It’s now only Sunday afternoon, but (for reasons that will become clear later) I don’t expect to have another chance to write this post before Tuesday, so I’m seizing the opportunity while both boys watch their videos.

I left you last week as we were anticipating the “ungodly hour” at which the boys would come bursting in to greet us on Tuesday morning. In fact, 6:30 is a pretty godly hour, particularly if your body actually thinks the time is 8:30. So, no real complaints there. In fact, no complaints at all anywhere. We’re now at the end of a first wonderful, if, as usual, routinely mundane, week.

Perhaps the first thing to say is, when you are only two-and-a-half, or, to be honest, even when you are very nearly six, ten-and-a-half weeks is a long time. We had only been away from Penamacor for less than eleven weeks, but neither Ollie, not even Tao, had wasted that time. Tao seems more socially engaged than when we were last here; conversations with him are that little bit more adult, and, most noticeably, he now seems much more comfortable speaking Hebrew to Tslil than when we left. He was quite capable of speaking to her in Hebrew, but, in the past, usually preferred to answer her in English, which is still definitely his first language, even though she always speaks to him in Hebrew.

Micha’el has, in the last few months, begun speaking to the boys in Hebrew one day a week, and perhaps that has helped to tip Tao over. Tao now goes to his Portuguese-speaking gan two days a week. On the second day, there is a different mix of children, and his friends include an Israeli girl who speaks no English and English friends who speak no Hebrew. Tao, according to Micha’el, feels very comfortable translating both ways for these friends.

As for Ollie, we left him speaking fairly freely, and we have returned to find him incapable of stopping speaking. He seems equally comfortable in English with Micha’el and in Hebrew with Tslil, and, when not conversing with them or us, he is still always speaking. In these situations, if you ask him what he said, he informs you in no uncertain terms: “I’m talking to my friend”, who is none the worse for being imaginary.

Whereas last time Ollie wanted us to read his book of nursery rhymes and songs incessantly, he has not asked for it once since we arrived this time. This may be because he has now committed many of the songs to memory, and so has effectively cut out the middle man. Instead, our first full day here consisted of Ollie “doing my puzzles”, a half-a-dozen jigsaw puzzles of increasing difficulty which he has fully mastered, and reading “Little Blue Truck”, a charming and heartwarming story about the importance of friendship, even if it does lose a little of its charm on the fifteenth reading.

Ollie also enjoys playing doctor, with the kids’ doctor’s bag (a really nice set of wooden props) and his doctor’s hat. This requires a volunteer patient lying down on the couch – this is the kind of role play I can really get into – and telling the doctor what is wrong. Whatever the complaint, the treatment often turns out to be trimming the patient’s fingernails, which proves to be a remarkably effective cure.

The highlight of the doctor’s visit, as far as I am concerned, comes just before he arrives. He goes to the entrance hall and waits for a phone call from the patient asking him to pay a house call. Then, as he walks across the salon, bag in hand, he doo-dee-doo’s a cheery doctor’s tune That is utterly convincing and, I imagine, was picked up from his father (possibly via his big brother).

If Ollie’s make-believe play is often limited to playing doctor, and is within fairly narrow constraints of flexibility, Tao’s imaginative play knows no bounds. As requested, two of the gifts we brought this time were Purim (and Halloween) costumes for the boys: for Ollie, a dinosaur (which, if he persists in calling it a crocodile, I may consider taking back), and for Tao, an impressive Batman costume. We gave them these costumes on Friday lunchtime, as Shabbat gifts, and, since then, they have barely taken them off.

While Ollie is capable of wearing his costume but still remaining Ollie, Tao has actually been Batman since Friday lunchtime. He was invited to a birthday party today, and the guests were asked to come in costume. I suggested to Tao that he should really wear everyday clothes, since Batman was no longer a costume for him, but rather what he wears normally. He was, unsurprisingly, not amused. He has, by now, got used to the fact that “Grandpa is being silly”.

We have also had a chance, in this first week, to catch up with Micha’el and Tslil’s plans to launch their bodyweight training gym. Everything seems to be going well as they get ever closer to launch. Micha’el is currently wrestling with the challenges of setting up an interactive website that will offer a very positive and supportive customer experience. In addition, they have bought the modest equipment that a bodyweight gym requires, and, last week, they took all of the equipment to their initial premises, for a video-shoot, to provide video and stills for the website. You may remember that I mentioned that the local municipality is offering them premises rent-free for a three-month initial period. All went well with the shoot, and, of course, Nana and Grandpa got the boys all to ourselves for a few hours.

This week will be a big change from routine. In the ongoing struggle to register Ollie’s birth with the Israeli authorities, and to renew their passports, the kids have made another appointment with the Israeli embassy in Lisbon, scheduled for Wednesday morning. Since the boys both need to attend in person, we all agreed that this sounded like an excellent excuse for a city break. So, tomorrow (Monday) morning, Tslil, the boys, Bernice and myself are driving the 40 minutes to Castelo Branco, to catch the bus for a two-hour-and-twenty-minute trip to Lisbon. Micha’el, who has to teach several lessons, will come by train from Castelo in the evening.

We are booked into a hotel in the centre of Lisbon for Monday and Tuesday night. This will give us a whole day free in Lisbon on Tuesday. Micha’el and Tslil plan to visit a gym, to enjoy its facilities and to carry out research. This, of course, means they can claim the entrance fee as a business expense. Bernice and I will be able to have fun, meanwhile, with our grandsons.

On Wednesday, Bernice and I will have the city to ourselves for an unspecified time. Whenever the kids and grandkids finish at the embassy, we will meet up again and have, we hope, a few hours before we make our way back to Castelo, pick up the car and truck, and make our weary way home. I think we are all very much looking forward to the adventure.

Well, I can hear that the video time has finished, and we need to start thinking about what we are going to pack for our mini-break, so I will stop there and wish us all that we hear good news. (Being away from the pressure cooker that is life in Israel is, in some senses, a welcome relief, and, in others, not easy.)