Best Olive Oil Ever

The one thing I really love about Israel is my family here. They’re all very close, and most live in the same little cooperative village that Purple’s mother grew up in. I love that there’s a 75-year-old-tree on the street that she planted when she was little, and Purples brother, sister and some cousins all live within walking distance, all with their assorted children. Littletree LOVES playing with her cousins and having them so close.

And I love that the family all work together. The family grows olives for olive oil, Bird of Paradise flowers and mandarins. Everyone helps with what they can.

The last time we were here, Littletree and I went out with all the other kids to help picking olives. This time we helped bottle the olive oil.

The bottle tops have a shrink-wrapped cover on them – it’s really cool to watch the plastic shrink onto the bottle under hot water

Littletree and I helped put labels on the bottles

Which isn’t as easy as it looks

The finished product

The most delicious olive oil I ever had! mmmm

Enough Matzah

It was still Passover when I arrived to Israel, so of course, there was an abundance of matzah around. Yay. I hate matzah; haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?

Purple did succeed in making a damn fine tiramisu with matzah flour, and I do kind of like the matzah ball soup Purple’s mother makes.

Apparently, Littletree was hankering for some wafer biscuits, and her grandmother, aunt and cousin were all trying to explain why she can’t have any. They went through explaining the stories from the bible, and why we can’t eat any “Chametz” during Passover.

“But why” Littletree kept asking, “why can’t I have wafers?” Finally her cousin had enough and said to her “Just because! We do it because we always do it and we’ve been doing it for 3000 years!”

Littletree replied: “3000 years? I think it’s time to stop now!”

LOL The unhindered honesty of children :)

Anyway, it’s over now and I’m muchly enjoying a good fix of pita and hummous of the like you can’t get outside of the middle east. mmmm

Five countries in one day

I finally arrived in Israel. It’s been a long and exhausting day, but it’s good to be here at last.

Starting at quarter to ridiculous, I started out from home to catch a flight at 8:40am… 32 hours and five countries later, I landed in Israel at just after 9am the next day.

For a long and exhausting journey, there were lots of wonderful glimpses along the way.

The gaggle of teenagers off to backpack in South East Asia for Easter break, who were a riot of laughs, debating why the sky is blue.

The satay chicken roti I got in KL airport that was folded over in a way that looked like a perfect yoni-flower (and silly me I didn’t photograph it before hunger got the best of me).

People-watching in Bangkok airport

In Amman airport, crouching on the floor of the bathrooms, handing out toilet tissue, was a woman with the most beautiful smile. I wanted to take a photo of her, but I figured that would not only be weird, I’d never manage to capture her amazing glow with a camera. So I just smiled back at her.

My plane to Jordan

Seeing the Dead Sea and then Israel from the air

Arriving home so aching, and getting a massage from Purple and Littletree (who is exceedingly skilled at walking on backs)

And of course the best thing of all: getting to squeeze my little girl (who is, apparently, not so little any more and wont let me smother her in kisses as much as I’d like.)

And now I’m just waiting for it to be night so I can sleep for about a week.

Update from KL

Well, I made it! I got myself all packed and everything organised and my kitchen cleared out and all the renovations organised and my client birthed and all the everything I had to do.

I even managed to get myself up at quarter to ridiculous and get to the airport on time. I didn’t forget my passport, or my iPad or my fetoscope.

And now I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Well, I’m in the transit lounge at the airport at least!

The flight to here was just over 8 hours, I have a 3 hour wait here, then a 2 hour flight to Bangkok. Then 4 1/2 hours in Bangkok, followed by a 9 hour flight to Amman, Jordan, 90 minutes in Jordan and then another flight to Tel Aviv. Assuming I’m still conscious by that time.

I’m already so tired!

Capture from my webcam, oooooh I look tired. Thankfully they have free wifi in KL airport, and soon I will get to see Littletree!

