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Day 180
Met a lovely Israeli family whose achievements made us feel totally rubbish. A couple with three children, aged 5, 8 and 10 - who have trekked to base camp Everest and Annapurna. They had walked each route for 30 full days, sleeping in tea houses and going without a shower. Apparently the children loved it, even the 5 year old. They are trying to find ways to live 'off the land' so they never have to return home. They are educating their children on the road, but only have very limited access to Hebrew books so are constantly having to be very creative. They are amazing and totally nuts. One of their sons looks like he has been raised by wolves - literally wearing a sack as clothes and with blonde hair all matted down his back and a weird speech pattern of giggles and grunts. So Fern and Clover were thrilled to have new friends to play with and settled down to a game with their little figures. Imagine our shock and surprise when the figure the children decided to decapitate was called 'Ju Ju'. Much shrieking and hilarity ensued, with the children all chucking Ju Ju in the air and screaming 'chop Ju Ju's head off' and 'kill Ju Ju' and 'get Ju Ju'. This was all in a fairly quiet restaurant and the enormity of what they were shouting in front of these nice Israeli's hit us like a sack of bricks. You can't really shout those words anyway, let alone in this context. All the other toys are called Bobbin or Po Po or John or something. Why the hell did they pick Ju Ju? It was shameful. Anyway the family were very impressed that I can read and speak some Hebrew so we all got over the unfortunate faux pas and moved on.
Spent a nice family day decorating Christmas cookies at a local restaurant which we then took into Kilroy's and distributed to a group of delighted waiters. The girls had personalised them all with their initials and they were very touched. Apart from a major squabble over who got to give out the biggest one, we all managed well and felt quite festive. I spent most of the time anxiously awaiting news of my dad's operation and had to nip into many Skype cafes throughout the course of the day.
Poor Gan Gan got snowed in and my old dad had to pretty much turn up for his operation alone. He's deaf and doddery at the best of times so am surprised he didn't end up at the wrong hospital in the wrong city waking up with a penis enlargement and rhinoplasty. Anyway, he got there, the surgeons took 40% of his liver (in a planned way, they didn't just take it) but he did fine, and as far as I am told is now happily self-administering morphine, watching Sky and ogling nurses. Thank Ganesh.
Fern and Clover have started 'climbing school' - a week long intense course where they will pretty much learn all aspects of er, ..climbing. On the first day I sat in the corner reading a copy of Fred West's biography. I don't recommend it, I haven't slept for three days now. Rufus sat in the other corner reading Josef Fritzl's story, kindly sent by his stepmum, periodically shouting over to me 'you won't believe this'. Am not sure the nice climbing instructor knew what to think, Nepal just doesn't have any serial killers. Clover has developed a nice new stye the size of a small grapefruit and people are actually recoiling when they try and greet her. I ate some dodgy prawns but survived the night. Watched La Vita e Bella several hundred times with the girls, the greatest love story ever told and we all enjoyed a good weep. Better still - Clover has learned some Italian.
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