Rain and cold

Abundant figs on the
sycamore tree

It rained till about midnight last night, and it restarted raining this morning till now in the early evening. 12 degrees and very cold. And 4 finches have already died from the cold. But we need the rain ... the drought needs to be broken. The sudden cold spell has shocked the bulbs into sprouting ... there's even a ranunculus in flower - in november?! It normally flowers in February!!! Down side is the fruit on the trees spoil quickly if they're not harvested in time. Peaches and such are all rotting from the cold. But I noticed the sycamore figs have an explosion of fruit due to the cold shock.

Like everything else here in Israel, the violence from yesterday just wafted away into a memory and no one can remember or even talk about it. It's a very weird psycho thing when people just pretend that nothing happened a day earlier. But that's the way it is here ... I guess it's a way to cope with the tension and senseless injustice otherwise life is simply to difficult to bear. And that is very sad. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.623794  Something to read and understand the present situation in Jerusalem.

My new orthopedic shoes

And talking about senseless ... the night before a friend - a shop owner down the road died of a massive heart attack. I saw him in the morning and we exchanged good mornings and how-do-you-dos. Later at midnight another friend called to say he died. Apparently there was a quarrel between him and his brothers over money or the shop ... and in the midst, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was buried immediately the day after (yesterday) but I was told his 2 others brothers were fighting in the cemetery ... nothing apparently was resolved.

I got new insoles and orthopedic shoes at last. But the podiatrist had only a few models of shoes available ... and actually for my foot condition, I don't have much of a choice. So it was a pair of luminous green sports shoes tailored for my hallux and neuroma problems. Laughable but I actually went home 70 km in those shoes. It doesn't hurt so much to walk now. In fact it hurts when I'm not wearing them ... the neuroma is dreadful.