is now gone 7 on Sunday evening, and I am only now starting to write.

Why, you may be asking, this unaccustomed reluctance? I could pretend that it is purely out of consideration for you, because this will, I’m afraid, not be the usual jaunty laugh-a-minute cheerful-chappie piece, but something rather bleaker. The fact is that I’m not looking forward to writing it any more than I’m looking forward to you reading it.

I feel that over the past week this bloody pandemic has caught up with me. Let me make it clear, quickly, that neither Bernice nor I nor any of the family have caught Covid, in any of its Greek alphabet strains. No, it’s just that everywhere I look there are Covid aggravations, and it’s really getting me down.

I can actually put my finger on one specific straw that broke this camel’s back. Last Thursday, we received an email from TAP. Now, when the Portuguese airline writes to me out of the blue, it is seldom in order to tell me that I have won this month’s raffle, or that Bernice and I have been upgraded to business class. As I glanced through the email, my eye was caught by the subject – Cancelamento devido a nova variante do CoronaVírus. Even your Portuguese must be good enough to get the gist of that. The text of the message began: Operação Suspensa: Lamentamos informar que… You surely get the picture.

So, our flight from Tel Aviv to Lisbon on January 16 has been cancelled. The good news is that we are eligible for a voucher to the value of 110% of what we paid, or a full refund. The bad news is that the email makes no mention of the status of our return flight from Lisbon on February 13.

Since receiving the email, I have spent hours on the phone, trying to speak to TAP. On one occasion, I even got through to a rep; however, when he put me on hold, while he was retrieving the details of our booking, TAP’s system bounced me to their automated customer survey, asking me how satisfied I was with the way my problem had been resolved. (On a scale of 1 to 5. When are they going to invent a phone keyboard with negative numbers?) From there, I was, of course, disconnected. On Saturday and Sunday, they do no work at all (hands up if you sang that line with me), so tomorrow (as I write), Monday, will find me wasting the day trying to establish whether all flights out have been cancelled, or we can reschedule, and whether we are entitled to a full refund for the return flight that may, now, be of no use to us.

In today’s news, we learnt that Portugal is on an extended list of countries that Israel is contemplating declaring to be red, and also that the Israeli government is considering closing the airport completely for a week or two.

We would probably be a lot more devil-may-care about flying out, and risking being stranded in Portugal, were it not for the fact that Esther is due to give birth in March, and we (particularly, but not exclusively, the Bernice parts of we) feel that we must be sure of being in Israel to offer help and support and, b’ezrat Hashem, to shep nachus (something that can only properly be done in Yiddish, of course).

So here we are, faced with the task of attempting to make a decision when we are not in possession of any of the relevant facts that might inform such a decision.

Please don’t think that this is just a moan about poor little me, or even poor little us. I’d like to crave your indulgence while I extrapolate. Our problem, writ large, is the problem faced by Naftali Bennett and his corona cabinet, by Boris Johnson, and, indeed, by every world leader. They, like us, are all being asked to decide on the best course of action when nobody honestly knows enough about the situation we find ourselves in.

For Bernice and myself, dithering for a few days, or even a week or two, is very draining, and is already making us very tense, but at least the eyes of the nation are not upon us. For our elected leaders, the situation is very much more fraught. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that for a long time we have been led to believe that modern science provides us with the tools that enable us to make scientifically sound decisions in all fields. Suddenly confronted with the clear fact that it ain’t necessarily so (a song for every occasion), we feel at best cast adrift, at worse betrayed. (A friend pointed out to me over dinner on shabbat that while this is true for part of the population, there is another part that rejects entirely the validity of all science. This certainly doesn’t help the situation.)

Initially, way back in what now almost seem like the halcyon days of early-to-mid 2020, the zigzagging of governments and the tension between politicians and scientists could sometimes raise a laugh, or at least a wry smile. But now? Lately, I look around me, and, indeed, inside me, and see only frustration, frayed tempers, intolerance, embittered skepticism. I listen to radio interviewers not attempting to conceal their anger or contempt for civil servants outlining plans currently being implemented; I see friends falling out over restrictions; I hear and read inflammatory language from those on both sides, on all sides, of the debate about how to handle the crisis, even about whether there is a crisis.

We are told that, in many cases, the long-term effects of Covid may be worse than the symptoms experienced when the virus infects an individual. I am genuinely afraid that the social effects of long Covid may be equally serious. As we approach the end of Year 2 with no end in sight, I fear for the entire fabric of society.

So, perhaps, making our way to Portugal and living off the grid in a tepee is the best thing we can do. It certainly looks nice and cosy.

So here we are, eight days before the shortest day in the year and about ten days after the earliest sunset in the year. (For those of you whose intuition is that the shortest day of the year should be the day when the sunset is latest, let me point you to the least incomprehensible explanation I have found of the phenomenon known as analemma.)

(Of course, a small but select portion of my readership should substitute ‘longest’ and ‘latest’ for ‘shortest’ and ‘earliest’ in the above paragraph, but if you think I’m going to do that for you after what you did to us at the Gabba….)

However, despite what the calendar says, the weather feels much more like autumn, at least here in Maale Adumim. In fact, as I write on Sunday, it feels like an Indian summer. (Which I just googled, incidentally, to discover that it has nothing to do with the Raj, as I always thought, and we should probably be calling it a Native American summer.)

All of which has nothing to do with this week’s topic (so don’t stop reading, even if you’ve understood next to nothing so far). It was only the thought of leaves that enticed me to precede them with ‘Autumn’, so that you would never guess just what I plan to share with you, which is, in fact, some reflections on the books I happen to be reading (or, ‘leafing’ through – d’ya geddit?) at the moment.

In the past – and certainly until I retired – I would only ever read one book at a time. At that stage, almost all of my reading was fiction. Sometimes a complete working week would go by without me finding (or, perhaps I should say, making) time to read at all. I then discovered, if I attempted to read two novels simultaneously, that characters from one would start sneaking through to the other, until I reached the point where I was no longer sure who belonged where.

Once I retired, however, I started to stretch myself, and also began reading far more non-fiction than ever previously, to the point where I now feel confident in juggling up to four books simultaneously, rarely, if ever, fumbling any of them. This feat is undoubtedly made easier by the fact that two of the books are what I am reading aloud to Bernice, and all four books are from very different genres.

Having made a conscious decision a year or so ago to read more poetry, our (theoretically daily) reading sessions begin with a poem. Perhaps, on reflection, our current volume of poetry might more accurately be called verse. My brother and I grew up with a volume of light verse first published in 1933 and, in our edition, revised in the early 1950s. It was written by literary siblings Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon.

An aside: It’s incredible how much cultural background you need in order to understand immediately the social significance of such things as personal or street names in England. To give just one example. A British TV sitcom of the 1960s starred Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques, who lived in Sebastopol Terrace, Acton, London. The Siege of Sebastopol (1854–5) was a major campaign in the Crimean War. Over the next 40 years, London grew 500% in area. This meant that, in every new district, large numbers of names had to be found for new streets. Crimean War victories were an obvious candidate for commemoration in this way. By 1960, the houses in these new districts were 80 or more years old. As a result, ‘Sebastopol Terrace’ was a recognizable shorthand for a rundown street of Victorian houses in a neglected area of London. Similarly, all three names ‘Herbert’, ‘Eleanor’ and ‘Farjeon’ together place the siblings firmly in the upper-middle classes of the first half of the 20^th Century.

