To quote Joan Didion in her essay, "On keeping a notebook" - Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point. So I'm not going into the whys and wheres of this latest event but instead I'm going to remember what is was to be me.
We were woken at 3 am on Friday morning, 13 June: at first, we thought that it was a Houthi missile, but no, it was the home guard telling us that a state of emergency had been declared after Israeli aircraft had attacked various sites in Iran (over 2000 km away!). Friday morning was passed almost in a state of shock; essential services were open but the swimming pool was not. If by the evening we had thought that life had returned to normal, then we were wrong. At about 7:30 pm there was a Houthi missile then twice during the night there were Iranian missiles. Saturday was like Friday and Sunday like Saturday.
At the moment, life is like a hybrid of the early Covid days and the days following October 7: everywhere is quiet, people are mainly at home and only essential services are open (e.g. the supermarkets are open but the train station and post office are not). Of course, I'm fortunate that I live on a kibbutz, not particularly close to any conurbation (I wouldn't define Bet Shemesh as such) and so the possibility of a missile coming anywhere near us is extremely low.
My wife and I have a great advantage over many others on the kibbutz: our bedroom is our security room, so air raid alarms at 11:30 pm or 4 am don't cause us any bother as we are already in the security room. Even the dog recognises the alarms now: during the afternoon of the harvest festival (but before it began), the dog and I were walking outside when the alarms went off. She tugged me all the way home. Now when we have an alarm, she knows to come into the bedroom with us, something that we don't normally allow. One evening, neighbours came to share the room so I had to take the dog to another room (otherwise she would have barked constantly); she was miffed that she wasn't in the security room.
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 485 | Mostar (Dubrovnik log 2) | Holiday, Dubrovnik | |
| 598 | Edinburgh log (2): Round and about | Holiday, Edinburgh, Bagpipes | |
| 599 | Edinburgh log (3): Aberdeen | Holiday, Edinburgh, Bagpipes | |
| 720 | The mist covered mountain (Sorrento log 5) | Holiday, Sorrento, Italy | |
| 866 | More guitar | MIDI, Reason | |
| 956 | Today's reading matter (2) | DBA | |
| 1398 | 15 June 2021 | ERP, Covid-19 | |
| 1628 | BGS cricket second XI, 1973 | Personal, Bristol Grammar School |
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