Yes, Mr Benn’s Blog is back once again and this time, faithful follower, I am writing to you from – Jerusalem! We arrived today from Luton (not often mentioned in the same breath as Jerusalem I suspect), via an excellent flight courtesy of EasyJet. It was made all the more interesting as I registered Val for special assistance. Now this was a good idea as the queue at the gate was very long and there were no seats to be had – unless you had registered for special assistance, of course. Now, to be honest, Val could easily have walked on to the plane and we just didn’t want to have to stand for long in the queue so we were expecting that they would do that thing where they call you up with those with toddlers etc. Not this time it transpired. First up we were shepherded to the lift and then onto a strange looking lorry with seats on the inside of it, via a tailgate that lifted us all in through the back. This was impressive, but getting off was even better. We arrived at the side of the plane and the whole lorry rose up until we were level with the door (on the right-hand side of the plane) through which we entered to do the usual battle with the rest of the passengers coming in from the usual entry point.

Anyway, all went well and we did not have too much of what we experienced when we last flew to Tel Aviv in Feb last year, ie the constant getting up and chatting by members of the Hassidic Orthodox Jews. As soon as the cabin crew had got one lot settled, another group set off down the aisle to have a last chat with their mates.

Claire, who we are visiting, had given us excellent instruction as to what to do at immigration and how to get a sort of taxi-bus to Jerusalem. We had Lewis Hamilton at the wheel (honestly, I never realised those buses could go that fast!) and we made swift progress to Clare’s flat, where we were greeted by an omelette, a nice cooling shower and bed.

So there you go, another adventure begins. More soon!!