I actually flew out of Israel last Thursday afternoon.
That morning, I was watching CNN in my hotel bedroom in Jerusalem and realised that while I was away, I'd missed what must have been some days or possibly weeks of George Galloway making a total fool of himself in London on Celebrity Big Brother.
And I'd also missed not one, but two Liberal Democrat leadership candidate sex scandals.
Meanwhile, I made a meal of getting back.
I'd been finding my right foot, which I had an operation on about three years ago, increasingly painful when I walked, which I'd been doing for long distances across Jerusalem.
By the time I got to the airport, I was limping so badly, I sheepishly asked if I could be taken through the lengthy walk to the departure gate on one of those electric buggies reserved for the disabled. Usually you're supposed to book in advance, but I had obviously looked convincing enough to qualify as I hobbled towards them .
Then at Heathrow, I asked on the plane if I could get a buggy lift again for the even longer walk at the other end. Only if you're booked, I was told. But to my surprise, there was a man with a list with my name on it. El Al must have notified them from Ben Gurion Airport. So I again had the delusions-of-grandeur experience of being whisked past the lumbering crowds along the walkway and into the baggage hall.
The buggy at Heathrow was being driven by a charming Philippino woman who chattered away about how people tried to wangle themselves onto the buggy just for convenience. Which, she said, would never do, because all these rides had to be paid for by the airline concerned. And if the names weren't on the airline's list, then who would pay the charge incurred by the airport?
And especially El Al, she said. They're so tight, they won't pay for anything.
So then I had a long, long wait. My two large bags appeared, but not my holdall. And it still hadn't appeared by the time I was the last passenger left at the carousel.
The El Al baggage man was courteous and cheerful. Don't worry, he said. I'll get your bag back for you. It's probably still at Tel Aviv.
I began to realise that the holdall had all my toiletries in it. It had my entire collection of costume jewellery, which I'm very fond of, including a necklace which my daughter had made for me. And the awful thought struck me that I'd probably packed in it her beautiful art sketch book, with all her most recent work in it. I was taking it back to England so I could submit it with the art portfolio she's sending in for her degree course application. How on earth would I tell her if the bag was lost?
It wasn't much consolation, but it did help when the El Al man arranged for me to be taken directly to my house by a Mercedes cab. Because you've had to wait so long, he said.
So it was almost midnight when I got home. My neighbour Susie came out to greet me. She looked pale. I need to talk to you before you see Pashta, she said. And she told me a tale of how he'd pined and got thinner and thinner, and had started having diarrhoea every time she fed him. She'd obviously had to spend ages cleaning up after him and had been more or less doing a nursemaid shift for him. I felt terrible. Then we went to look for him in the utility room, where he should have been. He wasn't there, and didn't appear.
I had a rotten night.
The next day, I spoke to my mother's carer about making the usual arrangements to drive her over to my house for lunch. Then she told me how much she had deteriorated while I was away. How she now needed two people to help her get up the stairs at home, and even then it was difficult. How it was now almost impossible to get her into the car because of the lack of control she has over her body. About her repeated gettings up in the night, which meant the carers had had to take turns at staying up each night to make sure they got her back into bed. It was clear she wasn't going to be able to come to my house, and that this might be permanent. I'll come and see her on Sunday, I said.
Pashta appeared. He was painfully thin, and as light as when he was a kitten. He looked subdued and miserable. Not at all his usual owner-of-all-I-survey self.
Then the El Al man rang. I've got good news and bad news, he said. So tell me the bad news first, I said.
No, he said, I'll tell you the good news. I've got your bag. But it's been crushed and broken in transit. All the zips are broken. It came apart. We've packed everything into another bag. But we don't know what's broken or missing. We'll deliver it to you.
First, I took Pashta to the vet. Have you been told he's got a heart murmur? No, I said, I didn't know that.
And there's a mass in his abdomen, said the vet. You need to bring him back for an x-ray.
Then she pumped him full of antibiotics, had him blood-sampled and gave me a pack of various medicines for him.
Gloom.
Then when I got home, the bag from El Al had arrived. The good news was that the art sketch book wasn't in it-- I'd luckily packed it into one of the big bags. Which was really lucky, because my daughter's Yom Kippur machzor (prayer book) which I had put in the holdall, was crushed beyond further use.
My costume jewellery was all there. But quite a lot of it was in shreds. Including some of my favourite pieces.
By then, my foot was hurting seriously. So I had the bright idea of taking the ultra high powered painkillers I'd been given after my foot op. I still had some packs of them.
It wasn't till some hours after that that I remembered that the reason I'd stopped taking them at the time of the op was because they made me feel so nauseous.
So I spent Shabbos mainly in bed in a state of nausea. Pashta was still subdued, but he came and lay alongside me for most of it.
By Sunday morning, he was looking better. Long term prognosis may not be good. But at least he appears to be happier.
OK, I'm ready for my next challenge.