How Time Goes Faster As You Get Older.blog

Firstly, Carly needs to explain what these challah covers actually are. As the saying goes, the name itself reveals the purpose. Well, as they say, the name on the tin gives it away. There is no hidden meaning, in fact. They are used to cover the two loaves of challah that are eaten at mealtimes on the sabbath (Shabbat) by Jews. Particularly on Friday night and for Saturday lunch. Challahs are a bit like brioche and often plaited. They are covered with egg to make them nice and shiny and oftentimes, they are decorated with poppy or sesame seeds. In South Africa, there is a tradition to make them with raisins for festivals. And nowadays you can get loaves made with organic dark brown rye flour. But, Carly isn’t enamoured with this type. They are so heavy. Carly feels her stomach falling to the floor just looking at them, let alone eating them. 

Now she is living alone, she is often left with rather a large amount of challah if she has had guests over on Shabbat. Previously, her ravenous children would have gobbled it all up. Along with the dogs and the guests. So, Carly slices it up while it is still fresh and freezes it. Gosh does it toast up well and can even be used for desserts. À la Nadiya Hussein who once won one of Carly’s favourite competition reality TV shows – the Great British Bake Off (known throughout the UK as GBBO). Nadiya now has lots of different series and the one recipe that is most memorable is one with croissants, jam, butter, chocolate drops and ice-cream that you bake. The ice-cream turns into a type of custard. Delicious, if a bit heavy. And Carly will normally switch all the ingredients around. I mean why waste ice-cream when you can whip up some quick custard with some Bird’s powder and a load of milk. And, actually, it requires a lot of patience. No, Carly has none of that. And this explains why her custard is so very lumpy and she always has to sieve it. But it is way cheaper than ice-cream. Although the margin is less of a cost saving when you consider the lumps. And, anyway, now Carly lives in a hot country, so having something frozen for afters is really called for. She wonders if the heat has something to do with not being able to buy fresh custard in Jaffa? Probably there just isn’t enough demand. 

But why do the two challahs need a cover? Carly knows the answer as to why there are two challahs in the first place. When the Israelites left Egypt, after the ten plagues with Moses, Aaron and Miriam, they ate for 40 years in the desert. A portion of ‘manna’ was there every day for sustenance but on Friday there was a double portion to last for all of Shabbat too. She is fairly sure that most people accept this reason. But as for the cover. That answer is a bit more precarious. Carly was told that as the wine is blessed first, the challahs get upset at being second place and so the challah cover is to hide their second-class citizen ranking from them. It seems rather far-fetched to consider that an inanimate object such as bread, however lovingly crafted, would have feelings of jealousy or envy. With the ease of checking things on the internet, Carly has investigated if there are other more seemingly serious reasons for this cover. She finds none, and anyway, the one she knows about seems to be rather charming. So, Carly will stick with that explanation. 

Traditionally challah covers are made from fabric, often embroidered with gold and sometimes a braided edging. Carly finds them, for the most part, dreadfully dull. They are likely to be used for years and so should be a thing of originality and beauty. An art form really. And the fabric should be sumptuous but is often polyester, so it is easy to wash. But that is part of the challah cover’s charm. All the stains tell a story. So now when she donates the challah cover to a lucky recipient, Carly writes a note to NEVER wash them. And this obsession by so many people trying to keep germs at bay. Don’t get Carly started on that one. Germs are good – well up to a point. And certainly, all this endless washing and cleaning really isn’t good for the environment or the gut microbiome. 

Making challah covers does allow Carly’s creative streak to be aired. And it is sewing rather than knitting which makes a nice variation to her default crafting obsession. And the end product is something unique and wholly Jewish that she can give to others. Often as an engagement, wedding, or birthday present. Sometimes just because she wants to. It is always difficult to know how much to involve the recipient. It seems social protocol says that everyone should delight in any and every gift they receive. But Carly knows that there is often no accounting for taste. It reminds her of a mantra of her wonderful paddle-boarding instructor who often says. “The one thing you can say about common sense, is that it is not that common!” So, what Carly considers as the height of good taste may be seen as utterly ghastly by someone who will receive her gift. Thus, Carly has had to come up with a compromise. She tries to involve the recipient in the planning process. Like choosing the fabric, colour, motifs and size. Maybe a beach scene or a favourite city like New York. Carly must be allowed some decision-making and this feels like an excellent and cooperative way forward.

Sometimes she makes challah duvets. Of course, the bread is not about to go to sleep or curl up and read a book under it. Carly merely uses this terminology to explain that this genre of cover is padded and cosy. She made a number with fuchsia pink silk her father bought her in Thailand. The sheen was sumptuous, and the colour changed depending on how you viewed it in the light. This was because the warp (north to south thread) was a slightly different colour to the weft (east to west thread). 

Carly invariably makes four tassels, one for each corner. She has this process down to a fine art and recently; to add interest and noise, she has attached a bell to at least one of the tassels. On the back she sews in a label to let everyone know she made it. However, Carly doesn’t like being seen as a show-off. So, she carefully hides the label under a flap or ribbon to conceal what could be misconstrued as boasting. Recently she replaced the tassels with gender-specific Anime keyrings, one to represent each member of the family of five. She had considered making a pentagon-shaped challah cover to be able to decorate each of the corners with a keyring, but the shape was proving a headache, so used a dreamcatcher motif and there were five feathery hanging components instead. 

Carly usually gives them to individuals, couples, or families. Once she made a bespoke, purple challah cover for the entire Jewish community in Pune, India. They were very grateful, and Carly hopes it will get well used and soon become covered in stains! 

Carly, ever the extrovert, has tried to inveigle her way into leading a session on the power, beauty and provenance of challah covers at Limmud, a Jewish Learning festival, in Jerusalem this year. She has petitioned the organisers to run a challah cover workshop. Most of the sessions are political or text based. Carly’s will have to just be a little bit different. She feels, after some introductory blurb, she will provide attendees with some lovely fabric, and they will have all manner of pens, pencils, paints, stencils, stickers, buttons, and beads to decorate. Carly feels she can awaken their creativity and help them reach their potential. Carly is so excited about this potential opportunity to galvanise others to banish boring challah covers to the scrapheap. So far, however, she’s received no word to say she’s been chosen to run such an event. “What a shame”, thinks Carly.  “They really are missing out…”

Carly went to India for four months for her sabbatical. This was to allow her to immerse herself in her obsession of crafts, old and hopefully new. By chance, it was just before the dreaded coronavirus. She had chosen her time carefully, as all her children were now the age of majority and had some sort of a plan. Whilst she was away, they were all at university. It’s always imperative for someone like Carly to have a strategy. It keeps her grounded and focused. These are both really important concepts when Carly is going off into the unknown, by herself for a four-month craft adventure. She knew she had the boundaries of purple, prime numbers and spirals for her projects. 

She compiled a list of 133 crafts she wanted to undertake whilst there. She arrived at this number by multiplying her two favourite numbers, namely seven and 19. There are some of the usual candidates such as knitting, weaving, spinning, and crocheting and some less common crafts like quilling, cyanotyping and lapidary. Come to think of it, she cannot even remember what lapidary is. Actually, it is the polishing of gems and stones. Well, she didn’t do it anyway. When she counted at the end of her sabbatical, she had managed to do 89 of them. Some would come under the umbrella of hyperbole. She, for instance, counted banana bread as two separate crafts! Bread-making and cake-making. But it did have delicious lilac icing which tasted of lavender and was totally yummy! 

Carly looked back at the list for some crafts that weren’t really crafts at all. What was she thinking when she listed walking, animals, family, and mindfulness? Never mind. Nearly five years on, Carly, who never was great in the memory department, couldn’t fathom out what she had meant back then. She did see her family as they came for a visit, and she did some mindfulness, saw plenty of animals and walked most days. She hangs her head to the side and questions herself, “For real?” 

