End of the year

Last  time I wrote, we were about to embark on a very busy weekend. On May 30, we spent the day at AwesomeCom, which really was awesome. We went to a Q&A session with John Rhys-Davies and Sean Astin, which was hilarious; a panel on the "strong woman character" trope in genre and its problems, which began slowly, but quickly developed into an interesting discussion once audience participation began; tried new games; and wandered around the immense exhibit area, looking at t-shirts, original comics, merchandise and more. The most fun was looking at all the cosplayers, some of whom had amazingly detailed costumes, and some of whom were just having fun. A and S fell into the latter category: A bought a Deadpool mask a few weeks ago, and wore red and black, generally, while S recycled his Halloween costume of Rorschach (whom he has no real idea about, just thought the mask looked cool on Amazon - I have no real idea who Rorschach is either). The food situation was not great, and in retrospect it might even have been quicker to go outside the convention centre for lunch, but we made an executive decision to regard food as fuel that day, as we barely had time for a very early supper before heading to Strathmore to hear Fauré's Requiem. I had never heard it before, and I enjoyed it very much, especially as the program kindly provided full words with translation, so we could follow along. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the wording looked like slightly skewed versions of Jewish prayers. 

Next day, we spent the afternoon at the Folger, watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I had such fun! I saw the film with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth when it came out in 1990, in one of the now-gone cinemas in north Tel Aviv, and I remember laughing out loud at some point, and being the only person in the theatre to do so. That certainly didn't happen this time, everyone was laughing at all the jokes, including A and S (when S saw The Lion King on the last day of school, he came home convinced that Timon and Pumba were Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - or vice versa). I'm not sure that they have seen enough live theatre to undesrtand all the conventions that were being played with, but they have seen Hamlet, so they had an idea of what was going on. In this performance, the Player was particularly good, much more of a presence than I remember Richard Dreyfuss being in the film. Guildenstern (Adam Wesley Brown) and Rosencrantz (played by an understudy, Luis Alberto Gonzalez) were both excellent, too. When I saw the movie, I don't think I had much of an idea who the main actors were, and I was surprised to meet them years later as Sirius Black and the Abomination. The play owes almost as much to Waiting for Godot as it does to Hamlet, and ADC asked me why I enjoyed R&G so much, yet disliked Waiting for Godot. Well, to begin with I think that WfG would have been improved - the one time I saw it live - if I had not just come off a five-hour flight to London. I fell asleep there, but I am told that I did not miss much, as nothing happens in the first half, and that is recapitulated in the second half. I don't think that that is true of R&G - yes, they spend a lot of time waiting, but things do happen. Also, since I saw this first as a film, I didn't experience it as occurring on a single stage set, but in a variety of settings, with the journey actually taking place on horseback etc. Finally, I am sure that my own enjoyment of verbal dexterity deriving from a great classic has a lot to do with it; I may simply prefer the register in which Stoppard works to Becket's.

The following week was "spirit week" at the elementary school, and S had to wear interesting clothes all week, culminating in a superhero outfit on Friday - he was given a Batman suit by a friend. Pity he didn't get it in time for AwesomeCon, but he is now sorted for Purim next year. A was invited to the honors evening at school. About 800 names (some two thirds of the student body) were called up to receive some kind of honor, with some children being called up more than once. A was in the next to last group, children who had received straight As all year (the last group was 27 children who had received straight As for eleven quarters, their entire time at TPMS). I am glad that ADC went without me, as I think I would have very much resented not being able to knit had I gone. This paragraph kind of sums up the entire year's experience for the boys: S had a great time, and A was rather bored. 

Last weekend, its first half  - Friday evening through Saturday afternoon - was spent visiting the Ms and their kids in Baltimore. We were very pleased to be invited for the weekend, actually just as ADC had been about to call to ask when we could see them, as this will be our last chance to see them before we come home. As we left Takoma Park during Friday evening rush hour, Google Maps took us on a different route from our previous visit, and after a whole year in which I had only seen the part of the Baltimore that was the route between Penn Station and Johns Hopkins' Homewood Campus, this weekend I saw two areas that were quite different. To begin with, we ended up going through a rather depressed area of Baltimore before we reached the Ms' house, on W 34th St. We discussed with the boys how you identified a poverty-stricken area: peeling paint, boarded up windows, no greenery, no chain stores but rather corner shops prominently advertising liquor. A added children playing outside on the pavement and adults sitting on the steps leading up to the row houses, and S added that those adults were smoking. As we moved north, the neighbourhood improved - this seems to be a near constant, north is better than south (if your city has an up and a down, like Haifa does, with Mt Carmel, then up is better). I wonder if there is any explanation for that. 