The book of verse we grew up with was Kings and Queens, which offered, for each of the English (later British) monarchs from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II, a one-page poem summarizing the highlights of the reign. These poems captured, mostly wittily, the popular perception of each monarch. If provoked, Martin and I are still capable of boring people at parties with recitations of the half-remembered verses.

Martin saw, and bought me for my last birthday, a follow-up volume, Heroes and Heroines, which dissects in a similar fashion such diverse figures as Robin Hood, Napoleon, Pocohontas and Florence Nightingale. Currently, Bernice and I are reading a poem a day as an amuse bouche before we read a chapter of a novel. Like so many sequels, Heroes and Heroines does not always reach the heights of Kings and Queens, but it is nevertheless a very enjoyable read, and I have learnt what Lady Hester Stanhope – who was previously just a name to me – is famous for.

The novel we are currently three-quarters of the way through is Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, whose central characters are an illegal Chinese immigrant in New York and her son. The novel is written from the viewpoints of both the mother and the son, and it movingly and powerfully explores the very real emotional and material hardships that many immigrants face. It is clearly very thoroughly researched, but never feels didactic, and the author’s control over how and when the elements of the story are revealed is masterful.

However, the first 280 pages have been almost relentlessly bleak. Indeed, Bernice feared that there would no redemption. I, on the other hand, have been waiting in expectation of a happy ending, and, in the last 20 pages, we both feel that we can see a faint pink glow that suggests that the sun may eventually shine again.

We have both been reflecting on the fact that almost all the novels we have read lately (and much of the non-fiction) ranges between depressing and gut-wrenching. It seems to me that this is not just a question of the narrative. In many Dickens novels, almost all of the storyline is bleak; however, there is a relish in the storytelling that lifts the spirits. That celebration of the form sometimes seems to me to be missing in contemporary literature.

As a counterweight to this, I started reading Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language. I am a great fan of Bryson (who isn’t?), both in his explicitly comic (Notes from a Small Island) and his more ‘serious’ (The Human Body) modes. I must admit that I initially found Mother Tongue a little plodding, with somewhat of a shopping list of examples and observations. I wonder whether that is because I know considerably more about the English language than I do about the human body. (Mind you, I know considerably more about most things than I do about the human body, even my own.) However, I am now warming to it rather more. Bryson is certainly a master of the casual comic aside, and, at his best, breathes real life into dry facts and statistics.

My fourth current book – designated as shabbat reading – is Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l’s last book, Morality. Let me lay my cards on the table. If there exists, at this moment, a more important book, a more enlightening book, a book better able to make sense of what ails the Western world in these troubled times, and to offer hope for our future, then I am not aware of it.

What makes this book so special? There are, I believe, a number of elements. Rabbi Sacks was both an academic philosopher and a deeply religious man. This combination gave him both the perspective to recognize, and the tools and vocabulary to analyze and discuss, the moral challenges of our age. Plagued (or blessed) with insomnia, he read very widely and voraciously, enabling him to bring a wealth of wide-ranging and relevant classic and contemporary sources to the discussion. A man of great modesty and intellectual honesty, he was incapable of subordinating the facts to his position on any issue. Above all, perhaps, he possessed what just might be the greatest gift an intellectual can have. He could see clearly to the heart of an argument, and was able to explain and discuss profound ideas in language of absolute clarity and simplicity.

In Morality’s 23 chapters, each only 10 or 20 pages long, Rabbi Sacks revisited several themes that had long been at the centre of his understanding of Judaism and its contribution to the world – family and community as opposed to the individual, covenant as opposed to contract, guilt culture as opposed to shame culture, choice as opposed to fate. In Morality he fused these and other elements into a single, unified approach to understanding and addressing the challenges of the modern age.

If you are concerned by the path Western society seems to be taking, and if you are looking for one book to read to make sense of what is happening, and to suggest how current trends might be reversed, then I cannot too highly recommend Morality as that book. Its subtitle is ambitious – Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times – but this only reflects Rabbi Sacks’ optimism and his overwhelming belief in man’s capacity for good. To read the book is to feel simultaneously saddened by all that the world has lost with his death and gladdened that he managed to leave us so rich a legacy of thought.

I pray that society will adopt his recommended approach, and thereby make the world an even better place for Tao to grow up in.

Meanwhile, Tao is channeling his energies into helping seal the cob floor of the tipee with linseed oil: repairing the world one coat at a time.

Castelo Branco is the major city of the district in which Penamacor is located. The municipality has over 50,000 inhabitants, and is home to a polytechnic college, and some manufacturing industry, providing components to the car industry. When we first visited, the city also boasted at least two strictly vegetarian restaurants, both of which we sampled.

The more modest establishment traded under the name Namaste, which won it no prizes for originality. (A quick Google research reveals that in almost any self-respecting town in England you will find a Namaste restaurant.) It was a no-frills establishment, offering, each day, a different set menu with no choices. The food was tasty, if relatively unexciting, and incredibly good value for money. The ambience was relaxed and casual, and the decor was similarly laid back, offering an eclectic choice of chair styles and cutlery.

All of that last paragraph is written in the past tense because, sadly, Namaste became one of the victims of Covid-19. On this last trip, however, we found that, as is so often the case, another similarly modest establishment has sprung up. Eschewing the Indian vibe of its predecessor, this trades under the unabashed name Fast Vegan, and what they say is what you get. When we went en famille to Castelo Branco, we planned to eat at the other, rather more up-market, vegetarian restaurant, but, in the event, my navigation brought us to Fast Vegan Café.

This was a slight disappointment because Michael and Tslil had explained to Tao the concept of choosing one’s meal from a range of dishes offered on a menu, and he was rather intrigued by the prospect of this novelty. However, Fast Vegan offered, again, a no-choice menu (with the exception of dessert). Fortunately, the main dish of the day was rotini (or pasta twirls, as I have always called them) in a vegan Bolognese sauce, accompanied by a simple but very fresh salad, all of which Tao heartily approved of, as, indeed, did we all.

The day out had begun with a visit to the municipal park, which boasts a very good adventure playground as well as a small wooded area, a cafe and several feature fountains. The plan had been for us to split up after lunch, with the kids going shopping for work clothes at a large outlet, and Bernice and I shopping for bathroom accessories at a nearby store. In the event, Tao was fairly exhausted from the park, and we all agreed that we would call it a day after lunch.

This meant that the following day Bernice and I returned to Castelo alone, to complete our shopping. After a successful morning, we drove into the centre of the city and went in search of the other, posher, eating establishment – Restaurant Mãos de Horta, which sounds to my ear considerably more enticing than Fast Vegan Café. Incidentally, I just Google translated Mãos de Horta; it apparently means ‘Hands to the Vegetable Garden’. Then I googled Mãos de Horta in the hope of finding out what ‘hands to the vegetable garden’ is supposed to mean. I came across a book of the same name, which is a ‘How to’ book for Portuguese aspiring backyard vegetable gardeners.

This turned out to be in the same location as the restaurant we had eaten in for my 70^th birthday: another story of a restaurant closing and another opening.

