There have been lots of pieces of news that I have wanted to post on our blog lately but it has had other ideas, every so often it goes on strike and shuts me out and I have to wait for my friend and computer guru to come and put it to right, something I seem incapable of doing.

The better weather has tempted us out and about after what has felt like an unusually long and chilly winter and I have been longing to share our enjoyment of living in Jerusalem with everyone who reads our blog. This week saw us back in our very favourite place, the beautiful Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, with the trees the brightest possible green, not yet having collected a layer of summer dust and in full blossom, it could not have looked lovelier.  We also enjoyed it through the eyes of the visitor we took with us,  our neighbour’s carer who is from Rumania, seldom has a day out and had never before been to a zoo.  The excitement of this middle-aged grandmother was like that of a small child’s. It’s hard to say what she and we enjoyed the most, one of our favourite spots has always been, “Squirrel Monkey Look-out,” where one can watch these lively little creatures, in completely natural surroundings, as they enjoy their food, climb trees and chase each other.  An extra treat is when there are babies clinging to their mothers’ backs. The Sumatran Tigers in their magnificent enclosure situated on several levels with a pool and stream running through it is also a huge attraction. It is impossible to see all the exhibits in one visit so we have promised Galena – and ourselves- that we will return in a few weeks to visit the bears, chimps, lions and many other exhibits for which there was not enough time.

The Whol Rose garden, near to the High Court building and Knesset, is another beautiful spot but on this week’s visit we were a little disappointed, the roses were in full bloom, the air fragrant with their scent and the birds singing but, sadly, since its early days, when we volunteered there, it is showing signs of neglect.  Too many weeds, unkempt flower  beds  and rose bushes badly in need of pruning.  The Botanical gardens which we have also recently visited was, in contrast, well-cared for and a riot of colour, with all the spring and early summer flowers in full bloom.

Jerusalem’s Mayor, Nir Barkat, works hard to rid Jerusalem of its image of being a boring,
over-priced, overly-religious city where there is nothing to do and to that end,  puts on all kind of entertainments both to encourage Israelis from other parts of the country to visit and for the benefit of its residents. The most recent of these events was the Jerusalem Ice Festival.  The Mayor had engaged the services of 35 Chinese ice sculptors who had carved scenes of Jerusalem, including the Old City walls, within which frolicked all kinds of animals from the great lion that is a symbol of Jerusalem, to cows, pandas and horses.  Scenes from fairy tales and Biblical stories were also portrayed, all of them exquisitely carved from huge blocks of ice. The area in which the carvings were displayed (Jerusalem’s old train-station compound)had, of course, to be kept extremely cold, making us glad that we owned warm winter coats and gloves unlike most of the other visitors. The other visitors- who were they?  Almost entirely schoolgirls from local Arab schools, many thousands of them, coaches were arriving every few minutes, disgorging a new lot and collecting those who had done the rounds of the exhibition. They were a credit to their schools, modestly dressed with scarf swathed heads and very well-behaved.  Some of them who heard us talking English were happy to exchange a few words with us.

Being a week day morning the day we visited zoo, it was very quiet there except for several coach loads of Arab children, mostly boys this time, who were again, neat and tidy and nicely behaved.  A group of senior Arab boys were being conducted round the rose garden during our visit and were then given a lecture by one of their teachers as they all sat under one of the huge trees.  On our visit to the Botanical Gardens we treated ourselves to lunch at the restaurant situated next to the lake.  Guess who was sitting at the next table –   an Arab mother and daughter, the mother elegantly dressed in traditional Arab garb, long black robe with gold embroidery and her head covered in a loosely draped cream lace scarf.  Please tell us, have the people who persist in calling Israel an Apartheid country ever actually been here?