After supper, we went to get ice cream at the Charmery, just around the corner on W 36th St., and saw another side of the city. This was the hipster Baltimore, which KM and AM had said was like Zichron, with boutiques selling various kinds of handmade food and clothes. They were quite right, and we were sorry to see that we had missed happy hour at a chocolatier. We were not too late for an oyster stall, and to our surprise, S agreed to try one (we assume because IM, rather than one of us, told him that it tasted good). He wasn't impressed, but at least he didn't reject the suggestion out of hand. We had planned to go to the Aquarium in the morning, but once again we didn't make it. IM and AW are very big on board games, and had specifically requested that we bring Seven Wonders with us. We played after coming back from the ice cream, and ended up going to bed very late. Once we got up in the morning, AM made waffles, after which the boys (including the fathers) began playing Clue, while AM and I took sixteen-month-old CR to the playground. When we got back, because CR was getting hungry, the game was still going on, and by the time it finished, we decided to just go back home and do homework and watch You Can't Take It With You, which is exactly what we did.

First thing Sunday morning, ADC mowed the lawn. He did a much better job than A does, a combination of greater weight and power brought to bear when pushing (although it is an electric lawnmower) and greater motivation (I think no one could be less motivated than A: he liked the idea of mowing the lawn - similarly to the idea of shoveling snow - much more than he did the reality). This set the stage for a horticulturally-focused day. Our previous visit to the National Arboretum was the day after a snowstorm, and we decided already then to returm in the spring. As we are now almost at the summer solstice, and running out of time left to visit, we decided to go yesterday, after a rainy week that ended in sunshine and humidity. Sadly, once again many flowers were not yet blooming - although many other were already past their peak. It seemed as if what would have been the best areas to look at are now out of bounds due to the nesting bald eagles, which is a great pity, to my mind. However, we did see the late-blooming satsuki azaleas, and found a Japanese-style pond, with godfish, water-lilies in bloom, and most excitingly, several frogs, one of them almost on a lily-pad, in best Princess and the Frog style. The herb garden was at one of its peaks, too, and I really enjoyed that: there was a whole row of mints in pots, and you could rub the leaves and smell the differences as you walked along. It was fun seeing all the familar names and shapes in the industrial and colonial sections, as well as noting which plants appeared again and again: seasonings and bases for alcoholic drinks :)

The last week of school was fairly uneventful, with a lot of time spent on final exams. The last quarter report card will arrive in the mail, apparently. Oh, and S had his class trip to Baltimore on Monday. His main comment, when he got home, was that he didn't understand why, after having seen a film about the Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry, they saw another such film at the Science Museum instead of doing something related to science there. 

Friday was the last day of elementary and middle school in Maryland. Since A has finished 8th grade and S has finished 5th grade, Friday was devoted to their promotion ceremonies - a new usage to me, BTW. I had not previously run across "promotion" in this sense. I would have just said "finished primary school" and/or "finished junior high". Anyway, we split up, with ADC attending A's ceremony (12:30-14:00) and me attending Sl's (11:30-12:30, clap-out at 15:15). It sounds as if both ceremonies were very similar: the children marched in, speeches by the principal and student representatives, a musical number, prizes, names of each student read by homeroom teacher. A's ceremony, from his report, was of course more elaborate, with a PowerPoint with pictures of all the children and a short film with all the teachers wishing them luck. The TPMS principal apparently spent her day going to various promotion ceremonies, elementary schools in the morning and the middle school in the afternoon. S received his certificate in his classroom. While everyone was milling around before the children had a picnic lunch (parents were sent home and returned to clap the mortarboard-wearing children out of school at the end of the day), I took pictures of S and his teacher and best friends on my cell phone. I hope they are viewable. ADC said the same for his pictures of A's ceremony, taken on a real camera and by a far better photographer.