In the end, the only new skill she learnt in India was to make dreamcatchers. Well, it was the only skill she learnt from another person rather than on YouTube. She met Babu in Pushkar, and he was delighted to teach her. It was essentially pretty simple. Cover the wooden hoop with thread and then make a series of loops until you arrive in the middle. It needs adornments and embellishments to enhance its attractiveness and, of course, feathers to hang down from the hoop. In India, Carly made four dreamcatchers ranging in size from small to large. She used feathers she found and bought from Babu and jewellery items given to her by a fellow traveller. 

When she returned to the UK, she had an exhibition of all the arts and crafts she had made. It lasted four days and over 150 people came to see it. She encouraged all visitors to take pieces they liked after the show had finished. She was really surprised by what people chose. She, never in a million years, could have predicted what people liked and wanted. And it got her thinking. All these years, she made things for people. She knitted for them, sewed for them, and generally made all manner of items for them. But it was her choice for them. Not what they chose, and she kept this thought close to her, for the future. Certainly, if she is making something like a commission, she involves the recipient as much as possible, so they choose the pattern, colour, and size for example. 

And then Carly thinks back to all the presents she has received. Not just handmade items by her large circle of crafting friends. Everyone. Even down to her son Haz, who took a necklace out of a drawer and repurposed it and expected Carly not to realise. And her ex who used his secretary to buy her toiletries from just below his office or the very same chocolates each time, when she clearly neither needed nor wanted them. The worst present from him was an intricate piece of gold filigree jewellery. From Dubai. It was goddamn awful. And probably expensive and not returnable. Everyone knew it would never be her style. But therein lies the rub. You just never know what people choose to like and consider stylish as it is very personal and oftentimes unpredictable. Recently Carly has seen how Yemenite filigree work is made, she actually finds it quite attractive. Part of her change of mind is the ‘story’. Customers would go with a silver coin. The jeweller would keep a third as payment and then spin the rest into very fine wires and wind them round repeatedly to make these intricate designs. 

Carly liked the provenance of dreamcatchers, what they do and how they look. And it was a skill she wanted to continue. Best of all was the mantra she had learnt in medicine. See one. Do one. Teach one. That is for learning a surgical skill. But it would work well for making dreamcatchers. And she was asked to contribute towards a wellness day for paediatricians in training. She had done silk painting in the past with this group and this was very popular, but this time Carly offered her skills as an expert dreamcatcher maker. Carly knows all about imposter syndrome. But this is the opposite of that. She had made a sum total of four in her entire life and that was several years ago. Hardly an expert at all. A dabbler at best…

Carly is sure she can live up to others expectations of her. She just needs a little practice. So, she gets busy ordering vast numbers of wooden embroidery hoops. She buys brightly coloured feathers and uses her large stash of beads and yarn for her teaching. She is told there are likely to be about 100 participants. “Fabulous”, Carly says to herself. She loves to amuse a large crowd. The bigger the better.

On what, Carly thought, was the allotted day, a little ahead of time to be able to set up, Carly arrives with a vast suitcase of materials to make dreamcatchers. It is rather odd, Carly ponders. There is no sign and there are no paediatricians. And then she checks. Oh no! She has the wrong date. And she is abroad when she is supposed to be doing this teaching. Being a resourceful person, she makes some videos and leaves all the supplies visible for this to be a self-directed session on the right day. However, Carly refuses to let this crush her. She finds some maxillofacial surgeons on their lunch break that very day she has turned up with all these supplies. She persuades them this is a skill worth learning and they agree. So, all her preparation, which was minimal, is not lost, as Carly is comfortable improvising.

Carly has always thought of dreamcatchers as objects. Physical ones to catch dreams, obviously. When she went to a hippy-dippy village in the north of Israel she found an excellent coffee establishment that sold lovely temporary tattoos. She chose a few but the one she really liked was a pretty and floaty dreamcatcher in blues and purples. And this put an idea in her head. She has been looking for a logo to represent her, the creative Carly, and she thinks she has just stumbled across it. A purple dreamcatcher. And, also, it was flat. It was representational and not a catcher of dreams. But lovely with the iconic shape.

And now Carly has a plan when she is away from home to get her creative juices going. She makes purple dreamcatchers on khadi paper which is made from recycled cotton saris. She collects all manner of things to decorate them including local leaves, flowers, small stones and shells. As well as beads, buttons, tablets and sweeties. She uses pens, pencils, inks, paints and crayons for the basic shapes. And uses glue to attach objects and embroidery thread to sew items on. Carly is really a dreadful artist. She is, for sure, not a copier of reality. She cannot even draw an oval or circle, so, uses stencils to help her out. She only ever makes them on holiday and has made up to seven a day. They are labelled with the location and date. Carly has made several hundred to date. It seems to be something that both calms Carly and sets her up in an inspired mood for the day. 

And with this number of them, she must give them away. Otherwise, she will be overwhelmed with them, and they will get dusty. She catalogues all her dreamcatchers and has written several blog entries about different sets. And then they are up for grabs. She suggests people take one or two that they like and tells them that she won’t mind at all if they don’t take any. Obviously, this is a ruse because Carly sees it as an affront to her creativity if people cannot even find one they like. But what she does know is that people like to be able to choose them. In some instances, people like the same one, but the good thing is that there is likely to be some other but similar dreamcatcher in her stash that appeals and satisfies the loser. Carly muses that people who take over three are just plain greedy. 

Carly has recently returned to making real dreamcatchers. She has all these hoops and plenty of other materials. But she must never buy any more of those brightly coloured feathers. They are from China and cruelly removed from birds according to Carly’s new friend Linda. But that is ok. Linda has a parrot, Perro, who provides wonderful feathers for Carly’s real dreamcatchers. “Phew”, thinks Carly, “Everyone is happy now!”

Carly has an appointment at the Ministry of Absorption in downtown Tel Aviv. Her fold up e-Brompton was refused entry, and so Carly, with her platinum U-lock, chained it up and told the bike not to go and get itself stolen, as it wasn’t yet insured. The purpose of this visit is to tell Carly her rights and hopefully benefits of becoming a recent Israeli immigrant. It means she knows where and when she will receive some income for the next six months, as well as what discounts she is allowed. It is an appointment designed to make her feel welcome. She wonders what other countries have such a system set up for new immigrants. “Maybe it’s because the bureaucracy is so horrendous”, Carly suggests. “No”, she thinks. That is pretty much the same in most places. Maybe Israel really does welcome new citizens. “Does that account for Israel being one of the happiest countries in the world after Scandinavia”, wonders Carly. In fact, it’s not happiness at all. It is self-actualisation. That makes more sense at this current tricky time.

Carly finds herself sitting next to Batya whilst they are both waiting for their allotted time slots at this Government department. Carly hears Batya, a woman with luscious, dark long black hair about the same age as Carly, talking to her daughter on the phone “No, they don’t seem to make raisin challah for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) like they do in South Africa”. Carly leaned towards her, careful not to invade her space. Carly made a comment “That could be a thing, like a business venture!” Batya laughed, ended her call and they found they both lived in Jaffa. Then they swapped mobile phone numbers. “Oh, my goodness” they both exclaimed simultaneously. They had identical numbers apart from the last two digits. It was clear they had come to live in Israel only a few days apart, as they had been given these SIM cards on arrival. So, they had five things that bonded them already: gender, English speaking, age, mobile phone number and living in Jaffa. 

