sleepless nights and poet's hats

wow. can't write long, it's 6.30am and I haven't been to sleep.
today we sat in my uncle's flat, in the not so cool, pretty down at heel part of Jaffa, reading his three poems recently published in a magazine, and admiring the new hats sent lovingly by my mother from England so he would have a poet's hat.  You see, I don't know if it's my uncle's quirk or not, but I understand that it's obligatory for any creative, including this poet Yakov Aladjem, to have a suitably bohemian hat when he walks past the stone coloured blocks of flats dressed with graffiti, past the bus stop facing the sea and travels to a little room in a cafe where other poets meet.  My uncle is 70 years old and for the past 20 years has really started to live his life as a living breathing human through this lark, so a hat, of course, is a must.

So we sat in a long narrow room, predominated by brown sofa covers, pictures of grandfathers and grandchildren, and of course books, each wearing new black hats, laughing for photos, and reading poetry that I don't quite understand in hebrew (with a smattering of ted hughes).

Classic. heartwarming.  it filled me with hope, loss for those are not here with us, and the beginnings of a link.

and all that topped off with the most incredible heart to heart catch up on life with my cousin.  Someone whom you thought you had little in common with because you have different mother tongues, and then, realise that blood really is thicker than water.  You realise that the same giggle, and of course the same love of swearing, may just be something to do with inherited genes (or is it to do with the chilli chocolate).

who knows. but I'm getting a poet hat of my own..