On another note entirely, I spent quite a lot of time this past week on crafts: I finally finished my hiking shorts, which I decided to lengthen by adding a cuff (just in time to go rafting on Saturday), and I swatched my next cardigan. It seemed oddly appropriate to be knitting while watching Terry Gilliam's Brazil on Thursday night. Very excitingly, when I logged into Ravelry on Friday, I saw I had a message from the designer of the baby blanket I knitted for my latest neice, asking permission to feature my project on the pattern's main page. Admittedly, I knitted the blanket in December, but only added the pictures (again, ADC must be credited) a few days ago. What a compliment! 

The weekend has been boiling hot, and spending Saturday on the Shenandoah River was a very good idea. We reached the rafting company at Front Royal around 10:30, and were on the river just after 11:00. We floated along until 15:30 - the Shenandoah was much wider and slower than the Jordan was when we went rafting there, and we got stuck at every "riffle" - places where rocks are high enough to cause very mildly choppy water, but it was still great fun. ADC and A did most of the rowing, and every so often we stopped at an island and had a dip in the lovely cool water. I am still trying to get the algae out of my shorts - admittedly I made them for this kind of activity, but still, I'd like them to look newish after only one wearing. You can float so well when wearing a life jacket! The boys insisted on racing the other people who had been in the shuttle to the rivers with us - two men who were camping with their six-year-old sons. Unsurprisingly, we reached our end point - 7 miles from the start - before them. On the way back, we decided to take a scenic detour along the Skyline Drive, in the Shenandoah Valley National Park. We had been there before, in early October, and this was our last chance to be there again. Unfortunately, I think we were too tired to appreciate it properly - and also the view, when we stopped at overlooks, was quite hazy. After such an exhausting day, we had a much quieter time yesterday. Ariel finally went to buy bagels for Sunday breakfast. He said that he was one of the few male customers not wearing a kippa, and that all the staff were clearly Orthodox Jews - which to my mind seemed a good indication of quality control, and indeed the bagels were delicious. I wonder why American bagels are so much softer than the ones Granny and Grandpa used to make - a difference between Polish and Lithuanian traditions, perhaps? We then slowly wended our way to the weekly farmers' market and listened to a few acts at the Takoma Park Jazz Festival. It was incredibly hot and humid - Tel Aviv seemed cool and dry in comparison - so we didn't stay as long as we might have. We ended the day by watching Flash Gordon, which A had been very eager to watch due to the soundtrack being by Queen. I saw sometime in my childhood, but remembered very little of it. It was quite hilariously campy and bad, with enough woodenness to furnish a carpenter in every scene with Flash and Dale Arden, on the one hand, and Brian Blessed chewing all scenery he came within point blank range of: "Hand me the remote control!!" sounded just like "Release the Kraken!!" 

Today was the first day of the summer holidays. The boys and I have begun packing - in the sense that they went through all their school stuff, and there is now a pile of paper almost 23 cm high waiting to be recycled - and I began inventorying which of the things we bought for the house we plan to send in a lift and which we plan to leave behind as it's not worth sending them, when you factor in the cost of shipping and customs. Tomorrow a rep of one of the shipping companies I contacted is coming to do an in-home survey; another company estimated (based on my very preliminary listing) that we had about 5 cubic metres to ship. I think the cost of shipping will come to almost equal the value of the things that we are shipping, and that's before customs is calculated. The state really wants you to buy things in Israel, rather than importing them personally!

Next letter will probably be after the Fourth of July, for which we apparently will have front row seats for the fireworks, as they are let off at the middle school sports fields across the road.

Israel and Philadelphia

It's difficult to believe that two weeks ago I was sitting in J's kitchen translating SR's bar mitzvah sermon, and her and LR's speeches. As we have a very cultural weekend planned (AwesomeCon followed by Fauré's Requiem on Saturday, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on Sunday), I have to finish writing this letter today!

So, as everyone knows, A, S and I had a very action-packed week in Israel between May 10-16, while ADC spent part of that time visiting colleagues in Arizona with whom he has a BSF grant. We managed to see a lot of people, but not everyone we would have liked to, and most people we did not get to see enough of, for my part particularly not enough of my siblings J and R (I think I saw more of my brother-and sister-in-law than I did of them). It was lovely seeing my uncle and aunt from South Africa and my cosin from London, their son, too, and I'm sorry we only overlapped for 36 hours or so. 