Online, the previous evening, I had established that the restaurant was open from 12 noon until 2AM, Tuesday to Saturday, with live music and what I am unreliably informed is a ‘funky vibe’ in the later evening hours. We reasoned that at 2PM, when we planned to arrive, the vibe, if there was one, would be rather more subdued. Unfortunately, the previous evening was Monday, so we were unable to phone to confirm those opening hours. However, we decided to take our chances.

We approached the restaurant door through a very pleasant outdoor terrace, where tables with linen tablecloths were warmed by autumnal early afternoon sun. This looked promising.

When we arrived at the door, it was closed but unlocked, which we took to be a good sign. Inside, there were no customers, and no staff in sight, which we took to be a bad sign. And yet, a recording of a very easy-on-the-ear jazz piano trio was playing in the background, which was surely encouraging. When a pleasant young man appeared behind the well-stocked bar in response to my ‘Hola!’, our spirits rose. However, when he explained apologetically that they had just closed for lunch until 6PM, our spirits fell again.

Rather uncharacteristically, I decided that I wasn’t prepared to fold in the face of what might be a bluff. I knew that the alternative to a meal on a sunlit terrace, washed in jazz piano, was a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate, and a couple of handfuls of peanuts and almonds, sitting in the car. I put on my most pitiful face and asked whether there weren’t any crumbs from the floor that they could offer us. The young man immediately disappeared to ‘ask the chef if there was anything he could do’ (Hurrah!) and returned a minute later, looking, again, a little apologetic (Oh no!) and explained that the only thing the chef could offer was the set menu of the day. (Yes!!) Without even asking what that was (there are few disgusting surprises that a vegan restaurant can offer), we gleefully accepted, and stepped back outside to choose a table.

Over the next 40 minutes, we enjoyed a delicious, if luridly purple, beetroot soup, followed by a main course that consisted of four separate dishes on a single rectangular plate. The presentation was unflashy but very tasteful. A mound of thin spaghetti with peanut and leaf in a beet sauce; a fresh-tasting mangold salad; a cylinder of plain perfectly boiled rice topped with a chewy mushroom sauce; a salsa-topped salad crowned with one perfect fresh raspberry. The dish was a delight to the eye and then the palette. Each of the four dishes offered a combination of contrasting and complementary textures and flavours. Taken together, the four presented a very rich and varied meal. Bernice chose to accompany this with mint tea, and was brought a proper china pot that yielded four cups. I chose a refreshing iced tea.

Bernice passed on dessert, but I was tempted by one of Portugal’s typical custardy dishes, which was fine but unexciting, and an excellent espresso. As we waited for the bill to arrive, we played our usual game. ‘What would you expect to pay for that meal in a similar restaurant in Israel?’ This was not an easy question to answer. The standard of food presentation that we had enjoyed, the fine linen and tableware, the easy charm of the waiter, tend to be found in Israel only in restaurants that are more up-market than this one ostensibly was. However, since all of those apparent peripherals actually contribute significantly to the pleasure of the dining experience, it is not unreasonable to take these factors into account when ‘pricing’ the equivalent meal in Israel.

This is, of course, a game that we play with marked cards, because we are smugly confident that, in inland Portugal, we are going to be pleasantly surprised by how cheap the meal will actually be. However, in this case, the degree of our surprise surprised even us, if you follow me. For 21 euros, the two of us ate a meal that would, we reckon, have cost us at least 65 euros in Israel. We also came to the conclusion that, although the restaurant had changed, the chef almost certainly had not, since the style and the considered presentation of the food, coupled with the delicate flavourfulness of the meal, reminded us of the meal we had eaten in the same location 20 months earlier. We are fairly sure that this is a case of rebranding to reboot as Portugal emerged from lockdown. Unfortunately, the waiter could not confirm our suspicions, since he had only arrived in the city, and started working in the restaurant, a couple of weeks earlier.

At this point, I hope that at least some of you are puzzled by the apparent dissonance between my enthusiastic review of the meal and the contemptuously dismissive title of this week’s post. Well, the time has come to tell you more of the dietary preferences of the kids’ dog, Lua. She has a regular diet of dogfood and water, which she eats with what seems more a sense of duty than real pleasure. On the other hand, she will turn metaphorical somersaults for fish skin and bones, which, sadly, the kids never provide her with. Fortunately, while we are there, we eat fish regularly. If, on our return in January, she remembers us and greets us warmly, I for one will not be fooled; I can recognize cupboard love when I see it.

Lua’s other favourite treat is dairy. She will lick a butter wrapper or a yoghourt carton so clean that you could eat your dinner off it, as it were. However, on our first expedition to the supermarket on this last trip, we accidentally bought vegan yoghourts. Almost everyone was perfectly happy with them, but when Bernice tossed a finished carton to Lua, she took one sniff and walked away in disgust. She is a dog that (hands up those Brits with long memories) can tell Stork from butter….without even tasting it.

Tao, thankfully, is a considerably less fussy eater.

Quick update: It is with much satisfaction and no little sense of relief that I announce that I have now received, in my credit card account, a full refund of our original payment for car rental. The final chapter has now been written in the entyre, tyring, tyre story.

When we bought the house in Portugal, Bernice and I originally had plans to convert the third bedroom into a bathroom, and reduce the downstairs bathroom to a toilet and washbasin. I even sketched out a plan to steal the rest of the fairly long, narrow bathroom to make a dining alcove extension to the kitchen. We actually contacted the firm of contractors we had called in to survey the house before we bought it and asked them to offer an estimate for this work.

Once we had bought, and the kids had moved in, we decided that we would not rush to carry out any major conversions, but would, instead, give them, and us, a chance to live with the house as-is and then make a decision. It is true that living, for a month, with five people sharing one bathroom that includes the toilet occasionally presents its challenges, we have found that it is doable. I now view going up and down the stairs to the toilet three times a night as valuable cardio-vascular exercise, rather than a right pain. (Truth to tell, I view it as both.)

More important than all this is that, over the two years (Two years! Where did they go? Oh yes, I remember: they were, for the most part, flushed down the toilet by Covid) over the two years, as I say, that the kids have been living in the house, they have colonised the third bedroom, turning it into an office/recording studio/storage room. When we first arrived for this trip, I could not negotiate all the accumulated ‘stuff’ in this room to get to the wine rack (disaster!) and the printer (less critical, but still awkward) that were against the far wall of the room.

A few days after we arrived, Tslil took command. She asked us to amuse Tao (she didn’t have to ask twice, of course) while she and Micha’el disappeared into the ‘stuff’, paying out a ball of string behind them so that they would be able to find their way out. A mere hour or so later, they invited us up to admire their industry. We opened the door onto a room that was a vision of order. Musical instruments now hung neatly on the walls. The computer desk was absolutely ready for business. The floorspace could have accommodated a ballroom dancing exhibition. We were amazed and delighted and, of course, this finally persuaded us that the dream of an upstairs bathroom was unrealistic, and would be very unfair to the kids.

What this meant, of course, was that we now needed to consider renovating the downstairs bathroom. This featured a toilet that more than occasionally leaked; a cracked, but working, bidet in a garish purply-chestnut-brown and white; a bath that leaked, with a plug that failed to keep the water in and water pressure that found climbing to the top of the shower head an all-but-insurmountable challenge; and a sink where the water pressure was so poor that it failed to trigger the gas water heater, so that you could only wash in cold water. All of this was set off by shocking pink wall tiles that, for some reason, Bernice found unattractive, ornate, dull bronze towel rails and a free-standing toilet-roll and toilet-brush holder that had seen many, many better days.