Off they went for their separate appointments and vowed to meet up for coffee later that week. They arranged to go to café Ada together. Excellent coffee but a bit pretentious. Carly could probably volunteer for the tourism centre in Jaffa and only give advice about coffee institutions – she had made it her mission to try them all out and rate them for the standards of their beverages, staff friendliness and venue ambiance. But café Ada was on her road and so a useful place to hang out as well as a well-known meeting spot. Then they discovered that not only did they both have dogs who were transported in the plane hold, but also, they loved knitting. Carly was in ecstasy. It was so lovely to meet a fellow crocheter and knitter. For once, she could discuss her favourite designers and what yarn she liked to buy without any reluctance or embarrassment. When Carly returned to London for work a few weeks later, Batya was able to order a cardigan kit from Marie Wallin. It took up quite a bit of space but what could be better than carrying around sumptuous yarn? Batya more than returned the favour by fetching way cheaper anti-worm/flea/tick treatment for Carly’s menagerie of animals from New Zealand when she returned there for her daughter’s wedding dress fitting.

Having an almost identical phone number did have one disadvantage. They both used the same pet shop. In fact, Carly probably spends more money there than in any other shop. On toys, food and of course treats as well as things to promote dental animal hygiene. The staff really like her dog Talulah and teach her new tricks like ‘rabbit’, where she has to sit on her back legs and ‘round’ where she has to go around Carly before she throws a ball or stick. These all keep Talulah on her toes. Recently they advised on a type of training slip leash as Talulah is still a bit ‘pully’. At the pet shop they always ask for your phone number to bring up your account. Usually, you only need to give the first few numbers. But this is neither the case for Batya, nor for Carly. They need to give the number in its entirety. But that is a pretty minor disadvantage to an otherwise good friendship.

Carly and Batya have both been divorced. But Batya’s was a long time ago and she has since remarried the wonderful Sonny. He is the consummate gentleman. Always looking after Batya and collecting and delivering her to places she needs to be. His only real fault is that he is ridiculously tall. But that is all relative. Carly is exceedingly short. Sonny works with helicopters. It sounds very exciting to Carly, but he reassures her that it is mundane most of the time. The demanding problems are dealing, as always, with staff. Like Carly, Batya is in healthcare. As a hand therapist. Carly shows Batya her small fold-up keyboard she can connect via Bluetooth to her phone. This means she can save her thumbs from texting, prevent repetitive strain injury, and keep knitting. It reminds Carly of a mug she has seen. “Keep calm and carry on knitting”. She is sure Batya is impressed with Carly’s attempts to undertake preventative measures. 

Batya is also a very good baker. She has given some of her sourdough starter and taught Carly how to make some very delicious breadsticks. For Carly, there really are too many steps, and maybe, quietly, Carly might renege on one or two of them. And then she goes on to being as experimental as she dares with her additions to the sourdough sticks. She tries the usual ones like olives, dried fruit, and nuts. But when feeling enterprising, she has put in Bombay mix or popcorn. Unfortunately, Carly cannot rejoice. They really don’t work out at all.

Batya has worked very hard at learning Hebrew. She takes it very seriously. Carly is a tiny bit embarrassed about her own learning journey. Well, actually, Carly has actively decided that, at 59, she isn’t going to learn. Well, not in an active sense with a teacher. She was rubbish when she was 19 on her gap year in Israel. Why on earth would things have improved 40 years on? But she admires Batya for speaking it well enough to work in a hospital as a hand therapist. “Well-done Batya”, says Carly.

Several months after they met, Batya confessed that she wasn’t really sure that Carly was who she claimed to be. She thought that Carly was over-the-top (which she is) and not to be believed. So, she looked Carly up to see if she had an online profile. And there she was. The person she did claim to be! When Batya owned up to this, Carly guffawed with laughter and said “How very comical”.

Both Carly and Batya are keen to expand their circle of local crafters. And this has led to a series of evenings to realise this. With lots of sourdough bread sticks. To eat. Not make. And alcohol. To drink. Not so good for consuming when reading complicated knitting patterns. But good for the soul. Carly has always loved a drink. Batya less so. She did intend to improve but like Carly’s inability to learn Hebrew, Batya has given up and remains tee-total. Through their circle of crafters, Carly agreed to make some crochet inserts for a final year fashion degree piece for a friend-of-a-friend. But Carly isn’t a very expert crocheter. She can only really do flowers. So, she had to go to Batya for advice who shook her head gravely and said that she knew Carly would take on this project and come running to her for help. But it all worked out in the end. 

So, not only did Carly enjoy Batya and Sonny’s company and hospitality, but so did Talulah. She would greet their dog Ted with exuberance and mischief. Usually, Ted was alright with this. But sometimes the young upstart Talulah would eject Ted from his own bed and then he would wander around a bit miffed. But there is always a hierarchy in life. For instance, Batya is better than Carly at Hebrew, knitting, and baking. But Carly is better at being a doctor. Well of course. Batya isn’t a doctor. And Batya is better at being tidy and keeping her apartment spick and span. Carly is better at accumulating and accepting mess as well as allowing sand from her animals in the bed. Well, up to a point. It can get irritating sometimes, Carly muses. She wonders if sand is good for exfoliating her skin at night? This is just a random excuse for not shaking all that sand out onto the floor, before it is caught in paws and returned back onto the bed.

Batya is also not shy to tell Carly a thing or two. She told Carly that in the winter Talulah was cold and needed a coat. Carly never put Talulah in a coat in the UK and that was much colder. Even when it snowed. Gosh did Talulah love frolicking about in all that white, cold powdery stuff. And Batya also remonstrated that Talulah needed a handmade blanket for her bed. Carly capitulated on both counts. Talulah has a nice coat from Puebla in Mexico and a purple knitted blanket with alpaca yarn edging. 

Batya and Carly have a competition to see who can provide the other one with a location of a particular picture by their favourite street artist who goes by the name ID (Imaginary Duck). They both fail dismally at this. Only the person who took the photo knows. However, they do both love this artist. And, as we all know, it’s the taking part that is important. Not the winning. But maybe that is not true. Carly does love to win… And Batya refuses to play netball in case she loses…

Carly is very excited about turning 59. It is a special number. Not only is it a prime number, but it is the last one before she enters into the next decade. Her 60s, which is when people retire. Although Carly is technically semi-retired already, she is still working part-time in the UK for the NHS at her beloved Whittington Hospital. As she now has her Israeli Medical License, she can see paediatric patients in Tel Aviv, but they haven’t really been particularly forthcoming. So far, only one patient per month in the first 60 days! But both were really interesting, and Carly felt she was able to help them and make a diagnosis. Not necessarily the ones the parents wanted to hear! The first one had ear pain, but he seemed not to care at all when Carly carefully placed her stethoscope into his ears for him to listen to his and his father’s heartbeat. Her stethoscope is so tight that it even hurts Carly’s ears. The child was fascinated and did not complain at all. So not much real otalgia (ear pain) going on there. The other one was a delightful, lively child who had an itchy bottom and kept one of his fingers almost permanently down the back of his pants to scratch his nether regions. This seemed at odds to his mother’s apparent microbe obsession which prevented Carly from removing her son’s shoes to weigh him, in case the clinic floor might be full of germs and harmful to him. Maybe this mother thought that germs from outside the body are so much more damaging than those from inside his bottom. Carly just sighed to herself, “How wrong some people are”.

