THE UK IN MARCH

Our trip to the UK in March was enjoyable as always, but I didn't manage to pull in any last minute bookings, which meant we were just covered by our existing set up which was a talk at Saatchi Shul on Shabbat, one at Ealing Synagogue on Sunday evening on The Whole of Pesach Seder in One Hour; The Whole of Jewish History in One Hour at the New London Synagogue on Tuesday night and the nothing until Sunday, where David was one of the invited guests at Limmud Brighton.

But it was fun. Aside from Shabbat at hotel near the Saatchi Shul we stayed at Matt's place. Our trip included the usual catch-up at the pub with most of the crew: Claudie, James Garvey, Mark Hammond, Caroline as well Tessa Khan, my friend from Yamatji who was doing a masters at Oxford. We met Matt's new girlfriend, Alex, who we really, really liked. I had lunch with Marjorie Johnson in Golders Green, which was great as always and heard about the final nails on the coffin of the Public Affairs department at the ABPI (the last of the decadent PR machines). I injured my thumb at the pub the night we went drinking with Matt and picked up a whole bunch of fab second-hand novels from Oxfam for 1 pound each. David gave a series of great talks but didn't manage to find a sci-fi novel to buy on Charing Cross Road. This was the first trip to London where we didn't see Michael. I didn't take any pictures because the battery on our camera still wasn't working (and still isn't). And we both went to Limmud Brighton with only a few hours sleep and froze our bums off waiting for the early morning train from London Bridge to Brighton. David also received three separate invitations to Limmud Winter Conference.

For me, the highlight (besides seeing friends) was the fact that, for the first time, we took with us five different CDs which I had had produced - as well as copies of the books - which sold very well. It was a real vindication of the decision to produce them and of the hard work that we, but particularly David, had put in over the previous four months. Special thanks to Rina and Mark for sponsoring these items...it made a huge difference. The CDs were Jewish History in Five Chapters, Women in Jewish History, The Trei Asar, Jewish in Four Chapters and Revelation & Revolution.

But, the not so good news was that we came back to Israel with very little money - which ultimately made the trip less than a success. Now, we had Pesach looming - with Julia, Talya and her boyfriend Josh, and Reuben all coming - a lease about to expire, unpaid rent and no idea what we were going to do. It was still a little (!) demoralising.