A friend of the kids was able to provide the name of a pair of professionals – a plumber and a tiler – who worked together. She had not actually used them herself, but she knew several people who had, and who recommended their work. So we asked them to come round, assess the job, and give an estimate.

I’m not sure what we were expecting, but what we got was a couple of chirpy Cockneys: Mark, dapper, spruce, diminutive, and Eric, rather more rotund and balding. They took a quick look at the bathroom, as we explained that we wanted a fairly low-budget job, replacing all the fixtures and fittings, replacing the wall tiles, adding a glass shower door, repainting the walls, but not touching the floor tiles, which, as they are throughout the house, are a warm terracotta in fairly good condition.

We have our more high-end bathroom in Israel, and we weren’t looking to rival that. As far as Bernice was concerned, white, leak-free fittings and everything clean and bright was the name of the game. As for me, I also wanted to know that they could resolve the water pressure issue. That was, of course, something they couldn’t guarantee, but they seemed fairly optimistic.

Eric measured up to price tiles. I was a little unimpressed that he asked to borrow a tape measure (he had left his in the car and it was raining heavily), but, other than that, they certainly seemed to be able to talk the talk. They quoted a price for bath, toilet and bidet that seemed ludicrously low. (One of the advantages of living in Israel is that so many goods and services seem very reasonable in Portugal.) Then, pausing only to pocket the tape measure, they left.

They contacted us a couple of days later with a total quote for the job that we were quite ready to accept. We agreed that they would buy all of the white goods and taps, while we would look for towel rails, toilet roll holders and so on. However, a few days later, they called to suggest that we meet them to buy all of the goods. This actually suited us, and we arranged to meet them a couple of days later, outside a large DIY store 40 minutes’ drive away.

In the course of an hour or so, we bought everything we needed. Their estimate for materials had not been far off the mark. Going round the store, we learnt something of their back stories. They had met in Portugal through a common friend, and teamed up. They both have homes in England, and are in the process of buying, and building homes on, quintas (estates) near Penamacor. They both plan to shift their centre of activity from the UK to Portugal, although I am sure they will both continue to return to the UK for short-term lucrative one-off contracts.

There are (or, at least used to be) a number of American medical professionals who came on aliya, worked year-round in the Health Service here, and went back to America for a month a year to earn enough to enable them to live the rest of the year here in the style they were accustomed to. Clearly, the same can be true for skilled artisans coming from the UK to Portugal.

I’m reminded of the story of a homeowner who calls a plumber for an emergency job. The plumber completes the work in a few minutes and presents a hefty bill. The home-owner says: ‘Good grief! That’s more than I earn, and I’m a brain surgeon”, to which the plumber replies: “It’s more than I used to earn when I was a brain surgeon.”

I think it’s fair to say that Eric and Mark have not yet fully integrated into Portuguese life. From what little I heard, I think my command of the Portuguese language is at least as good as theirs (and I don’t speak or understand at all). Going round the store, I heard them discussing prices and comparing them to UK prices.

I noted that they were quoting prices in sterling: ‘Blimey! That’s only 2 quid a piece!’ I was very impressed to see that they were able to convert effortlessly from euros to pounds. Then I noticed that the item they were referring to cost 2 euros. They weren’t converting; they were simply using the words ‘pound’ (or ‘quid’) instead of ‘euro’. Such is the extent of their lack of integration.

At the end of the shopping expedition, Mark loaded everything onto his van (which was actually his motorised caravan, in which he is currently living on his land), and, later that day, they brought all of the materials round to the house, to be stored until the following week, when they were going to carry out the work. It is fair to say that theirs is a low-overhead business! Unfortunately, Eric forgot to bring back the tape measure.

They started work the Tuesday after we left Portugal, and managed to finish in five days. They also managed to resolve all the problems, and Eric finally remembered to bring back the taper measure. I think it was my telling him that I would deduct it from the final bill that did the trick.

So we now have what is (or at least looks in the photos to be) a much more respectable bathroom.

An added bonus of this renovation was that in the shopping mall where we went to buy the bathroom fittings and materials, we also found a Zara Kids store, with a discounted coat that was just what Tao needs for the Penamacor winter. Truth to tell, there’s room for him to grow into it (or, indeed, to wear something underneath).

I suspect that you either immediately recognize the title of this week’s random musings or it means absolutely nothing to you. For the benefit of those of you who belong in the latter group, let me explain that it is the text on the last page of what just might be the greatest of all picture books for young children – Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Let me sketch the context for this quote. Having been sent to bed without supper as a punishment for his wild behaviour, and having then sailed magically away to the land where the wild things are, Max has a wild rumpusy time but then realises he really wants to be “where someone loved him best of all”, and he returns home to his bedroom, “where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot.”

There are several reasons why I love this book. The text is like an early Mozart symphony: vocabulary and syntax are simple and direct, and at the same time lyrical. You feel that changing any one of the words would break the magic spell they weave. The artwork leads the reader almost imperceptibly from the world of everyday to the exotic world of the wild things, and back again. I think what I love most of all is the way in which all of the discord of the early pages, and the rumpus of the middle, melt away to the perfect peace of the ending.

I don’t think it is too fanciful to claim that “he found his supper waiting for him…. and it was still hot” belongs up there with “Reader, I married him”.

It is the happy ending that I want to celebrate this week, by recounting two stories from our latest trip to Portugal. Actually, if you are a regular reader you already know the stories, and I only need to tell you the endings.

Let’s start with the wood stove. You may remember that, during our trip, we bought one for the house, and it was fitted the day we left Portugal. Since then, the weather has turned much cooler there (as, indeed here) and the kids have actually started using the stove. I am very pleased (and not a little relieved) to report that they have given a glowing (forgive me) report of its efficiency, warmth and cosiness. Much less heat is escaping up the chimney, and much more being projected into the room.

Lighting a fire is no longer a mystic art requiring a whole range of skills: the twisting of multiple sheets of cardboard into arcane shapes; their precise placement among artfully stacked twigs and logs; prolonged prostration before the god of the hearth coupled with frantic blowing or waving of sheets of cardboard. Apparently more or less all that is now needed is a slight adjustment of the handle that controls the air-vent ensuring an efficient draw. The prospect of returning to Portugal in mid-January now seems even more attractive than it already did.

It’s fair to say that the success of the wood-stove was not completely unexpected. Plenty of people had assured us that it would make a tremendous difference. Eeyore, of course, wouldn’t believe it until it had been tested in situ, but even he wasn’t really surprised that it works so well.

The second happy ending is a very different kettle of fish. I told you, a couple of weeks ago, about the puncture we suffered on our rental car, and about Europcar’s complete failure to help us resolve the situation. When we returned home, I received a request to answer a survey about our satisfaction with Europcar, and I felt much better after venting my anger.

I then went online and submitted, through Europcar’s user-friendly site, a detailed account of our adventures, together with a photograph of the ripped tyre and a PDF of the invoice and receipt for the new tyre. I explained that I felt the only reasonable response from them would be to refund us the cost of replacing the tyre.