But this story is about her birthday and not Carly’s antics as a doctor. Carly decided she should throw a party. She had already had three parties since her arrival in Israel, six months previously. There were two Jaffa craft evenings designed to bring together women of all ages who wanted to knit, sew, and embroider. They were both super successful. Then she was persuaded on the back of these parties, and having an apartment suited to such events, to host a New Year’s Eve (NYE) celebration. These gatherings always follow the same theme. Carly finds the street art of her favourite illustrator (Imaginary Duck) and uses this with the text. There are quite a number of slightly different ones around Jaffa, so she isn’t about to run out. The NYE one was well attended. This was her first one with a few men – husbands could come to this. Everyone brought food and lots of people drifted in and out. Certainly, there were people who had other parties to dash off too. And, also, several people, like Carly, who prefer to go to bed early. Not that Carly could do this on NYE when she was entertaining her friends in her flat. She hoped everyone would disperse at around 5 minutes after midnight. Maybe earlier? Carly is always optimistic she will get to bed early, but she knew she must stay awake for the year change from 2023 to 2024 before ushering everyone determinedly out of the door.

There were lots of people at the party. When people decided to leave Carly was very clear. She thanked them. She hates it when party hosts reprimand party attendees for wanting to leave before the end. It is a bit of a mantra for her. She wants people to say goodbye and not feel guilty. After all, they have all made an effort in getting there and Carly feels she should thank them for coming. Only the last six die-hards remained at 23:30. So, they all sat down and chatted about their plans for 2024, what they enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about 2023. Together they did a countdown, and it was easy for everyone to kiss everyone else as is mandatory as there were so few punters left. They also lit sparklers and whizzed them about in the air whilst drinking fizzy wine.

One minute later a siren went off. Talulah, Carly’s faithful hound, was already in the bedroom. She is a very sociable dog on the beach or park but not so keen on parties. Who only knows where the cat Bobbin was at that time, but the six humans all bundled with their drinks into Carly’s safe room (the mamad), which conveniently doubles up as her bedroom. The party continued in there with six people lounging on her bed and Talulah curled up underneath. 

Carly sighed. No one was going to leave by five minutes past midnight, as the rules stated that you need to stay inside for 10 minutes after the siren starts, allowing time for rubble to stop falling. Luckily, most people lived nearby, and the one person from slightly further afield could easily catch a bus. All in all, a very successful party and Carly was in bed by 00:20. She bargained with herself that she could do the clearing up in the morning. 

So, the stage was set for Carly to host her own birthday party. By now she had amassed quite a lot of friends. Nearly all new. Mostly Anglos. Often through her dog and now more often through other friends who she’d met through said dog Talulah. She chose another one of the Imaginary Duck illustrations of a girl with her cat and suggested people bring food and drink. 

To ensure she used language that was funny and appropriate rather than too direct and rude, she checked it first with a friend. She asked people from 19:07 as this was a prime number and she was hopeful they would all have left by around 22:07. Obviously, some could not come as they had other commitments. One of her friends berated her for making it on a Thursday as this was her art night out. Carly apologised for when her birthday fell and said she would be fine for the next few years when 21^st March wouldn’t be on a Thursday…

The weather was a bit mixed, so the food came in from the garden and later went back outside when the drizzle stopped. Some people made marvellous cocktails, others brought along white chilli chicken, smoked salmon held together with chive stalks and there were lots of desserts too. Carly suggested her old school friend light her cake and lead the customary singing. There were actually three songs. Happy birthday in English, the same tune but translated into Hebrew and Carly’s favourite one “Happy birthday ooooh, happy birthday ooooh, people die every day, happy birthday ooooh”. Recently her good friend Nina has added a line before the people dying; babies cry every day, etc. Carly likes this addition. It is slightly less negative. Carly was delighted with how many people came. She thoroughly enjoyed herself and left opening presents till the next day. That way she could open them and thank people all at the same time. This is very important. Thanking people for presents. Yes, nods Carly. This is imperative.

She was given some jewellery, some scarves – one fabulous and one ghastly – and two restaurant meals. Nina took her to a wonderful beachside classic Jaffa eatery the next day for lunch. Delicious, with wine and lots of girl chats and laughter. Two other friends decided to treat her to a very special evening. They planned it well ahead of time so it wouldn’t clash with netball. This is a Sunday sacred event for Carly although she was shockingly bad at this game having not played since school 42 years beforehand. But she is necessary for the team to make up numbers. They settled on a date in early May. It was a wine and cheese evening. “Well, that is pretty standard”, thinks Carly. However, it was at Talaga’at. A centre in Jaffa for blind people who work in a specially designed restaurant and perform in a theatre. You had to lock away your phones, so they didn’t ring and light up and ruin the experience. You went into a dark corridor and then walked in holding firmly onto both shoulders of the person in front of you. Pitch black. One of the hosts sat you down and told you to carefully inch your hands forward to find the plate with the cheeses and the three glasses of wine in front of it. One red. One rosé. One white. 

Being a person of limited patience and eager to get going, Carly sampled the wine to the right. Carly expressed silently to herself that it was white. She was almost certain. Then she wasn’t completely sure and so rather than embarrass herself (not that anyone would see her going bright red), she didn’t tell anyone. In fact, she was wrong. It was red! Amazing how much significance colour plays in what you drink when it seems clear to all sighted wine lovers that red is completely different from white or rosé in taste as well as scent. The latter two could be confused with each other but not red. Well Carly didn’t know the difference and was rather mystified. And a bit upset, as she does so like to be RIGHT ALWAYS. 

The hosts all had amazing stories to tell. The best question was about how blind people dreamed but all of them there did originally have sight as children and so did dream visually. Carly wonders how people who are blind from birth do dream. It was fun to learn new things, and experience drinking and eating in a novel setting. Carly was very grateful to have had such a wonderful and celebratory birthday.

Actually, Carly has been to Mexico twice before. Both times in late February and she has booked to go and stay with her friends Joanne and Norbert for a third time at the same time of year. It has become a regular trip. “It must be a thing”, Carly says to herself. Joanne and Carly go way back. They met when Carly ran a playgroup for toddlers at her local synagogue. Joanne, a committed attendee, and was a dab hand at drawing, being an artist by profession. She could use her skills to help entertain these energetic and high-spirited young children. The most momentous was a skeleton Joanne drew using crayons and that cheap paper you use under wallpaper having drawn round one of the parents there for her outline. Carly was very impressed by how all the internal organs were drawn so correctly. Carly knows a thing or two about these structures, having had to dissect a body back in the day. Well actually in her first two years at medical school. 

As a doctor now, she isn’t really very good at remembering all the minutiae, like all the bones in the wrist or the ankle. Carly is a firm believer in only keeping what is absolutely necessary in the front and centre of your brain. Previously, the rest could be found in textbooks. Now don’t even need to type into your phone – you can just shout your question into one of the voice recognition software apps. And up comes all those funny little bones with Latin names. Although sometimes it almost seems these apps deliberately misunderstand you. 

Maybe, like Carly, Alexa or Siri could be wayward. She can understand why Alexa was chosen. A nice girl’s name! But Siri? “Some male having a joke?” Carly presumed. But hang on one minute. Carly, as is often the case, is far too quick to judge. Siri is actually a Scandinavian name for a female who is both beautiful and brave. Oh, and a type of crab in Brazilian Portuguese. Wrong again Carly. And she’s just found out there is another digital assistant – Cortana. But that one has been removed. Phew, it sounded too much like the Ford Cortina car. And it was, in fact, named after a nude female assistant in an online game. And another sigh of relief. Later on they clothed her as appearances must be upheld.

Carly lived near Joanne, and they continued to be friends way after the kids were no longer toddlers. It was Joanne who advised Carly about not trying for more children when she was already struggling with the three she had. Joanne is wise and able to challenge the headstrong Carly. They also did one of those all-American horse-riding holidays together where the men and boys attempt to gallop all day long. Ones where everyone wears cowboy boots and Stetsons. Carly remembers a three-generation family of 17, where not only did they have matching red hats and red boots, but also red neck bandanas and red plaid shirts. Of course, everyone wore blue denim jeans anyways. Otherwise, all that red might have been misconstrued as devil worship.

