End of summer holidays

Near-empty beaches

 Yesterday was the last day of summer holidays. It was a miserable summer to say the least ... I worked as usual every day like the rest of the year. But yesterday I was determined to do something special ... even if it were only 7 hours. The whole of 3 months summer holidays squeezed into 7 hours .... which was a visit to Jaffa and eating my favourite Thai food in Tel Aviv. I had to leave early early at 5.30am and reached Jaffa's St. Peter's Church at 7am just in time for Lauds and Mass. The chinese sisters had tagged along with me as they too start work today.

After Mass we walked along the beach for a good 4 kms. The sun was shining but a lovely cool sea breeze was lowing. I needed it. My asthma yesterday morning was so bad I nearly blacked out twice. The beach front was relatively quiet ... very few people. Usually it would be packed with students on the last day of the holidays. But Covid infections had hit 11,000 a day ... the highest per capita in the world. People just avoided going out.

Empty beach front

We then walked another 1.5km to my favorite Thai restaurant where we ordered Tom Yam, Pahd Thai and Pahd Krapao. It was a leisurely lunch and we chatted alot. At 2pm we returned home, to avoid the terrible traffic jams that begin at 3pm. It was a nice ride and I fell asleep along the way. Still there was a little traffic jam here and there ... and our return trip took 2 hrs instead of 1.

Well ... today school starts. I had to run between the 2 libraries to make sure everything was going smoothly. The Green Pass system is in operation for all libraries so I must make sure the rules are being observed. It'll be another 12 months efore I get to enjoy my next "summer holidays" which will be no better than yesterday's ... only a couple of hours.