First, I owe you an explanation as to why I have moved publication day from Monday to Tuesday. Sunday is Ma’ayan’s long day at work, and, therefore, Esther and Raphael’s long day at home alone together. Sunday has therefore become the day we spend with them in Zichron. We leave home after breakfast, around 10 (dawn doesn’t crack as early around here as it did when we were both working) and usually arrive at 12. We then tear ourselves away soon after Maayan returns home, around 7:30, and reach home again before 9:30.

One of the only two downsides to this arrangement is that we don’t get to spend more than a few minutes with Maayan, but we do get hours of time with Raphael, a chance to catch up with Esther, and even the opportunity to feel that we are virtuously helping her out, a story she is kind enough to go along with.

The other downside to this arrangement, and the one that is relevant here, is that Sunday has traditionally been my blog-writing day. I typically start thinking about possible subjects on Friday, and then, on my walks to and from shul on Friday night and twice on Shabbat, I decide on one topic and play around with ideas. Then, on Sunday morning, after breakfast, I sit down and start writing. In a good week, I have a draft to show Bernice by lunchtime.

If things are going less well, or if I need to do a lot of online research to keep up the appearance of being a remarkably well-informed fellow, it may take me until the evening, but, even on the hardest week, the post is done and dusted and ready to publish by mid-evening.

Since our Zichron Sundays started, before we moved the clocks, I sometimes managed to write my blog after Shabbat went out on Saturday evening. Over the last few weeks, I managed once or twice to get a complete and reasonable first draft before shabbat on Friday. However, last week we set out for Zichron on Sunday morning with me having no idea what I was going to write about. I took my laptop with, but wasn’t prepared to waste valuable grandpa time there hunched over a keyboard.

And so, at 7:45 last Sunday evening, we drove off home, Bernice behind the wheel and me behind the laptop. The prospect of the Monday morning deadline focused the mind, as it always does. However, the physical task of typing was not the easiest. As many of you know, I am not a touch typist, but rather a two-finger pecker (albeit a fairly speedy one), and typing while driving on Israeli roads presented something of a challenge. In fact, I’m inclined to suggest that motoring journalists, when comparing the suspension of various models, should use a tph coefficient, measuring the number of typos per hour made by a typist sitting in the passenger seat of a given car travelling at a given speed.

I might also add – treading just about as carefully as I can – that even a driver as defensively skilled as Bernice is sometimes compelled by other Israeli drivers to brake a little more suddenly than is ideal. If, as a front-seat passenger, you are watching the road, and, even more so, if you are gripping the side of your seat, as one does, then you can easily brace yourself against the impact of the braking. If, on the other hand, your eyes are focused on the laptop screen in front of you as your fingers stagger across the keyboard and your brain gropes unsuccessfully for the mot juste, then you are in grave danger of somersaulting over the screen and into the dashboard.

Suffice to say that I arrived home that Sunday evening just a tad frazzled. However, I was in significantly better shape than the blog. In fact, it took me another three hours at home, and an hour or so on Monday morning, to bring the post to a state where I felt I could publish it.

At which point I vowed that I would not go through that experience again. So, I decided that I would switch the publication date back to Tuesday, and that, in terms of the blog, Monday would be my new Sunday. Of course, when I mentioned this to Esther, she told me that there is a good chance that Maayan’s work schedule may be changing soon, and Sunday may no longer be her long day. In that case, we will probably be going up to Zichron on a different day, and I will probably change publication day back to Monday.

Meanwhile, since Shavuot, in two weeks’ time, falls on a Sunday, the switch to Tuesday will be doubly convenient.

So much for the theory. As I settled down to sleep last night (Sunday), I felt really good that I would have all day today (Monday) to write.

And then….stuff, as they say, happened. First, I overslept, waking only at 8 in the morning. Despite the late start, I felt I really had to go for a walk, a daily morning regimen I restarted last week after far too long a break. By the time I got back from the walk, Bernice had left the house to meet a friend for breakfast. So I sat down to have a quick look at the paper before showering. The quick look, needless to say, became an in-depth read. Eventually, I tore myself away and went upstairs.