Carly and her family really enjoyed these holidays. They continued on without their friends to do another horse-riding holiday in Utah at a Mormon ranch. That was a bit tricky as there was no wine, no coffee and nothing in the way of vegetarian food. There was, however, a very nice Pitbull terrier called Sally. This managed to challenge Carly’s notion that ALL these dogs are very dangerous. Sally was a super soppy dog. And Carly came away with warm and fuzzy feelings about Mormons. So much so that she never went to see ‘House of Mormon’ as it felt sacrilegious and an affront to their kindness shown towards her on this holiday. 

Joanne regularly checked in with Carly during her divorce. Coincidentally, when Carly decided she wanted to move to live in Jaffa, Israel, Joanne and Norbert relocated to Tepoztlan, Mexico. That was more about Norbert always flying to New York for work and Mexico being the same time zone, give or take an hour, and much nearer. Like Carly, they also wanted a new project to put zing into their lives.

Carly was invited to stay with her friends in their home just before her son Harry’s wedding. This meant Carly could return home refreshed and able to cope with an over-the-top Jewish wedding as the mother of the groom. She had borrowed her friend Barbara’s second wedding dress. A wonderful deep maroon red fitted dress with a sweetheart neckline and a little bolero jacket to cover her arms. Initially she was worried that others would find it reprehensible that she was wearing a second-hand outfit. But when her daughter Boo was open about borrowing her aunt’s dress, Carly was truthful. Even Carly surprised herself about how worried she was about protocol. In the end she had black henna tattoos all the way down both arms and hands. That was hardly following Jewish wedding etiquette.

So, Carly was delighted she was invited to Mexico to stay with her friends just before this momentous occasion. Their house was unquestionably gorgeous and full of the most amazing artwork, as well as cats. Carly is a feline obsessive so that ticked that box. For most of her time there, Norbert was away in New York. Just as well really. Carly finds him a bit on the tricky side. Rather alpha male with significant road rage as well as being very demanding of waiters. Oh, and he smokes. Interestingly, on her return trip a year later, she was much better able to cope with Norbert and enjoy his company. Smoking has become less of an issue. Moving to Israel had sorted out her knee jerk hatred of cigarettes. Yes, Carly did still hate smoking and all the things it did to smokers and passively to those around them. But lots of her friends in Jaffa smoke, and so Carly has had to capitulate a little bit nowadays. Also, she learnt to handle Norbert better. They both worked out a way of being that felt more mutually respectful, and he taught Carly how to improve her breaststroke and how to stretch out her back on a large ball. And Carly now felt she could challenge and question him on a range of topics. 

Whether Norbert is around or not, the afternoons and evenings always revolved around margaritas. Classical ones and others with mezcal. Followed by a sumptuous dinner. Often at a nearby restaurant with white peacocks. “My goodness, what a racket those birds make”, considers Carly. They are so elegant and refined. But they sound like demented fishwives when they get going.

And when it was just Joanne and Carly, they were like ships passing in the night. Carly is very much an early bird, up from 05:30. Joanne is a night owl. So, they would meet around midday. Carly would have had her coffee, breakfast, morning yoga, run and swim as well as her standard game of card patience and making five dreamcatchers on paper before a mussy-headed Joanne surfaced. At night they swapped roles and Carly was in bed by 9:30pm.

On both trips to stay with her friends, Carly felt that she should shield them from her over-exuberant personality by going off for a few days. In 2023, she went to stay with her friend Barbara’s stepdaughter Tina in the heart of Mexico City. They rushed around craft bazaars and had some sensational meals in food markets. Carly was exposed to all manner of new food. A Mexican smorgasbord of deliciousness. Tina was delightful and loved showing Carly around, even taking her to the airport. What a totally lovely human being. 

In 2024, Carly took a four-day trip to Puebla. Now this is a very nice city. Lots of hand painted, colourful tiles adorned all the buildings, and most of the roads in the historic centre were cobbled and numbered like Manhattan. Odd numbers east and west, even numbers north and south. She continued with her dreamcatcher pictures and went to all the museums, galleries and churches tourists are supposed to visit. And then one afternoon she was drawn into a makeup shop. She isn’t sure why. She was fiddling about looking for purple cosmetics. And then it came to her. She loved imprisoning items onto 300gm white paper with embroidery thread. Maybe a better word in enclosing or enveloping. She did have the card she needed with her but not the thread or the needles. So off she went and found one of the many old-fashioned shops where the merchandise is sold by willing assistants who write chits for you to pay at the separate cashier counter. It reminded her of the butcher she went to as a child or the bookshop Foyles in Tottenham Court Road, London. As long as the cosmetics were purple, she could justify purchasing them. Purple is Carly’s colour, and she finds having a go-to colour immensely uplifting and freeing so she can be truly creative. It is wonderful just to look for items in one colour. It speeds up choosing by leaps and bounds.

In the end she did 29 of these artworks. She found lipsticks, hair extensions, false nails, mascara, nail varnish, eyelash curlers, temporary tattoos, facial jewels, eye powder and applicators as well as nails files, scissors, and nail clippers. She called this project ‘Cosmetic Imprisonment – The Plight of Women?’ It had to have a question mark at the end. Are women entombed by wearing make-up? Also, don’t a lot of men wear it now too? Maybe not quite as much as all the male contestants on one of her favourite competitive TV shows Glow-Up. But still, she knows plenty of men who wear mascara and paint their nails. And why not?

Whilst in Puebla she found out her beloved niece and her wife had had a baby. Carly was super excited and managed to find an intricately hand-embroidered pink felt dog for the baby. Carly aptly named him Carlos. She didn’t feel there was anything wrong with giving this dog her male counterpart’s name. Neither did the baby’s mothers. And boy did Carlos go on some adventures. Mostly running around to get all the necessary ingredients for a margarita. Well, that was whilst he was in Mexico. Which included being photographed all over the artwork back in Joanne and Norbert’s house. And amongst the limes in the supermarket much to Joanne’s embarrassment. 

In London, Carlos was shlepped all over the place. On the tube, overground and buses, up and down stairs and escalators and even to the baby show in the O2 centre. That was after going to John Lewis on Oxford Street, for a shopping spree. Since he’s been with the baby, he has been on trips to the park and even made it to Brighton. And then Carly took him to Padua, Limoges and Oslo. He is a very well travelled-boy…

Wow. Carly has such very fond memories of Mexico. She can’t wait to return!

Carly has a prickly relationship with Israeli bureaucracy. But then, so do most Israelis. She isn’t the only one to get mad and frustrated by the ups and downs of forms, government organisations, utilities, and yet more forms. It seems to be a leftover from the British Mandate. It just doesn’t make sense. Israel is leaps and bounds ahead on the ‘technology front’ but despite this, it is a country beset by fear of risk and uncertainty. She muses about Malachi, the person who runs the clinic where she works. He has lots of insurance policies in place. Even for third party events; the old ‘slipping on the banana skin on the floor’ issue as well as medical malpractice cover. He even pays an extra several 1,000 shekels to an independent insurance agency to check that these policies are compliant. It feels like everyone is behaving like owls and swivelling their heads to every degree possible to make sure they are ‘covered’.

Carly has never amassed so many pieces of paper for years. Everyone and their dog need a signature in triplicate and endless texts of one-time passwords. Well, thank goodness for google translate – actually most of the time. It does sometimes make a right old hash out of translating so that Carly is not just none-the-wiser but sometimes much worse off. Carly has had such a problem with bureaucracy since her move to live in Israel, that she has allowed herself to only deal with one issue per day. This is a much better way to look after herself. Otherwise, she might fall off the deep end into a mire of pity, sadness, and incredulity that she ever bothered to live there.

