This last week, our younger grandson turned three months. It scarcely seems credible. Heavens, I can remember when he was only a day old, and now here he is, already a quarter of the way to his first birthday.

Meanwhile, we are only four weeks away from seeing our older grandson (three years and three months this last week) and, please God, his about-to-be baby brother, in Portugal. All of our arrangements and bookings are more or less in place, and it is now only a question of holding our breath and waiting to see whether we are prevented from flying by a new, improved, wave of COVID-19, or the inflammatory heatwave that is currently raging through Spain, or the escalating industrial action by El Al pilots, or Russian-invasion-induced aircraft fuel shortage, or possibly abduction by alien lizards or the earth being hit by a giant meteor.

I actually went onto Google Maps this morning to check whether forest fires have closed any of our intended driving route from Madrid to Penamacor. I was, to be fair, motivated largely by curiosity as to where exactly the affected region is in Spain; it seems to be, reassuringly, a hundred or more miles north-west of Madrid. Bernice, on the other hand, is spending an unhealthy amount of time following the vagaries of the industrial dispute between El Al management and pilots. I’m honestly not sure what state we will be in after another three weeks of this obsessive behaviour.

The only comfort I can currently take from the whole sorry state of the world is that, if our trip were to be cancelled, we would not then have to shlep from the airport two cases weighing, at current projections, somewhere between 22.7 and 23.0 kg each, two pieces of hand luggage weighing probably around 12 kg each, and two coats whose pockets will doubtless be filled with all sorts of additional ballast.

There will, eventually, I fear, come a time when we will no longer be physically capable of lifting this luggage over the lip of the rental car boot, and we will then, presumably, have to do a lot more shopping in Portugal and shipping from Israel, or possibly look into renting a sled with a much lower cargo-bed than a car, and, rather appropriately, driven by a team of reindeer.

But to get back to the grandsons. The wonderful thing about going up to Zichron every week to spend the day with Esther and Raphael is that, at his age, every week we see very obvious developments. Some, to be honest, are more welcome than others. This week we found Raphael sucking his fist and drooling, so it seems that teething (or, perhaps more accurately, pre-teething) has started.

On the other hand, every week he seems to have added at least one more sound to his vocal repertoire; the stories he tells us grow more interesting every time. We also noticed this week that he is experimenting with variations of intonation. Clearly, living in a house where music is an almost constant presence is already influencing him.

Watching this week-by-week miracle of how much Raphael is absorbing so quickly, and with such apparent ease, I am constantly struck by the fact that I seem to have slept through my own children’s babyhood. Bernice has photographic recall of this period; she can instantly list illnesses, behavioural differences between the kids, early-manifested likes and dislikes, sleeping and feeding patterns, favourite toys and songs.

I, on the other hand, can state with absolute certainty that Esther was born first, and in Wales, whereas Micha’el was born next, and in Israel. Beyond that, I remember how verbal Esther was from a young age, and how Micha’el did not speak until very late. (At the time, we didn’t realise what halcyon days they were; once he started, he didn’t stop…and still hasn’t.)

And that’s about it. I know that Bernice was home with the kids 24/7, and I was out hunting sabre-toothed tigers and waiting in line in Government offices, but nevertheless….So, I’m trying to make up for it with the grandchildren. I already know that Tao was born first and…

This week’s WhatsApp video call with Tao was interesting. (It’s interesting every week, of course, but…) We have settled into a routine: we start by chatting about what he has been doing or plans to do. In a very short time, Tao tires of this and asks whether he can have a story. Bernice has always pre-selected four books: typically three that he knows and one new one.

The rules allow Tao to choose what order he wants the books in. Until now, he has always chosen first the books he knows. Bernice and I then read a book each, in turn. We then have a musical intermission, where we sing a song together; this is followed by the other two stories and, if we are lucky, a catch-up chat with Micha’el and/or Tslil.

This week, Tao uncharacteristically chose to start with a book he did not know: John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat. This happens to be a great favourite of ours, although it is rather darker than most. It deals with selfish and selfless love, with John Brown, a dog, being initially unwilling to share his owner with the cat that appears outside the window, but eventually recognizing how much Rose wants to adopt the cat, and letting the cat in. It is an uncluttered story, told in simple, strong prose, with the message left implicit, and the book is beautifully illustrated. I would have judged it to be a little old for Tao, but was very happy to read it.

When we had finished, to our astonishment, and for the first time ever, Tao asked whether we could read it again. (This was actually just as well because, the first time, we had inadvertently turned over two pages at once, and missed out one page.) I find myself wondering what, in the book, spoke to him so strongly that he wanted to hear it again immediately. Whatever it was, it is further evidence of his love for books, and it makes my heart leap.

Speaking of leaping, after one more book we took our usual mid-call break for a song, which in this case was about swimming. Rather than singing, Tao insisted on spreading a sheet out on the floor as a swimming pool and jumping from the sofa into the pool…repeatedly. Shortly after that, the call rather fell apart, and we never got to read the other two books.

While reading on WhatsApp is wonderful, it is rather artificial, particularly since our technique is for the reader to sit behind the phone while the page-turner sits in front of the phone and shows Tao the pages. This of course means that the reader is getting no immediate feedback of Tao’s engagement or otherwise with the story. I simply can’t wait until we can read with Tao in the traditional fashion, with him sitting on my lap and instantly conveying every squirm of delight or moment of frozen rapt attention.

Meanwhile, there is a broad consensus in the family that, whereas both of the boys have inherited my nose, their smile is, in each case, entirely their own.