A and S's favourite day was Tuesday, which we spent in Jerusalem, each one of us seeing friends separately. I think that this week has actually made them  more eager to come home: seeing all their old friends really emphasised the extent to which they have made acquaintances rather than friends in Takoma Park. I think the day I enjoyed most was Thursday, when I spent the morning at Tel Aviv University meeting friends and the early afternoon seeing eumelia s flat and having lunch with her at a very pleasant café down the road, before she took the three boys to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, which they all enjoyed thoroughly. ADC and I are very grateful to her for doing so, otherwise we would have had to take the boys to see it, and we would rather do other things on our weekends.... The bar mitzvah itself, of course, was in a class of itself. I was highly impressed with SR's reading from the Torah, and J and LR's speeches thoroughly embarrassed him, as is the custom. 

The trip home was much less traumatic than the cancellation of the Amtrak line between New York and Philadelphia following the derailment would have suggested; after spending close to an hour on the phone to America, we were able to be rerouted to Baltimore, and ADC came to pick us up. By the time he went to Princeton to give a talk last Thursday, the train was running as normal again.

Last weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and we went on what is probably our last out of town trip before we leave Takoma Park in July. We spent Saturday at Gettysburg, and Sunday and Monday in Philadelphia. It took quite a long time to get to Gettysburg, and even longer to get from there to Philadelphia; about half the day was spent driving. The national battlefield site is very interesting and informative, with a film (narrated, of course, by Morgan Freeman), a nineteenth-century cyclorama and an excellent museum at the visitor centre, and the most authentic living history we've seen yet in the US (ADC questions whether we've seen any other living history; the RenFest in October certainly doesn't count). As we are so close to the solstice and so far north, despite arriving in Philadelphia close to 8 p.m., it was still light, which was very nice as we wandered around looking for a restaurant bear our hotel. We ended up at an Indonesian place, adding to the list of cuisines we are sampling here. Each of us thought that he had chosen the best choice of the dishes.

Saturday was our only full day in Philadelphia, and we were extremely thorough in our explorations, returning to the hotel nearly 13 hours after setting out in the morning. We didn't get to see the Liberty Bell, as the queue was incredible, but we did go to the National Museum of American Jewish History, Independence Hall, Reading Terminal Market, and the Delaware River Waterfront. At the NMAJH, we started with a temporary exhibition of Richard Avedon portraits, many of which came from the Israel Museum's collection. I found the permanent collection more interesting, though, especially the sections on the development of Reform Judaism and the post-WWII move to suburbia. Like the Tenement Museum in New York, a lot of the museum was a walk through ADC's family history. The Tenement Museum was a more intense experience, focussing as it did on only one of the times and places covered by the NMAJH. A particularly interesting aspect for me was the historiography: the presence of Yiddish, for example, alongside Hebrew in many cases, and the total absence of the non-Ashkenazi experience in the historical introduction, apart from the mass aliyah to Israel. At the same time, there was both a great emphasis on Jewish involvement in civil rights and feminism (neither of which would have happened, it looked like, without the Jews) and an acknowledgement that Jews today are both Republicans and Democrats. 

After we finished at the museum, we had just enough time for a cheesesteak before going to Independence Hall. Everyone approved of the cheesesteak (even the vegan one I ate), as one should always try local foods, and it was the right thing at the right time. Independence Hall was a guided tour of a small building, with a very enthusiastic guide with great voice projection. I must say that I remain resolutely Old World-centric in what really interests me in history ... We continued from Independence Hall to Reading Street Market. We had begun our day there, as it was right across the road from our hotel, and the boys were enchanted by Mueller's chocolate, which featured various body parts made from chocolate. They desperately wanted to buy a heart or a kidney as an afternoon snack, but these were quite large and correspondingly expensive, so we forced them to make do with a nose each - which seemed like quite a lot of chocolate, in any case!