I received an immediate automatic response, acknowledging receipt, supplying a reference number, and informing me that “we usually respond within 4 hours, however, due to the current situation worldwide, we may not be able to respond within this timeframe.” I decided I was prepared to overlook the sloppy punctuation. I also found myself wondering what they gained by boasting of their impressive response time, since they then went on to say, effectively, that they weren’t going to meet it. Still, an acknowledgement, even an automated, ill-punctuated, under-promising one, was, I grudgingly conceded, better than no bread at all.

Then, three days later, I received a further response, requesting that I attach the receipt. I had, of course, attached the receipt to my original email. However, there was nothing to be gained by arguing, so I dutifully attached the PDF again and sent off my reply.

Six days later, I received an email stating, very undramatically, that “Following your e-mail, we have proceeded with the refund of €124.99 for the tyre you had to replace during this rental.” This was such a matter-of-fact statement that I had to read it twice to confirm that it actually said what I thought it did.

When Bernice and I had finished the bottle of champagne we opened to celebrate, we both agreed that now we would wait and see just how long it took until something actually happened. We both fully expected that the something, if it did in fact happen, would be a voucher redeemable against a future rental.

The following day(!), we received two further emails. Unlike the previous correspondence, which I believe came from Europcar’s centralised customer care section and which had been in English, these were in Portuguese, and came from Europcar Portugal. I was able to see that they both contained invoices, one reversing the original invoice, and the second a revised invoice, including a credit of €124.99.

Having reached this point in the story, I was about to tell you that the reversal and the final charge have not yet appeared on my credit card account online. However (hands up all those who could tell there was a ‘However’ coming), I have just checked again, and I see that the final charge does now appear. Curiously, the refund does not yet appear, even though both invoices were generated on the same date. So, at the time of writing, we have now paid twice for the rental (less the cost of the tyre), and it is with a sinking heart that I realise this particular story has not yet reached its happy ending. Max’s dinner has not yet materialised in his bedroom. You, as we, are going to have to watch this space. I anticipate there may still be some rumpus in this story before we achieve perfect peace.

Meanwhile, it already seems long ago that we spent our last couple of days in Portugal: last visit to the land, including Tao showing us the pomegranate tree planted in March to mark his second birthday; last sunset; last breakfast with Nana.

…and so let’s start with one.
– Why is Portugal like the past?
– Because (tipping my hat to L P Hartley and the opening sentence of The Go-Between) it is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Well, I did warn you that it was nothing like a good riddle!

Having recently returned from Portugal, I find that many of the events and images from our trip keep bobbing up to the surface of the stagnant pond that passes for my mind these days. It strikes me that most of these are, perhaps unsurprisingly, precisely those that form a strong contrast with life in Israel. So, I thought I would share some of them with you this week.

The first couple fall under the arcane category of: the open road as calendar. In Israel, for example, the school summer holiday runs from around June 20 (high schools) and July 1 (primary schools) to the end of August. Every year, if you commute by road, July 1 is the day you arrive at work 15 minutes early, because you forgot how much emptier the roads would be. The last week of August, on the other hand, is the week when you suddenly rediscover where all the pedestrian crossings are located on your route, because, having faded throughout the year until they are virtually invisible, the markings are then repainted in preparation for the new school year.

In Portugal, however, our drives from Penamacor to nearby towns were marked by reminders that winter is around the corner. In a few places, we were treated to autumnal reds and yellows in the foliage, but most local trees are not that flamboyant. Instead, we encountered, on one road, in the middle of open country, an unexpected temporary speed limit of 50kph; a couple of kilometres along the road, we were brought to a halt by road-workers directing traffic while a digger re-excavated a trench in the grass-covered earth at the side of the road. In a few weeks, water from the heavy rains should be gushing along this trench, rather than flooding the road surface.

We also passed several timber yards where unimaginable amounts of timber were stacked: an area 50 metres by 10 metres would be filled with neat cuboids of straight pine trunks, six metres long, stacked to a height of three metres.

On our journeys, it wasn’t long before we encountered lorries transporting this wood from the timberyards. The first time we drove behind such a lorry (on a 90kph winding country road, one lane in each direction) was a fairly nerve-wracking experience.

From the back, there was no visible restraint on the logs. Bernice and I both had a vision of one of these tree trunks suddenly working its way free and either shooting straight through our windscreen and out through the rear window, or landing on the roof of our car, continuing straight down and effectively cleaving the car into two enclosed bicycles. Bernice and I each edged closer to our respective side windows, in the hope of leaving such a log a clear path through the car, unimpeded by, not to put too fine a point on it, us. I determined to overtake at the earliest opportunity.

As we reached a straight stretch of the road, where overtaking was allowed, I edged out to check for oncoming traffic. It was at that point that I first noticed that the top of the lorry was pitching and tossing like George Clooney in The Perfect Storm. For a few moments, pulling alongside the lorry in order to overtake it seemed less like a good idea; being speared by a single log was not an attractive prospect, but having an entire lorryful of logs topple over onto us seemed to have no redeeming features whatsoever.

Eventually, we were able to overtake, without event, and continue on our way, until, round the next bend, we confronted another fully-laden lorry. In this case, the driver used an interesting technique to avoid the side-to-side pitch and toss; he evened out every bend by treating both lanes of the road as his domain. This made overtaking even more exciting, but eventually, as is the way, we became inured to this seasonal hazard of the roads. At least, I became inured. Fortunately, the rental car inspector, when we returned the car, failed to notice the fingernail marks cut into the padding of the front passenger seat.

Next up in the ‘How different from the life of our own dear Queen!’ stakes is customer service, and specifically support by phone. In Israel we are very ready to moan about the level of customer service, and it is certainly true to say that most Israeli customer service reps follow the national ethos that “All citizens are equal; it would be unpatriotic of me to treat you as someone special”. However, you can generally get things done efficiently on the phone (once you get through to a human being).

Portugal, by contrast, clearly pines for its imperial past and its hierarchy of royalty and nobility. When our June 2020 trip was cancelled because of Covid, TAP gave us a voucher for the full value of our flights. When I tried, in late August, to book our October flight online, I found that I could not persuade the site to accept my voucher. Eventually, I contacted customer service by phone, and was informed that it was impossible to redeem the voucher online. So, I booked by phone. After completing the booking, we still had over ₤100 credit on the voucher.

Towards the end of our trip this time, I wanted to book our next trip. I went online to see TAP flight times and prices, and then, in order to use this ₤100 credit, I phoned TAP in Lisbon. I reached a rep who spoke fairly good English and who was very ready to help. Unfortunately, the process of booking the flight was tortuous: the rep insisted on taking all of our information, including passport numbers.

At the end of each step (indeed, often each sub-step), she put me on hold and then disappeared into the recesses of TAP’s computer system for minutes on end. Each time she returned, she dutifully repeated the scripted greeting: ‘Thank you, Mr David Brownstein, for your patience in waiting’.

Eventually, after an hour, we reached the bottom line, and she informed me of the total cost. I then pointed out that, online, TAP was offering the flights for a total price that was about ₤100 less. She explained that TAP has an online discount; anyone who wants the convenience of booking through a rep has to pay the full price. I pointed out that far from being convenient, the process of booking through her had taken me about 45 minutes longer than booking online would have taken. In addition, the only reason that I was booking through her was that TAP’s system did not allow me to redeem my voucher. Round about here, I started thinking of Catch-22.