It didn’t start when she arrived in the country as a new immigrant. No, no, no! Way before. There were a number of meetings and of course more forms to fill in to sort out her rights and benefits before leaving London. Obviously made harder by bringing in her lovable mutt Talulah. The usual things like her birth certificate, a copy of her UK passport as well as a police-check to see if she had criminal tendencies, was dodgy in any way or a tax evader. And a letter from her rabbi confirming she is Jewish. Nonetheless, what Carly couldn’t fathom was why every single form needed her father’s name. Never, ever her mother’s. For heaven’s sake, Carly was 58 when she came. She is lucky to have both parents alive, but they are old-ish and what on earth do they have to do with her becoming an Israeli? And as she knows from when she did genetic research 10% of fathers aren’t actually ‘the real’ fathers. Really, they should ask for her mother’s name. Best not discuss that with Mum and Dad, deliberates Carly.

And then there were some apostilled documents that had to be additionally countersigned by a solicitor that she was divorced. The expenses were racking up. And eventually she had the green light. She was off to Israel to live and to become an Israeli. Finally, she was making Aliyah. Whoo-bloody-hoo.

There were some bits of Israeli bureaucracy that really did work. When she arrived, she was expected, greeted, given a landing card, some 2,500 shekels in cash and an Israeli sim card. A man whisked her through the airport to help her collect her bags and find Talulah. He asked who the dog crate belonged to. Carly told him ‘The airport’ but neglected to tell him it was London Heathrow, not Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv. Hey, she pondered to herself, she is sure someone would make good use of it. For sure it was enormous and would not fit in the car.

Talulah was on a one-way ticket. Carly may go back and forth on aeroplanes here, there and everywhere but sorry, old girl, you’re staying in Israel, Talulah. Maybe if she could persuade the airport authorities that Talulah was a therapy dog for her anxiety, then Talulah could come on the plane and not be in the hold. Nevertheless, everyone who knows Carly is very clear. Anxiety isn’t really a Carly problem. It is actively banished. It seems odd that Carly spends most of her time with children with anxiety parading as medical problems such as headaches, tummy aches, tremors and nausea. Carly wonders how as a paediatrician, she can be empathetic to the plight of overwhelming social anxiety in children. But she is there to make diagnoses. The parents can then do the rest…

Carly was collected with her dog and bags by her brother, Mickey the fish and daughter, Boo. They were waving an Israeli flag that her friend Galina had bedecked with green jewels and spirally purple lines. They went to stay in his place as her shipment was stuck in the Ashkelon docks until she could send over her landing card. She was delighted it was in the country and the shipments hadn’t been subject to a pirate attack. She had heard of these, and she was excited to be reunited with her stuff soon. She had said goodbye to it six weeks previously and had lived frugally with only her black and white clothes to wear, a minimal amount of cutlery and crockery. She had split her double bed in half with her daughter Boo in Walthamstow so they each had a single one for a few weeks. She felt a bit like King Solomon who had been allowed his way by cutting a baby in half. 

 Carly does like to get on with things. And even though everyone countenanced her against going nearby to her brother’s house to get her identity card, did she listen? Heck no! She bumbled her way in without an appointment, ran around the corner to a photo booth where they only spoke Russian but successfully came out with her ID card. Whoo-hoo. First step done. It was, of course, registered to the wrong address, so she had to go to another government office with proof of where she lived to get the correct address. The problem there was that when you own a property the land registry department gives you a plot number and not an actual street address. So unnecessarily byzantine…

The bank was also an issue. She had to collect her credit card in person as her status had changed. The woman told her three times consecutively that it was not in a pile of them. But Carly had been told to be insistent and, sure enough, it was eventually found. For some bizarre reason, despite having plenty of shekels in her bank account, the card limit was miniscule. It only covered a bit of pet food, and some coffees. Carly was forever petitioning her banker (the long-suffering Gilad) to increase the limit which is now at an all-time high. 

However, the account has now been drained by Carly’s ferocious spending and current lack of patients to see in Israel to bring in income. Not helped by the huge outlay just to be able to see patients such as employing Veronique the bookkeeper, Matthew the tax accountant, malpractice and third-party insurance (seems the clinic covers the banana skin scenario but not the if Carly gets dizzy and drops a baby one) and fees to the lawyer Sam to get the medical licence in the first place. Carly has seen a sum total of two children in two months despite opening up 30 slots a week. Everyone informs her she must be patient. But this just isn’t Carly…

 Besides getting her medical licence which included a trip to Jerusalem to collect it as she doesn’t receive her post, she also had to apply for her driving licence. When she turned up at some back-of-beyond-office the clerk asked her if she wanted to drive a truck. Because she was in the wrong office for this. No, said Carly, who’d waited months for this appointment and had had her vision checked specially for this. She only wanted to drive a car. Well, said the clerk, Carly would have to go away, and start all over again. Including having another eyesight test. But by now Carly knew that you don’t give up that easily. She asked if there was another way? The clerk said she should see a man outside who might help her. He didn’t speak English, and her Hebrew was rudimentary but between them she filled in the right form, re-presented the now correct form to the clerk, who rolled her eyes, said the eyesight test should suffice and went to the printer and gave the paper licence to Carly. What a palaver…

 There are some institutions that do work really well. Like the Tel Aviv municipality. Carly sent them a message to show them a diseased tree outside her property and within eight hours it was gone. A replacement took a bit longer. She signed up for their app. This meant she could find out about all sorts of workshops and get cheap sunbeds on the beach. Then she looked down at the form which was pleasingly electronic this time. She found that, not only did she have a ‘Digi-Tel’ card for Tel Aviv residents with her name on it, but also, she had a ‘Digi-Dog’ card for her dog with Talulah’s name on it. It felt a bit like a Big Brother moment until she remembered all dogs must be registered with the municipality and her vet practice had kindly done that for her. Something completely joined up for once.

The worst agency in Israel is known to be the post office. Carly realised after a few months that she never received any mail. In fact, neither did any of her neighbours. The only way round this seemed to be to get a PO Box. This required a huge amount of effort but there was always another customer in the post office to guide her through it and tell her that she mustn’t cry, and the post office is well known to be truly dreadful. She is only a bit upset as her PO Box isn’t a prime number. But she thinks this is another battle not worth fighting.

But people come together over all these bureaucratic nightmares so that Carly can easily see why Israel is one of the happiest countries in the world. Only after Scandinavia and those countries are just too cold. All these ‘happy countries’ tend to do very well in the Eurovision Song Contest too. Although why Israel is included in this iconic European singing competition is rather bizarre. But at least Israel is quite near Europe, unlike Australia. How ridiculous, thinks Carly. 

Just like I took my kids skiing (Betsy and Toby with Joshua), I suggested I take Harry, Gemma and Luna away. We chose Akko as I like it and we could easily travel up by train. We stayed in a fabulous apartment (part of the Arabesque Hotel Group) and I made all the clothes and weapons for crusader Barbie before we left. I used metallic thread to look like chainmail. I didn’t want her to wear a cross so did a spiral which I smudged. The shield was a metal lid that I used my bradawl to make 8 holes and threaded purple elastic and covered the centre with red chenille. I made her sword from coffee stirrers.

I based her on the anime picture and made her shoes from a cut up hair bobble. I used metallic ribbon for the top bit of her shoes.

I went with my daughter Betsy, her boyfriend Joshua and my son Toby skiing in the Austrian bit of Italy. The south Tyrol or dolomites. We stayed in Das Majestic hotel and had a totally fab time. I made the outfits for Ski Barbie and skis from coffee stirrers.