Beautiful Belly, Perfect Placenta, Midwife Mayhem

At exactly midnight last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the phone rang. My client, calling to tell me her waters had released. She said she wasn’t having any sensations yet, and nothing was really happening, but she wanted to give me a “heads up” and suggested I drive out and sleep there rather than getting woken up and have to rush over at quarter to ridiculous in the morning, or whenever things got really happening.

Good idea! I’d rather drive the 40 minutes to her house up a winding, dirt road at midnight than in the wee hours, so I extricated myself from my cosy bed and went out in the rain to go… only to get my car bogged in the mud in my own driveway! Oh goddess NO!

So after a fair whack of swearing and spinning wheels, and jacking up the van and digging under the tyres and putting a few boards down… I was out. Just before I got the van out of the mud, I stood up and said to Ariad (thank the goddess she was there to help me!), “why am I even bothering, I bet she’s birthing a little girl at this very moment”.

A minute later my phone rang – my client’s partner telling me they’d birthed a little girl, all healthy! Only 40 minutes after the original phone call, no less! So I wouldn’t have gotten there anyway.

They asked me to come out and check to make sure everything was fine, and help with the placenta (which took three hours in the end!). Isn’t she a beauty! Nutritious and restorative too :)

So no birthing photos, but I do have yummy pics from when we did the belly cast when the mama was 39 weeks.

Yay for women’s bodies and babies, yay for beautiful birthing!

Wonderful Weekend

Enjoying the quiet time is fun, but even better to spend time with someone special.

Ariad from Rainbow Love Farm has been visiting, which is awesome. We went out with my neighbours for dinner at the local pub on Thursday night (where they do a good curry).

Then we went out dancing Friday night, which was loads of fun. I jumped around like a mad thing and had a great time.

Life is good :) and the fact that I just have a few days to get ready to go overseas, and I still don’t have a passport, and I still have a client due to give birth any moment, and I still have to organise the renovation of our kitchen which will happen while I’m away, and I have a billion things to do before I leave on Friday… okay, well that stuff is kind of stressing me out. But having Ariad around does take my mind off it :D

Flashback Friday–Pregnant Majikfaerie

I’ve had a few requests for some old travelling stories, so I thought I’d do an occasional random post from before I started blogging (because, really, all the most interesting stuff was before we moved to Australia when I started this blog).

So, the first one will be my pregnancy, in honour of Littletree’s birthday :)

Littletree was conceived on a yacht in Amsterdam. Purple and I were living on the yacht, preparing to sail to Brazil. She was an awesome boat, and we worked hard getting her seaworthy.

Lying in a hammock off the boom over the water while the boat is sailing is AWESOME.

I don’t have all that many pregnancy photos (something I regret) but here’s me at about four months teaching a crochet workshop at a rainbow gathering in Israel

And at five months at Avebury stone circle in England

Seven months in Lençois, Bahia.

Eight months in Arembepe community, Bahia

Me with Purple at the World Rainbow Gathering in Brazil (he looked pretty different back then!) (photo from Chad)

Nine months at the rainbow – I used to swim out to this rock and sit every day.

And I’d sit in this perfect “natural jacuzzi” as well (photo from Simon)

Nine-and-a-half months (and over it) inside our tipi

I think that’s all my pregnancy photos. I don’t have any from when I was in Germany or Israel. I did manage to get on the TV news in Athens when I was 5 months pregnant though!

Skypeing with Littletree

I miss Littletree, but at least we have Skype. We videocall every day, at least once… but I still miss her and her crazy antics.

Bon Voyage Littletree

Littletree and Purple left for Israel, so I’ll be home alone for a couple of weeks. It’s going to be the first time I’m not with Littletree on her birthday!

We had to get up at quarter to ridiculous to get them to the airport on time, but we were blessed with this awesome rainbow along the way.

roadside rainbows

I miss my little girl already, but we still get to talk on Skype a lot. They’re in Bangkok now for 2 days before flying on to Tel Aviv. I’ll join them in 2 weeks.

Littletree’s Birthday Sleepover

Since Littletree will be in Israel for her birthday, she had a party with all her friends before she left. I think the pictures speak for themselves :)

Loads of fun!