The rep was apologetic, and understanding, and unfailingly polite, as she explained that there was nothing she could do. I explained that I was not criticizing her, but that I wished to speak to someone in authority who could actually help me take advantage of the discount without losing the advantage of the discount.

After another lengthy period on hold (during which I completed the composition of a complete set of eight variations on the TAP theme tune), she returned to thank me, Mr David Brownstein, for my patience in waiting, and to inform me that there was nobody who could help me.

I must admit that, by this stage, my patience was starting to wear a little thin. I explained yet again that the fault lay with TAP’s computer system, and not with me, and it was therefore invidious that I should be punished for it. At this point, the rep said: ‘But of course you can redeem the voucher online.’

She then asked whether I had gone online through the UK portal of TAP. I said that I hadn’t. There was the problem, she said. The original booking had been made through the UK portal, and the voucher was therefore in sterling. In order to redeem it, I had to use the UK portal. I admit I was sceptical, and so I asked the rep to hold my booking for 24 hours, so that, if for any reason I was unable to book online, we would not lose our seats. She explained, extremely politely, that, ‘Unfortunately, Mr David, the computer system does not allow me to hold the booking uncompleted.’ I eventually gave in and instructed her to cancel the booking. I then went online, through the UK portal, and booked without any problem, redeeming the voucher, in about 12 minutes.

It is a measure of the consideration that I have for you, dear reader, that I spare you the story of my trying to obtain a security matrix card for our bank account in Portugal. You will have to take my word for it that it is a story every bit as full of computer system incompetence matched with personal civility as the tale of TAP. However, like the air tickets, the bank matrix issue was resolved, finally, after three or four visits to the bank, and we are now able to conduct a wider range of banking activities online with complete ease.

Yes, everyday life in Portugal often seems like a game of what some of you call Chutes and Ladders (which is probably about as clunky a segue as I have ever devised).

Blogger’s Note: Last Friday marked the second anniversary of my first post on this blog. Since then, some 150,000 words have flowed under the Penamacorrespondent bridge. If you’ve been reading since November 2019, then I applaud your perseverance. If, at the other extreme, this is the first post you’ve read, then managing to get all the way down here without giving up means that congratulations are still in order. Here’s to Year 3!

Well, ‘left’, actually, but that doesn’t scan. Unlike John Denver, we do know when we’ll back again (or at least, we have a notification from the airline that we’re booked on a plane – plague, war, global warming, fossil fuel supply and Portuguese electoral turmoil permitting).

Yes, folks, today’s post comes to you from the edge of the Judean Desert, rather than just southwest of the edge of the Serra de Malcata foothills. Bernice and I flew back, fairly uneventfully, last Thursday, and, thanks to the kindness of good friends and neighbours, on which we have always depended, we returned to a welcome home greeting placard and a delicious cake, and invitations for both shabbat meals. (Reminder to self: I must celebrate more often the precious gift of being part of a community.)

This was just as well, since we had left in Maale Adumim a fridge that looked like that moment two days before Pesach when it has just been cleaned and has not yet been stocked. Homemade rolls were duly defrosted in the microwave, but the frozen cheese had to wait until the next morning. I was reduced to jam made from loquats from our own tree. (I suppose that’s a first-world problem, on reflection.) Bernice made do with the last-but-one of our magnificent Portuguese apples, and we both finished off our nuts (and in my case raisins) for the journey. And so to bed, after thirteen-and-a-half hours on the road.

In fairness, the trip home was pretty easy. The drive to Lisbon airport from Penamacor takes, on a good day, two-and-a-half hours. However, for all but 50 minutes of that, you are cruising at 120kph on a two- or three-lane motorway, with 95% of the other traffic on the road also cruising at 120kph.

The only problem with this is that you occasionally creep up behind a car whose speedometer is set slightly differently, so that its cruise control is maintaining a speed just 1kph slower than yours. Assuming you pull out to overtake when you are 20 metres behind the car, and pull in again when you are 20 metres in front, overtaking can take you between two and three minutes (or you can live dangerously and exceed the speed limit for a few seconds).  

Mind you, since we only saw about 40 other vehicles during that entire motorway stretch, I was able to handle the overtaking required. The other bonus is that the airport is located only 1km off a three-lane road with an 80kph speed limit, so the end of the journey is also stress-free.

Check-in at Lisbon was very smooth. Multiple self-service terminals issue boarding passes. Baggage check-in is also self-service. At passport control only passports are checked. In this way, any hold-up over incorrect or incomplete PCR test papers occurs at the departure gate, where it inconveniences only passengers on the same flight, and where sorting out any problem does not involve risking missing your flight.

The Covid test at Ben Gurion was also a swift and smooth operation. Boaz (our friend who always gets use of our car in return for ferrying us to and from the airport) was, as always, waiting for us when we arrived. We even received our negative test results within seven hours, so that I was able to get to shul on Friday morning, and then buy fruit and milk for breakfast.

This was all in contrast to the PCR test in Portugal, which we scheduled for last Tuesday. Micha’el had told us that the nearest testing site was at the Red Cross in Castelo Branco. When I phoned them on the previous Friday to book, they explained that the testing is actually done by a private lab, which travels round from district to district, and uses a room in the Red Cross. I phoned the lab, and was told that they would be in Castelo Branco from 9:30 to 11:00 on Tuesday morning. Since we didn’t want to rush unnecessarily in the morning, we made an appointment for 10:30.

I then received an email with a questionnaire, delightfully translated into English, asking for the usual details, and some unexpected ones – desired harvest station (in other words, test location), nationality, profession (why?), postcode in Portugal, passport number, internal diameter of nostril (I jest). Once I had retrieved all of this information from my phone and sent it back, I then simply had to transfer the fee (100 euros each – that’s a total of 720 shekels, 171 pounds, 231 dollars) and provide proof of payment.

This caused me a minor panic: I transferred the money online, through my Portuguese bank app; however, since it was Friday, the bank notified me that the transaction would not be completed until the following Monday. I decided that I would try to offer a screenshot of the ‘booked’ transaction as proof of payment, and, thankfully, the lab accepted it.

We duly arrived at the Red Cross, in the old section of Castelo Branco, at about 10:15. Some people we had been supposed to meet in Covilha on Monday had rescheduled to Tuesday at 12 noon, and so we planned to drive to Covilha straight after our test. (Covilha is 40 minutes north of Castelo, and north-west of Penamacor.) When we explained to the receptionist why we were there, she phoned the lab, and, a few minutes later, told us that they would not be arriving until 11:15. Bernice and I, wondering how much you have to pay to get an appointment that the technician turns up for, decided that we might as well explore the surrounding streets.

After a few minutes, I spotted a shopfront across the road with what looked like a Star of David on the window. Closer inspection revealed that this was, in fact, a museum: The House of Memory of Jewish Presence in Castelo Branco. For an admission fee of only 1.50 euro each (or a mere 1.5% of the cost of a PCR test), we were able to spend 30 minutes or so in this very new and well-appointed modest museum, which tells the story of the Jewish presence in Castelo Branco. We could have spent another 30 minutes, if we had had the time, but even this brief visit was interesting.