Carly has long been a lover of learning new crafts. When she was at school, she wanted to go to an evening course to learn how to patchwork, but it was full. Carly wasn’t patient enough to wait for her space by calmly remaining on the waiting list. Oh no. That is just not how Carly is or was back then – over 4 decades ago. But the lacemaking class had spaces. It might have been more helpful to learn touch typing but she signed up for that another time. Useful and sensible but hardly creative. However, making lace really is incredibly slow and tedious and requires a whole load of specialist equipment. This includes a hard board for the base under the ‘lace pillow’, hay under some cotton (for the lacemaking area), pins, cotton thread to make the lace and bobbins. These last items could be either super functional, modern, and easy to ‘throw’ or utterly gorgeous and antique, but they were often wonky. For sure, they were all made from wood and usually decorated with beads to weigh them. However, not only was lacemaking slow and fiddly as a process, but it also needed immense attention to detail. Carly made some lavender bags, several bookmarks and half a Peter Pan collar. Lugging around the lace pillow and stopping the various lace bobbins from getting tangled up meant that Carly only committed to this for a number of years.

When she was studying clinical medicine in London, she found a patchwork class mid-week that had spaces. Whoo hoo. She really excelled at this, but her fellow medical students thought she was just a party pooper. Every Wednesday, after the statutory sports events all afternoon, the whole year group would meet at the Union Bar and get totally rat-arsed. Thursday morning lectures were almost always a write-off. Only Carly and a few students weren’t hung over. And Carly would be able to use her wonderful patchwork pencil case but there would be nobody there to admire it. Only the other ‘uncool’ students, who refused to get blind drunk the night before, were in attendance or at least in a fit state to learn. However, Carly does love a drink. She did then and she does now. However, back then the Union Bar was opaque because of all the cigarette smoke and Carly could never abide this.

Carly isn’t quite sure when she learnt to weave. But really… Just how complicated can it be to have strings going upwards and downwards (warp) and then having to put some other threads leftwards and rightwards (weft)? Certainly, much less complicated than knitting and crocheting, that she’d been doing since she was a child. She had a really tiny loom that could make something not much wider than a braid but was easy to transport about the place. Not as easy as a backstrap loom but that needed to be tied around a tree or pillar – not always readily available in the NHS! Being able to weave, reduced the tedium of being with women in labour whilst they took hours to ‘dilate’. This was during her obstetrics attachment as a medical student in Newham General Hospital in the 1980s. She made a memorable pair of braces where she managed to work out how to put letters into the weave. They said “Ades’ Braces” for the left hand one and “by Fertleperson” on the right hand one! They were black and white with red leather straps with buttonholes to attach to her then boyfriend’s trousers. All the midwives told her she couldn’t really give them to him as a present as they would smell of hospital. But some soap would sort that all out! She does wonder where they are now. And, anyway, no one really wears braces much anymore. She does still have some of the plain braid with her to fix all her dangly earrings on and it is still doing a good job all these years on!

Carly does love these craft holidays and for many years she went on knitting holidays. To chateaus, gites and hotels. She went on workshops and to retreats all over Europe and even to India. When Carly was much younger, she went on several weaving holidays to deepest, darkest west Wales. She had quite a lot of weeks of holiday once she was working as a junior doctor. Far more than her then lawyer husband, Ades. So off she went with her equally craft-obsessed friend Jordane to stay with a family who offered residential holidays where you could weave at all hours in their adjacent barn. Keith was a committed weaver and ran holidays to supplement his income from his chosen craft.

 Jordane and Carly were fairly early on in their medical careers. They had worked together at Norman Cross hospital for their very first job when they qualified. They were called ‘house-officers’ then. They are both sure that if the surgeons had chosen, they would have been ‘house-men’ but what on earth could Jordane and Carly do about their gender? At that time there were no terms in common use like non-binary, genderfluid, cisgender, agender, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, pangender, two-spirit, third gender and transgender. There probably should be an etcetera at the end of this list.

They both worked so hard and laughed and giggled the whole time. And then they went away to weave. The most memorable thing about these holidays was that Keith exclusively wove in orange and brown. It is hardly surprising that he needed to supplement his income by having a couple of renegade doctors come to stay!

When Carly went to India for her sabbatical before the pandemic, she made a list of 133 crafts to tackle. This number is the product of her two favourite prime numbers, seven and 19. In her blog she displayed all 133 in alphabetical reverse order as she likes to support the underdog. A and B get far too much recognition. She knew someone at medical school who changed his name to be the first on the list. Originally his name was Omar Sheik, and he changed it to Omar Al-Sheik, but he didn’t foresee a student coming in, partway through the course, called Simone Alacrity. “Ha”, thought Carly and her friends. Serves him right for being so conniving.

Back to her list of 133 crafts;

1.     Yoga
2.     Yarn bombing
3.     Woodwork
4.    Window art
5.    Weaving

Weaving was number five. Carly isn’t really sure why Yoga counts as a craft. Really it is a physical activity but maybe she had in mind she would introduce some new poses like ‘The Knitting Pose’ where you twist your arms around each other and ‘The Weaving Pose’ where you interweave your fingers! She did complete the other four. She yarn bombed a tree in Pushkar, Rajasthan and recently returned after a five-year absence to see some of it still there. She was delighted her yarn decoration had survived – even more so as the materials were natural – for sure acrylic would still be there but real craftspeople like Carly prefer natural fibres. She also did some woodwork although it was pretty rudimentary as she didn’t really have the requisite tools. She also spent some time doing window art using some special pens but had to leave them on windows where she made them. At least someone is enjoying them – well so she hopes! She did, however, seriously consider how she was going to weave in India.

 She knew that there would be lots of home looms of all sizes as India is a country of sumptuous weaving, but their looms would not be available if they were mid-way through a project, which they usually were. And she didn’t stay that long in any place where they had these large looms. In the end, she had an idea that she wanted to do a small spiral weaving project using the string she had brought with her. She had her sabbatical theme of purple and spirals and wanted to make a hanging incorporating this. So, she used a cardboard shoe box to make the loom! Once she had secured the purple warp on a stick just inside the box, she tied down the bottom end and used a tapestry needle to thread magenta coloured string in and out to make a spiral. And then it was easy to make. She finishes it off with her signature tassels at the bottom.

Sometimes, Carly wove the fabric for other projects. She found a cool weaving establishment in Hackney, London where the very kind owner, Filomena, had already set up and threaded the warp on the loom and all Carly needed to do was load thread onto the bobbin and with a speedy throwing motion, chuck, yes literally chuck, this from side to side whilst operating the pedals to raise alternate warp threads before whacking back the heddle between each throw to bed down the weft. Carly felt she might be in a weaving sweatshop, but she was paying to do it and not being taken for a ride as many young people in factories are in less affluent countries. 

And then joy of joys. Filomena turned up as a contestant in another one of Carly’s beloved TV reality series, ‘Interior Design Masters’. This one was still on the BBC unlike GBBO (annoyingly now on channel 4 with loads of annoying repetitive adverts). In this series, the contestants are tasked with remodelling a room or a larger space either individually or in teams. Filomena wore the most bizarre of outfits, including a clown ensemble, often looking like an overgrown toddler. She stayed in the competition longer because she was truthful, whilst her fellow contestant wasn’t. Liars will usually get their comeuppance. Especially when caught on camera. Carly smiles ruefully. Unfortunately, however, Filomena didn’t win.

 Carly will continue to learn new crafts as it is part of her very being. That is how she is, and this is great for her to stave off dementia!

