Passing the time

I have finally sucuumbed to the Ramallah ‘flu’. Its my third day of being housebound while the West Bank weather puts on a display of glorious early winter sunshine and pleasant temperatures. Luckily, I found a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle at the weekend which was not a nightscape of New York pre-2001 or a photocopy of a picture of a photocopy of a boy and his St Bernard circa 1970s . In fact it’s a rather challenging , colourful print of the circus with lots of action comprised of enticing, time-consuming individual scenarios within the Big Top. (My life may have gotten just too exciting!)

After weeks of evening time ennui and concerns about my rapidly disappearing ability to limit my television viewing to programmes with at least a teaspoon of acting and an outline plot, a veritable harvest of distractions have landed in my lap. First Al Jazeera went international- which means its inEnglish for mono-linguists like myself, then two great dvds arrived from a pal at home containing 4 hrs worth of the inimitable Helen Mirren in her final Prime Suspect, I got loaned a Raymond Chandler novel and then to top it all as from last night-Allah be praised- I’m now online at chez nous!

Perhaps, once the fog in my head has lifted and the capacity to breathe through my nose has been restored, I may even be able to make sense of what is happening between Olmert and the Palestinian negotiators. But that's just a maybe.. like a lot of other things around here.