The ground floor of the museum displays ritual objects, including a sefer torah, which are not originally from Castelo, but are designed to give brief insight into Jewish religious life. Alongside this display is an account, and several maps and a model, of the medieval town, showing the Moslem, Jewish and Christian quarters at various stages. By the end of the 14^th Century, there was already a Jewish community and a synagogue there, and, after the decree of expulsion in 1496/7, the city was a centre of anusim (secret Jews) and New Christians.

Over the following three centuries, the Portuguese Inquisition instigated some 400 ‘processes’ against Albicastrenses (as Castelo Brancans were known). including 21 in which the victims died. In the museum, the path to the staircase passes through a small darkened passageway, with illuminated windows showing contemporary illustrations of instruments of torture being used.

On the restored original stone wall of the staircase is displayed a huge sheet of burnished bronze, lit from behind; cut out from the bronze are the names of the 329 fully documented victims of the inquisition. This is an eloquent memorial: 329 names occupy a lot of space, so that the scale of the loss is tangible; however, each name is unique, and you are aware that behind each name shines a person’s whole life.

The staircase leads to a floor dedicated to six prominent Jewish Albicastrenses. One of these is Amato Lusitano, a name adopted by Joao Rodrigues.

Born in 1511, Lusitano was a descendant of a family of anusim called Chabib. (Amato is the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew Chabib – beloved. Lusitania is the classical name for the area now occupied by Portugal.) Brought up as a Jew, he graduated with honours as an M.D. from the University of Salamanca in Spain, but was then unable to return to Portugal, where his family were known, for fear of the Inquisition. Prefiguring the ideal of a European Union, like so many of his contemporary academics, he then spent time in Antwerp, the Netherlands and France, before settling in Italy.

His reputation as a physician was such that, while in Venice, he treated the Pope’s niece. During six years in Ferrara, he lectured in anatomy, on one occasion famously dissecting twelve cadavers (a cutting-edge technique), and also discovered, and demonstrated, the nature of venous valves.

At the time, it was believed that both veins and arteries carried blood from the heart: the fact that the network of blood vessels grew thinner as they got further from the heart seemed to support this; in addition, the network of capillaries that connect the veins to the arteries was too small to be detected by the naked eye, and its discovery had to wait for the invention of the microscope. Unaware of that connection, anatomists could only conclude that blood was fed to the arteries from the heart, as well as to the veins.

In his demonstration in Ferrara, Lusitano blew air into the lower part of the azygos vein, and showed that the vena cava would not be inflated. If the air was not able to pass into the vena cava, then it was all the more certain that blood, much thicker than air, could not flow through.

I was also encouraged to see, at the museum, a poster advertising a book launch and talk organized by the Castelo Branco municipality, to be given by a prominent historian who has devoted the last decade or more to researching the story of Jewish life in Castelo Branco.

After this unexpected break, we returned to the Red Cross. Eventually, and totally unapologetically, the test administrator arrived at 11:20. (I wonder: How much do you have to pay to qualify for an apology?) We spent a frustrating 15 minutes while she wrestled with a computer terminal, rather unconvincingly entering all of the information we had already given by email. She then swept us upstairs to a room where she administered the test.

Editor’s Note: Readers of a sensitive nature may wish to look away for the following paragraph.

Even if images of the Inquisition had not been fresh in our minds, the depth to which the technician drove the swab up our nostrils would have felt like torture. Discussing this with other travellers after our return, it appears that the there are other parts of the world to which the news has not yet reached that an accurate nasal swab can be obtained without penetrating the cortex.

By the time we flew on Thursday, we had both recovered full use of our noses, and so we were able to enjoy the smooth flight.

Oh, by the way! I know many of you are anxious to know what happened with the wood-burning stove I wrote about last week. Paolo (he of the leather homburg) phoned on Wednesday to say that he could not, after all, install it that day, but would come on Thursday.

Before we flew, Micha’el messaged us that Paolo arrived on time and cleaned the chimney with an efficient screening off of the hearth from the room, and a powerful vacuum cleaner working all the time, so that he created no mess. He then installed the stove and chimney-piping in a couple of hours. Micha’el seemed very pleased with the result, and is now waiting for the cold weather, so that he can test the stove.

We look forward to feeling the glow in mid-January, when we are due to return to Portugal. Mind you, there’s a certain smile that’s guaranteed to generate as much warmth as an 11.4 kilowatt stove.

“And after ‘salmagundi’, we have ‘salamander’”. (With apologies to those for whom that evocation of Twenty Questions means nothing.)

Looking back over the hundred or so posts that I have published over the last two years, I note with astonishment that I have made absolutely no mention of amphibians. The time has come, I feel, to rectify this appalling omission.

Aristotle mentioned in his writings the folk belief that the salamander can extinguish a fire through the frigidity of its body, but appeared not to accept it. Pliny (possibly after experimenting by throwing a salamander into a fire) was explicitly sceptical. Nevertheless, the folk belief persisted and, in the Renaissance period, when cloth made from asbestos was brought back from China, it was claimed that the yarn was spun from the salamander’s fur that was impervious to fire.

For the alchemists, the salamander was the creature associated with the element of fire, and was even born from fire, like the phoenix.

It seems likely that these beliefs arose because of the salamander’s habit of hiding beneath damp logs. It is conceivable that, when these logs were brought into the house and placed on the fire, the salamander emerged, as if from the fire itself, in an attempt to escape from the heat.

The salamander, despite appearances, is not a lizard, but an amphibian. It lays its eggs in ponds, just as they are about to hatch, and the larvae develop in the water. Curiously, adult salamanders are very poor swimmers.

The fire salamander, with its distinctive yellow and black colouring, is common throughout Europe, including Portugal, preferring a damp forest habitat at fairly high altitude. I suspect it is native to the region around Penamacor.

And what, I hear you ask, has all this to do with us? Well, on our second stay with the kids in Portugal, in midwinter almost two years ago, we initially found the open wood-log fire in the salon rather romantic. However, by the end of our stay, the noxious fumes, the ubiquitous ash, the heat escaping up the chimney, and the constant danger of sparks leaping into the room, meant that much of the romance was gone. We decided that, on our next visit, we would research installing a cleaner, healthier, safer and more efficient wood-burning stove, which, Micha’el assured us, was becoming increasingly popular in houses such as ours.

Of course, by the time of this, our next, visit, the kids had endured (without complaint, I must add) a second winter of open fires. Despite the sunny weather we enjoyed in our first three weeks here this time, we wanted to get a stove installed before we left, so that they would be ready for the imminent colder weather.

And so, last week, the kids obtained, through their network of friends, the name of a reliable local stove installer, and last week we arranged for him to come and take a look at the fireplace. Paolo certainly looked authentic, with his weathered features, gnarled hands and stitched hard-leather homburg. Micha’el was impressively able to negotiate Paolo’s Portuguese, and he gave us the names of three hardware and building supplies stores in Castelo Branco where we could buy the stove and the pipes that carry the smoke up the chimney. Once we had the materials, he would be able to complete the job in one day, included cleaning the chimney, at a labour cost of 80 euros.