We then decided to take advantage of Philadelphia's street art, and explored the city centre further by way of walking the abridged version of the Mural Mile. S took pictures of the murals, which were almost invariably on the walls of building that abutted parking lots - I don't think I've seen so many parking lots in such a small space! The murals themselves wee fascinating, and we spent much longer than the suggested 30 minutes looking at them and discussing what we were seeing. By the time we finished, it was past 6 p.m. and we were all starting to droop. We had supper at an excellent Italian restaurant, Giorgio on Pine, where our waitress was Italian and supper was still going strong when we left, just before eight - unusual for American restaurants, which often close for the night by eight. We finished the day by walking to the Delaware River Waterfront, mainly so as not to retire to the hotel too early. When we got to Penn's Landing, we were startled to see a Cold War submarine next to a floating fish restaurant. 

On Monday, we spent the entire day at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We walked there from our hotel, down Benjamin Franklin Parkway and looked at all the flags, in vague alphabetical order (except for the flags of Poland, next to a statue in memory of Copernicus, and of Israel, next to a Holocaust memorial from 1964). At the museum, ADC declined to take pictures of the boys by the statue of Rocky, as he doesn't like taking that kind of picture - and in his defence, there was quite a long line of people waiting to take that same picture ... We were too early for what looks like a very good exhibition of the Impressionists, but enjoyed looking at the Museum's own collection of that school. We stuck to nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, this time. A was very keen to see the Surrealists and Marcel Duchamp's urinal, while S was happy to see a Roy Lichtenstein. Both of them spent the last hour or so at the arms and armour hall by themselves, while Ariel and I looked at decorative art and rooms from English stately homes that had been transferred piecemeal in the 1920s and 1930s. I have to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by the PMA. Admittedly, the National Gallery and the Met are in a class by themselves, but I think that there was more art that spoke to me, personally, at the MFA in Boston. But maybe I was just tired after Saturday ... 

Last Friday, the 22nd, A's entire year, the 8th grade class of 2015, went to Six Flags. He had a lot of fun, going on a roller coaster and dodgem cars, playing games at an arcade and eating pizza. Very sweetly, he bought fudge and brought it home for all of us. The same day, S had Authors' Tea at school: parents were invited to class to hear the children read poems or short prose pieces they had written. About half way through, juice and cookies were served. S read an alliterative alphabetical poem about superheroes. Apart from him, the best pieces, I thought, were an extract from a description of a baseball game from the ball's point of view, and a poem entitled "Divorce" in which one of the girls reflected on how life was in face better after her parents' divorce - everyone was much happier, and shhe had double the family. Almost all the children read something and some of them read two pieces. As usual with this age, the difference between boys and girls is immense. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the boys are still children, and the girls - at least some of them - are becoming introspective, mature.

As a result of the Authors' Tea, I have decided to sign up for a poem of the day by e-mail. I was surprised to see how much choice there is. Should I go for a classic daily poem, or a contemporary one? When does contemporary start? Does anyone have a recommendation? 

SED 23 - fun times for A and S

A's entire year, the 8th grade class of 2015, went to Six Flags today. He had a lot of fun, going on a roller coaster and dodgem cars, playing games at an arcade and eating pizza. Very sweetly, he bought fudge and brought it home for all of us. 

S had Authors' Tea at school today: parents were invited to class to hear the children read poems or short prose pieces they had written. About half way through, juice and cookies were served. S read an alliterative alphabetical poem about superheroes. Apart from him, the best pieces, I thought, were an extract from a description of a baseball game from the ball's point of view, and a poem entitled "Divorce" in which one of the girls reflected on how life was in face better after her parents' divorce - everyone was much happier, and shhe had double the family. Almost all the children read something and some of them read two pieces. As usual with this age, the difference between boys and girls is immense. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the boys are still children, and the girls - at least some of them - are becoming introspective, mature. 

As a result of the Authors' Tea, I have decided to sign up for a poem of the day by e-mail. I was surprised to see how much choice there is. Should I go for a classic daily poem, or a contemporary one? When does contemporary start? Does anyone have a recommendation? 

SED 21 - helping with homework

Things are really back to normal now: I've just finished helping S with his spelling homework and given A his weekly Arabic lesson. Both of these things are part of our Thursday afternoon routine. 

