I am writing this post from the Economy section of an El Al flight. (Paying subscribers get a post written from Business class.) If the post seems radically different from the last written in mid-air, that may be because I am now facing East, rather than West, as we head back home after four hectic but wonderful weeks in Portugal. Friends are advised not to ask Bernice and myself ‘Did you enjoy your holiday?’, but we did, in fact, have a great, if exhausting, time. As we drove back to Lisbon this morning at 120 kph on cruise control through bright sunlight and an outside temperature of 26o , we remarked, as we often do, how fortunate we are that our children share their house with us so generously for a month at a time, and that our grandsons regard us as so natural a part of their lives.
Once again, this week I have nothing overly dramatic to report. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Ollie’s advances in speech. In the last couple of days of our visit he seemed to take another dramatic leap forward, and his active vocabulary is now growing every day. He has added ‘Nana’ and ‘Grandpa’ (smart child), as well as ‘bubbles’, ‘down’ (as the natural partner to his favourite ‘up’), ‘bread’ (this is a child who loves his food) and, this morning, ‘please’. He even attempted on one occasion to follow the most difficult instruction in a charming picture book ‘Tickle My Ears’, in which the child being read to is encouraged to adopt a hands-on approach to helping a rabbit get ready for bed. Ollie has long been willing to tickle the rabbit’s ears, pat its back, clap his hands, switch off the light, but he attempted for the first time to say ;’Hoppity-hop’ to encourage the rabbit to get into bed.
Tao, meanwhile, is taking his first major steps in reading. He has, for some time, been able to recognise, and write, his own name. How far-thinking his parents were when they named him! (Pity his cousin Raphael when he first tries to write his name in English.) In our last couple of weeks in Portugal, Bernice spent ten minutes almost every day starting Tao on a reading program. She is not a fan of phonics. Rather, he learnt, as his father and his Auntie Esther did, with ‘Peter and Jane’, and it is fair to say that he took to it very quickly and is thoroughly enjoying the sense of achievement it gives him. It is so exciting when, as one or other of us is reading to him in the evening, he suddenly exclaims: ‘That’s one of my words – ‘and’!’
Our last full day in Penamacor was Sunday, which was Tao’s 5th birthday. Celebrations actually began on the previous Thursday, when we all went down to the kid’s land for the planting of Tao’s birthday tree. His first birthday was marked by the planting of an almond tree, which was followed by a pomegranate and a plum. For some reason, he missed out last year, but this year, for the first time, he went with Tslil to the plant nursery to choose his own tree. He chose a black cherry (what a great choice, promising, in the fulness of time, delicious fruit and generous shade).
The site that Tslil chose proved to be very clay-heavy soil, which made digging the required hole very hard work. I attempted to help Micha’el with wielding the pick to break up the soil and the spade to drag it out of the hole, but I quickly found that the three years since I helped digging the swale have not been kind to my body, and settled for serving as one of the official photographers. All that remained was for each of us to place a stone by the tree, with, on each stone, a single word representing our birthday wish for Tao.
It proved to be a lovely afternoon on the land. Warmer weather made the last two weeks of our visit even more pleasant, and we could sense that spring is arriving, something I also became aware of on my morning walks in the forest with the kid’s dog, Lua. Over the last week, the forest has come alive with new growth. Purple, white and blue wildflowers are starting to carpet the slopes, and new growth of oak and pine saplings is replacing the mature trees felled in storms last winter. This is all against the backdrop of the still snow-capped foothills of the Sierra da Estrella mountain range on the horizon.
After the Thursday family ceremony, Tao had a birthday celebration in gan the next day, the highlight of which was the chocolate cake Tslil made. He came home with a birthday crown which, in Bernice’s considered professional opinion, was not a patch on what is standard in Israeli gamin, but he seems to have enjoyed himself nevertheless.
Then, on Sunday, Tao had a full day of celebration, starting with opening his presents, from all of which he extracted the maximum enjoyment, as he seems to do from all his toys. Tslil’s parents took out in Tao’s name a subscription to a concept built around a hedgehog’s year-long journey around the world. Every month Tao will receive a personal letter from the hedgehog, whose progress he will follow on the world map included in the first month’s package. In this way, Tao will learn all sorts of fascinating facts about different countries, including their native animals. When I pointed out to him where Portugal and Israel were on the map, and also Britain, he pointed to the tiny clock-tower illustrating Britain and, to everyone’s surprise, announced ‘That’s Big Ben’, a fact he had presumably gleaned from some video or other.
Our present, following Micha’el’s suggestion, was shamelessly much less worthy, being a remote-controlled stunt car. It proved to be a huge hit with all four of us little boys, although the womenfolk seemed less keen to get their hands on the remote control. To my great relief, the rechargeable battery lasted on one charge for as respectable a time as the manufacturer claimed in the product description online. To top it all, we were able to buy it in royal blue, Tao’s favourite colour. Within minutes, he had mastered spins and flips and wheelies and Micha’el constructed a magnetile ramp that allowed Tao to put the car through its paces very effectively.
Sunday afternoon brought a party with a couple of Tao’s friends, involving the usual games, balloons, noise-makers and sugar rushes. It was all a bit too much for Ollie (and, to be honest, me) but for those who fell within the appropriate age range it was a huge success.
And then, before we knew it, it was Monday morning (this morning, though it seems an age ago), and a mad rush of packing, last games, last breakfast, with Ollie, as usual, eating fruit faster than I could cut it for Bernice and myself, last book-reading and then the goodbyes that we try not to linger over too much. Tao, obviously, understands that we are going back to Israel and that he won’t see us until the summer. Ollie, sadly, doesn’t, and we’re sure he won’t find it easy when Nana is suddenly no longer there with her eminently snugglable shoulder, her cuddles and kisses, her songs and stories. Fortunately, the boys have two parents who are completely devoted to them, and we know they are certainly not going to be missing out at all.
As for us, we’re off home to recuperate and make our plans for our summer trip in three months, God willing.