In addition to his skills as an installer, he was also able to provide linguistic expertise. The kids had asked him about a forno de madeira (literally, a wood oven), but he informed us that what we were talking about was a salamandra. Knowing about the legend of the fire lizard, I was tickled pink to hear this name. Subsequent research reveals that similar stoves are also called salamanders in the USA (although whether that is more true in Arkansas than Manhattan I hope one of my American readers will be able to tell me).

Over the next day, I conducted some research online. I discovered that, to calculate the required output from the stove, you should divide the cubic capacity of the space to be heated by 14 if your home is well insulated, and by 10 if it is not. The resulting figure is the kilowatt capacity you require.Put like that, it all sounds fairly straightforward. The website even included a line-drawing of a neat rectagular room, showing how to calculate the cubic capacity.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never lived in a neat rectangular room, and the ‘space to be heated’ in our house in Penamacor is certainly not easily defined. The fireplace, in which the stove will stand, is in the salon, which comprises a rectangular space eaten into by a generous chimney breast, to which is added a small square area of entrance hall. However, wooden glass-panelled double doors, usually open, connnect  the salon to the kitchen, which is much narrower than the salon. Leading off the kitchen is a short passage leading to a utility room on one side and, on the other side, a wash-basin alcove that then leads on to the bathroom.

A little thought and discussion led to the conclusion that we should aim to heat the salon, hall, kitchen and passage. So, four fairly straightforward rectangles. Except for the fact that from the salon an open-plan staircase leads to the first floor with its two bedrooms and office.

In the end, I decided to add to the calculation the cubic capacity of the staircase, even though my C grade in ‘O’-level physics allows me to say with confidence that heat will escape upstairs.

The other imponderable for me was the question of insulation. I suspect that what an English website means by ‘if your home is not well insulated’ is not what a Penamacorean website would mean. I felt that I should perhaps divide by less than 10, but it was impossible for me to estimate by how much less.

A little more research indicated that stoves tend to fall into the following groups: 5-7 kilowatt, 8-10 kilowatt, 11-14 kilowatt, and so on. Calculating on the basis of dividing by a bit less than 10, I thought we should be looking for an 8- or 9-kilowatt model, and I suspected that anything bigger would be overpowering for the very narrow salon and would cost more than we wanted to spend.

We were now armed with everything we needed: an idea of the kilowattage, the right word – salamandre – and Google Maps, and so Bernice and I set off last Thursday on a shopping expedition. In the first store we visited, an assistant with excellent English was able to answer all our questions, and, to our delight, we found that the cheapest model in the store (which the assistant warmly recommended) had both an impressive efficiency rating and an output in kilowatts (11.4) that should be more than enough. It was, in addition, small enough to fit into our fireplace. I noted with interest that the (Portuguese) handbook that came with the stove suggested dividing your cubic capacity not by 14 (well insulated), nor by 10 (poorly insulated) but by 8.5 (Portuguese-insulated).

Somehow, I managed to persuade Bernice (who readily admits that her attention span for shopping rivals that of a goldfish with ADHD) that we really had to visit at least one more store. Fortunately, all three stores Paolo had recommended were within the same industrial zone in the southern end of Castelo, and it only took a few minutes in the car to reach the second store. There, it took us scarcely longer to realise that there was nothing on offer to rival what we had already seen, and so we reurned to Bricomarché.

This time, a different assistant helped us. He had surprisingly little English, but by this stage we felt like near experts in wood-stove Portuguese, and so we were happy to place the order with him. Of course, by the time we added to the cost of the stove the cost of the chimney pipes, and the cost of delivery, we didn’t have quite such a bargain, but we were still within our budget. To be honest, we had no choice over delivery. I had no intention of attempting to load a cast-iron 24-inch suitcase into the car, not with my back.

The assistant assured us that he would deliver the stove the following day, around 10AM. He wantred to know whether anyone at our end would be able to help him carry the stiove in, and we generously volunteered Micha’el. (At this point, we found ourselves wondering what we would do if we were an old couple – which, I suppose, in this case, we are – living alone. However, if we were, we would call a friend in the village to help. Our house is, after all, in a close-knit community.) We then gave the assistant Micha’el’s phone number (remember my experience with the tow-truck driver last week) and were persuaded, at the till, to join the store’s customer club at no charge, having already almost earned 10 euros off our next purchase. The application form required my tax number, passport number and full address with postcode, none of which I know off by heart, but all of which are, theoretically, easily accessed on my phone. So that took just another 15 minutes, after which we left the store with a fine sense of accomplishment.

In due course, 10AM the following morning (Friday) arrived, which is more than can be said for the stove. After a couple of phone calls, it finally arrived just before 3PM, thankfully still a good couple of hours before Shabbat. In a relatively short time, the driver and Micha’el had unloaded the package from the van, brought it in, removed the cardboard wrapping, lifted the stove from its wooden pallet, tilted it and screwed the adjustable footpads onto the base and slid the stove into the alcove where it will sit until Paolo comes to instal it. (Micha’el was quick to ask that the driver leave the pallet, since it represented useful wood.)

At this point, Bernice came in and said: ‘That’s not the right model. The handle is different.’ Indeed, when I checked the spec sheet, I saw that this model had a capacity of 10.5 kilowatts instead of  11.4, and an efficiency rating of C instead of B.. The stove itself had no identifying label, but the driver checked our order against the label on the carton and insisted it was correct. We were equally insistent, and he phoned the store to clarify. After sending a photo of the stove to the store, he very apologetically explained to us that the label on the carton did not match the stove inside.

So, he and Micha’el slid the stove out of the alcove, tilted it and unscrewed the footpads from the base, lifted the stove onto the pallet, wrapped the cardboard around it, carried it outside and loaded it back onto the van. He assured us that he would deliver the correct stove the following day (Shabbat). Micha’el then explained to him that this was inconvenient, and, to our surprise, he said that he would deliver it on Sunday morning, leaving Castelo Branco at 9AM. This meant he should be with us around 10.

Today is Sunday. 10AM arrived, which is more than can be said….However, by 10:45 the driver was here, with the correct stove, which he and Micha’el unloaded…Well, you get the picture. Again full of apologies, he even brought Micha’el a compensatory extra pallet that he presumably had on the van from an earlier delivery.

Later today, Paolo arrived, to inspect the stove. He conducted a long conversation with Micha’el, during which I persuaded myself that we had bought an entirely unsuitable item, and that, in addition, the pipes did not fit the stove. However, when Micha’el eventually translated, it transpired that my fears were completely unfounded. He will come on Wednesday, bringing dust-sheets to trap the dust when he cleans the chimney. He stressed that we should keep Tao well away during the cleaning, although I know that Tao will be fascinated to watch the assembly of the pipes and their disappearance up the chimney. We now also know that Paolo has a 4-year-old grandson and a 2-year-old granddaughter who are the light of his life!

All being well (and although it seldom is around these parts – most jobs seem to take two attempts – I have a good feeling about this), we should have a fitted working stove before we leave on Thursday morning to fly back to Israel.

Which is probably just as well, because we have had fairly persistent rain over the last couple of days: perfect weather for splashing in puddles, then sitting at home well wrapped up, eating buttered toast with Marmite.*

*Personally, I can’t even type the M word without feeling bilious, but Bernice, Esther and now Tao are all Marmite fanatics.