As I stepped out of the shower later, my phone rang. It was a travel insurance rep contacting me to discuss how large a mortgage we will need to take out to cover ourselves against all the dreadful disasters that lurk round every travel corner these days. I asked him to call back in 15 minutes, by which time I had managed to dress and to dig out my latest medical statement from my family doctor. Bernice’s state of health is laughably straightforward, but mine reads more like a Gothic novel, with multiple complications and convolutions.

While I was waiting for the rep to call again, I received a call back from the orthopaedic department of the hospital where I had my second hip replacement done, a year ago. I have been trying to schedule a one-year check-up. However, the secretary told me that I should make the appointment directly with the hospital clinic, and not through the department, so I tried to get through to them. Eventually, I got the option to leave my number for a call-back.

I then started chopping the fruit for breakfast. While I was halfway through this, the travel insurance rep called back, and I spent the next 20 minutes recounting my medical history. When I came to the end, and he asked: ‘Is that everything?’, I replied, as I always do: ‘Well, I think that’s enough, don’t you?’, and then, as they always do, he proceeded to read a list of other, more serious, conditions, and to ask me to interrupt him if I suffered from any of them. This was a chastening experience, as it always is, and at the end I apologized for my previous flippancy and acknowledged, as I always do, how lucky I am to have only the few conditions I have, all effectively controlled by medication. All that remained was for him to ask me whether we would be engaging in any extreme sports, as they always do, and for me to say, as I always do: ‘No, but thank you so much for asking’.

And then the bottom line, which our travel insurance agent, who was also on the call, assured me was a very competitive price. When I had recovered sufficiently, I accepted the price and returned to preparing breakfast.

By this time, Bernice had returned, and, since it was now about 12:30, she decided to join me in what would be for her lunch and for me brunch. Once that was out the way, we set off for a brisk visit to the local Rami Levi supermarket, ‘and then I really have to get down to my blog!’

The super wasn’t too crowded and we finished shopping fairly quickly. However, when we got to the checkouts, there seemed to be very long queues. After a couple of minutes, we discovered that the checkout we had chosen had a problem with connectivity to the store’s computer system, and the cashier was only accepting cash or cheques. Between us, Bernice and I had about 100 shekels in cash (for an approximately 600-shekel bill). We do still have a chequebook, but neither of us had brought it with us, obviously. As we checked the status of other tills in the store, it became clear that the system was down throughout the store. I asked Bernice whether she wanted to abandon the trolley and go home, or whether I should drive back to the centre of town and draw cash out of the bank ATM. We agreed that was the more sensible option, and so I set off.

As I drove away, I contemplated going to the liquor store (off-licence just doesn’t sound right) we sometimes use, buying a bottle of whisky and asking the owner whether he would let me have 700 shekels in cash on my credit card. I decided that would be putting him in an unfair position. A minute later, it occurred to me that there is an ATM at DCity, the brand new and very grandiose design centre that is only two minutes from Rami Levy. So I turned around at the next roundabout and headed back, trying desperately to remember where exactly on the sprawling campus I had seen an ATM.

Luck was with me. I parked right by an escalator that brought me to within 100 metres of the ATM, and, within minutes, I had withdrawn cash and was back at the supermarket checkout just as Bernice was unloading our trolley onto the conveyor belt. Of course, the cashier did not have any change, and had to go to the main desk to get a cash float. However, we were at least able to leave, eventually, with our shopping.

All of which explains why I am afraid that I simply have not had enough time this week to write a post. However, I hope that next week will prove a little less traumatic.

*In case you’re wondering what on earth the title of this week’s post refers to, it’s a typically arcane reference to the 1969 film: ‘If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium’. If that means nothing to you, then a quick view of the trailer here will make you realise how lucky you are.

More for my benefit than yours, here are two happy reminders as to why we are only too willing to drive up to Zichron every Sunday and to endure the trials and tribulations of air travel to get to Portugal every few months. Both are absolute no-brainers,