S has a spelling quiz every Friday. His teacher gives out a list of 30 words every Monday, divided into 3 groups of easy, middle and difficult. When we first arrived, S was doing the easy and middle words, but within 6 weeks he was moved to the middle and difficult group. He learns all the words, anyway, and I give him dictation every Thursday evening. This week's topic was words with TH, CH and SH. Interestingly, after only a week's break, S did much more poorly than usual - he normally get less than 5 words wrong, and this time he got 8 "wrongs", as he calls them. He was quite philosophical about it, and it was proof, to my mind, of the importance of reading in learning spelling - he read much less than usual in Israel, and even not having his cell phone this week hasn't meant that he's read more than usual, since he and A have played a great deal together (and of course, they have had to make up the lessons that they missed). 

A's Arabic lesson went as could be expected. After a week's break, his reading had deteriorated, but I remember that happening to me after the summer vacation as an undergraduate. I am glad that I've set a specific day and time for the lessons, because they are actually happening and he's not dropping too far behind his class. After the Memorial Day weekend, we'll start having two lessons a week, beginning with a review all the vocabulary of the current plus the present-future tense (more correctly, the imperfect).

ETA: this is uploaded on Friday, as ADC came home just as I was about to do so yesterday.  

SED 20 (late) - clearly not over jet lag

One of my conclusions - yes, already - from SED is that I can't be sure I'll get around to it in the evening. Posting during working hours is most likely to ensure consistency, and even that is not going to be true, always. 

Case in point - yesterday I had a highly productive working day, and fully intended to post after supper, then get back to sewing my hiking shorts. However, I must still be jetlagged, as shortly after the boys went to sleep at 9:00, I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up at 10:00 and went to bed properly. As ADC is in Princeton for a couple of days, I correctly anticipated not sleeping well, so I might as well get a head start ... and clearly my body was also telling me something. 

SED 18 + 19 - getting over jetlag and getting back to work

Yeterday was all about jetlag - although I woke up what seemed like a reasonable time, I was completely washed out the whole day, and found it difficult to concentrate well enough to work. The heat didn't help, although at least our AC is working, unlike A's school ... It was such a relief when the heavens opened about 8 p.m., and it continued raining at least until I went to bed at the absurdly early hour (for me) of 10 p.m.

Today was a much better day. I filled in my bimonthly income tax and VAT reports for the Israeli tax authorities, finalised a grant proposal (but can't submit it yet, as the admin people have to first upload the sections they are responsible for), put the final touches to the book I was editing before leaving for Israel, and began peer-reviewing three articles for a collection to which I have contributed (and will be paid for). So a very productive day all round. Now to make supper, and afterwards to sew buttons on ADC's trousers, a top of mine, and the cardigan that will be M's.

SED 17 - back in the USA

I was a bit too optimistic at the end of my last post - while I had a reasonable flight, sleeping quite a lot and almost finishing my book, S had a rather bad one: he threw up twice, after overeating at the bar-mitzvah. The first time was in the aisle, and the stewardesses sprinkled a clumping material (similar to kitty litter, I should think) and asked my help cleaning up. The second time was after he drank some water - he just spat that up all over himself ... I felt very sorry for him, but when we were about to disembark, and he couldn't find his cell phone, I did get upset. I couldn't understand how he could have lost such a thing, and we spent quite a while during our connection at Newark filling in an online form to report its loss.

Apart from that hiccup, landing went smoothly. As always, my J-1 visa raised queries from the immigration officer, but I was able to convince him that medieval medicine was actually effective (quite a few modern cough medicines, both over the counter and prescription drugs, are based on the same materia medica) and also customized to individuals (a very brief description of the ideal of Galenic practice, I know).

We arrived at BWI at 9:30 a.m., still on Israel time, i.e. 4:30 p.m., having set out from my parents' house at 8:30 the previous evening. When we got home and unpacked, Shaul's cell phone was discovered in a side pocket of his backpack - a pocket that I had not realised was there. So, all's well that end's well, but I'm still confiscating his phone for a week, so that he learns to be more careful with his things.

It's now 8:30 in the evening, and the boys have been in bed for an hour. I deliberately had them shower as  soon as we got home so that they could go to bed quickly in the eveing. In the afternoon we watched Kurasawa's The Hidden Fortress, apparently one of George Lucas' inspirations for the original Star Wars. We'll listen to the interview with Lucas tomorrow, as despite the thrilling story and set-piece duels, the boys nearly fell asleep watching the movie, and absolutely did so while Ariel made supper.

I shall go to bed shortly myself ... tomorrow normal life resumes.