Carly has an ambiguous relationship with all sorts of things and all manner of people. That is the nature of someone who is contrary at times. She is reminded of Mary, who might have really been called Mary-Mary, who had a garden and is not to be confused with Little Miss Muffet who sat on something. As a paediatrician, Carly has had to prescribe a lot of medication for children over the years. This isn’t really an ambiguous relationship (Carly and prescribing). It is just what she and all her colleagues do. If she were a surgeon she could perform operations, and if she were a radiologist, she could take various images of patients. But she is a physician and really there isn’t much in the way of treatment that she can administer. There is talking and there are drugs. When she was a medical student, she would practise saying complicated drug names in front of a mirror. Even now she finds it difficult to remember the name of the new drug she wrote a guideline for in the last year (dextropropoxyphene). She has become a teensy bit lazy with learning this sort of name. It is so long and unwieldy. But it does work. The drug that is. Not the learning of the name. She tries hard not to over-prescribe medication. Most children’s ailments get better all by themselves. And it is important to heed guidelines about not prescribing antibiotics unnecessarily. This is because they are often inappropriately used to treat viral infections and so, by definition, don’t work. But also, the bacteria get resistant to the drug and so when they are needed for a bacterial infection, they don’t actually work anymore. Unsurprisingly, there is pressure to resist prescribing unnecessary antibiotics and for some utterly bizarre reason this has been termed ‘antibiotic stewardship’. Who on earth coined this phrase was on a mission to mask understanding and make things unnecessarily complicated. But Carly has taken advantage of this by getting involved in a virtual reality scenario to see which types of GPs are able to resist prescribing antibiotics for an elderly woman requested by her very demanding daughter, both of whom were avatars. It had certainly been a fun project. And the results. More senior doctors were better than junior ones.

Carly has often been involved with prescribing projects. She helped launch an online teaching tool to encourage safer prescribing of medicines for children. This group was headed up by a colleague at a childrens’ teaching hospital. He was lovely and kind, but Carly always felt he was about to drop dead by self-combustion, as he looked like he was always about to blow a gasket. He seemed very highly strung which meant Carly had to really reign herself in when they were working together on this project. She didn’t want to be responsible for him detonating himself because of her exuberant nature. 

Carly felt that the Medicines-for-Children’s website was really helpful and when she found out there was a restricted number of parent information leaflets on commonly used medicines, she set about resolving that. She involved a whole team of doctors in training. This was the easy part. The bureaucracy was the hard part. It always is when dealing with large organisations. In the end, many years later, this website covers far more drugs.

Carly feels she has had to learn from her prescribing mistakes. Over the years she has made a number. Luckily no one came to any harm. “Phew”, muses Carly. And she has put her energies from feeling guilty about these prescribing misdemeanours to use. 

Early on in her career, a toddler came into the Emergency Department in extremis. The family only spoke French, so it was difficult to work out what had happened. Essentially, the child had a blocked nose, and the family had squirted Karvol up his nostrils causing him to struggle even more with his breathing. Things calmed down but Carly couldn’t really understand why they had done this. Then she looked at the packaging and realised that the photos showing how you were supposed to apply this decongestant liquid to the pillow could be misinterpreted and were misleading. The pillow or handkerchief looked quite like a nose. And the fact they couldn’t understand the written information meant Carly now really did understand. 

So, she took it upon herself to contact the manufacturer. But they seemed very uninterested. Carly was rather bemused, but as one who is serendipitous by nature, instead she wrote it up as a journal article. Being very junior in her team, she sought help from a more experienced colleague. Let’s call her Kathleen Bumble. The initials ‘KB’ are the same. Clearly there was going to be an issue, as she would ordinarily just use the real ones. In the end they wrote the case up as a letter for the Lancet. This is a very prestigious journal and Carly was so excited. It was the very start of her academic career. But when the letter was published, it only had KB’s name on it. Carly was bemused and contacted the journal. They said that KB was unsure of how to spell Carly’s surname and so left it off. Normally, they would contact all the authors, but only in the States where this journal is published. Now Carly was actually furious. Totally, hopping mad. It was her work and her case, and she had merely asked for some help. After lots of phone calls and letters, as the internet and emails were only in their infancy then, eventually, Carly managed to sort this out. But it was a very important lesson. One she has NEVER, EVER forgotten. It must be really significant, as Carly so very rarely uses SHOUTY CAPITALS.

Since then, Carly has written many peer review papers and published abstracts. Right from the get-go, even if the project may fold and get nowhere, Carly ensures that the author list and order is clearly laid out. As her senior mentor and colleague, Ben Lloyd (of course this is his real name as this is complementary) said “The goal is always clarity”. Carly did a number of presentations on this Karvol case. She called it the Karvol Kid and images of a child with a Stetson riding around in the Wild West, on a horse with packets of Karvol in his pockets would pop up in her head and she would smile quietly. She even made slides of her niece Harriet who was a toddler taking the Karvol and putting it up her nose. Carly and Harriet’s mother had to keep warning her this was just for the camera, and she must never do it in real life. She never did and also became a doctor. Maybe this early, formative experience influenced her career choice.

Karvol was something Carly used often for her children when they were blocked up with colds. Of course, she put it on their pillows. Or on handkerchiefs. By this stage the packaging had miraculously changed, so it was clear you didn’t squirt it up your child’s nostrils. In fact, she still has some, mostly as a memento. The company no longer makes Karvol, as it folded in 2013. Carly dares not look at the expiry date on the packaging. She believes anyway that medicines probably just get a little bit weaker over time. Actually, she couldn’t resist. She took a look at the packaging. It is now October 2023. The expiry date was March 2010. What’s 13 years between friends?

Later on in her training, Carly went to work at Guy’s Poisons Unit. This was a rather sideways move. She wanted to take a regular 9-5 job with no nights or weekends as she thought it might help her fertility treatment to work. Oh, and it did. She was there, on the phone lines, dealing with all sorts of queries. Both accidental and intentional poisonings. And strangely it was also for pets. One man was upset because a rat was getting into Fluffy, his rabbit’s hutch. So, he put down warfarin as poison for the visiting rat, not realising the deleterious effect it would have on Fluffy. Carly was flabbergasted that people really could be that dense. This job culminated in Carly presenting a series of paediatric accidental methadone overdoses at a national conference. And being pregnant. Double whammy!

When she was pregnant, Carly did yoga at the Active Birth Centre in North London. She was keen to have as natural a birth as possible and felt yoga might help with that. They had one weekend for couples to explore birth with other pregnant women and their partners. Ades, her then husband, was excited to come along. The first exercise was to crawl around the floor, like an infant, and collect an article from a newspaper or a magazine from the floor that seemed to be of interest. He chose one about having no sleep. He suggested to the group that he thought paracetamol would help and he would be keen to give this to his baby. Whenever he cannot sleep, this is what he takes. Carly tries to explain about the placebo effect, but he shrugs and says he doesn’t want to know as it works for him. “Okey dokey”, says Carly. But doling out Calpol to a baby who won’t sleep, didn’t really go down too well with this rather politically correct and baby-front-and-centred group. Carly and Ades decided this was a last resort strategy. Their kids are now adults. They usually had medicines when they needed them and now seem healthy and not currently addicted to any drugs. Phew! Job well done feels Carly as a mother.Carly gives a number of talks about medicines at this stage in her career. She has several on her Dr Carly YouTube channel. One of her big bugbears is to promote shutting bathroom doors and keeping medicines in locked cabinets. Carly is perturbed by how many of her paediatric colleagues with young children don’t abide by these simple guidelines. But Carly cannot be too smug. When her daughter, Boo was two, she went for a sleepover with her friend Johnny. One of them had a sore finger and so they went off exploring to find some analgesia. They found paracetamol tablets in the bathroom and popped them out of the packet. They told Carly that they had posted them down the bath plug hole, but it wasn’t easy to see if this was true. Off they went to the Emergency Department to have levels checked. She should have believed them as these levels were indeed negative. But the treatment is simple, and the consequence of liver damage is severe. So, despite all Carly’s expert knowledge about drugs and poisons, one must always be vigilant…