Living in England - well, I guess dying is naturally included in this topic

A friend of ours has suddenly died.

It hasn't sunk in, and writing about it is probably my way of trying to get it into my head that he's gone. What is hard to get into my head is that he's never going to ring us again and leave his crazy jokey messages. The most weird thought I keep having is: we can't just ring him and ask what happened. From past experience of people dying, this is the thing that keeps coming up now and again, over the years - my sister died in 1996 and there are still moments when I have to stop myself thinking: I could tell her about that...

And being Jewish, I feel weird not being able to just go visit the family. Back home it would be quite obvious what you do, the customs and traditions kick in automatically and everyone knows where they are. If you're part of the immediate family, you stay in for a week, normal life completely stops, and people come to visit you. If you know the family, you go and visit. If you're a neighbour, then there's no way you could not know about it, as there would be a huge black notice outside the house, so anyone passing by knows that this home is going through bereavement. It's like having a notice outside saying: handle with care, or: please don't expect us to behave normally just now.

Here they do things very differently. The funeral doesn't take place the next day, it's arranged and planned and it takes place at a time that is chosen by the bereaved. The family have a huge amount of choice as to how, when, where - which could be a blessing but from my experience of bereavement, I think it could also be an extra burden at a time when all you want to do is just stop and let other people take over.

I remember years ago when someone I worked with lost his wife, whom he had loved dearly. He was back at work the next day! I was stunned. But apparently his English upbringing had conditioned him to ignore what had happened and keep soldiering on, to get back to normal as soon as possible, and even at the funeral it was really important to him to keep his feelings under control, to "keep strong", which to me seemed extremely unhealthy. And to my mind it looks like an insult to the person who died - my Israeli mind says: if you love someone then you will care enough to shed some tears when they die. But I think the thing is that the English do shed tears, they just do it in private and not in front of a whole load of strangers.

The closest I came in England to experiencing our own customs was, to my surprise, when my Ghanaian friend lost her husband and I found that the Ghanaians have similar mourning customs to ours, that the family does sit at home with people visiting - only in their case it's not specifically a week, it's from the death until the funeral, and in that particular case that meant several weeks because there was the need to allow for time for relatives from Ghana to get visas to come here for the funeral. I found it so much easier to relate to that, it seemed natural to me that my friend would be at home and people would be coming to visit. Whereas when a neighbour of ours died recently I felt thrown, confused - my instinct was to go and visit his wife, but I wasn't sure how she would see that, whether she would regard it as prying, sticking my nose into what to her is a private matter. After nearly two decades in this country I still don't feel I really know where I am with these things, though having an English husband does help in some ways and in that case I discussed it with him and we went round together one afternoon to visit our neighbour.

Living in England, for me as an Israeli, sometimes feels like treading in a minefield. If I act according to Israeli norms - as I did when I first came here - I'd come across as extremely rude. But there isn't a written rulebook, no user manual handed out at the airport when you arrive, so I'm still trying to work it all out, and no doubt still offending people now and again by what seems to me very normal behaviour!

Sorry, I forgot about the coffee

Here, at long last, is the post I promised ages ago, when I wrote about what the English mean by teatime.

I must start with a confession: I am not a coffee connoisseur by any means. I have always been an instant drinker (and by that I don't mean that I down my coffee quickly - I mean I drink that stuff that serious coffee drinkers wouldn't touch even if they were desperate) and in my youth I favoured what my friends referred to as "babies' coffee" - weak instant with lots of sugar and lots of milk. My biggest treat was if it was made with hot milk instead of hot water - I guess in today's terminology that kind of makes it a latte, only a not very high-quality latte...

But I digress. I was going to talk about what happens in England. Part of my culture shock on arriving here was on the coffee front, because back then - nearly two decades ago - they just didn't seem to have anything remotely approaching a decent cup of coffee. Not, as I've pointed out, that my standards were very high, which says a great deal about the low level to which the coffee here had sunk. And as an Israeli I still find it funny now the way the Brits tend to assume that you will drink tea - the more old-fashioned the person, the more likely they are to make this assumption. They won't ask you what you'd like to drink, they'll just talk about "putting the kettle on" and making "a nice cuppa", and they simply won't think of checking with you whether you actually want any tea.

In Israel we tend to make a similar assumption about coffee - in many an Israeli home when you walk in the door you are greeted not with "what would you like to drink?" (not that we have a way of saying that in Hebrew - we'd say "what do you want to drink?", which to the English ear may sound just a tad gruff...) but the question will be "coffee?" But at least, in our defence, I can say that we do actually ask! And if someone were to say, "actually I'd rather have tea" then we would find a teabag somewhere in a dusty corner of our kitchen. Even my Brazilian friend in Kfar Saba, who pretty much has coffee running through her veins instead of blood, is perfectly capable of rustling up a cup of tea for me. But here there seems to be some hard and fast rules that people don't even think about - it seems from my observation of the Brits that if you arrive any time in the afternoon, the drink you'd be offered is tea. Coffee is for mid-mornings, or elevenses; or as an after-dinner drink. It just isn't something you drink in the afternoons.

Unless, that is, you go to a coffee shop. That's where in the last decade or so the Brits have been practising American-style behaviour, ordering tall skinny lattes and short decaff mochas as though they've always done it. I well remember the beginning of the American-style coffee shop era - I was living and working in London at the time, and right next door to our office there was a bookshop which started running a coffee shop in a corner, and the coffee was so delicious it quickly became our regular morning treat, grabbing a latte in a disposable cup on our way in to work. It was so popular in our firm that one of the partners managed to arrange a staff discount for us. Not surprising when all we had in the office in terms of coffee was a kettle and a jar of instant. I get the impression that Americans would have gone on strike over such bad working conditions... (But from what I remember from my Israeli working days, all we tended to have in the office was a kettle and a jar of instant - except in some places where due to popular demand there was also a packet of Turkish Coffee, which was used to make what we call "mud coffee". We call it that because there's this huge amount of mud-coloured sediment at the bottom of the mug.)

The Brits may correct me, but I have the feeling the word "coffee shop" arrived with that trend from across the ocean. I think until then there were only cafés, where you could get a not-particularly-brilliant coffee if you asked for it, but also tea of course, and light eats.

And then there is the different kind of café, which is pronounced "caff" - sometimes referred to fondly as a "greasy caff" or a "greasy spoon" (short for "greasy-spoon café) - which is really a basic down-to-earth restaurant where the plebs can go for a meal and feel at home, and the not-so-plebs go to enjoy the sort of food that the posh restaurants wouldn't dream of serving, even in an ironic post-modern style. This is where you can get the great British all-day-breakfast, which consists of bacon and eggs plus all sorts of possible additions: grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, sausages, baked beans, fried bread, and one of my favourite things: bubble and squeak, which I've been told was traditionally made of leftovers from Sunday lunch, and like so many dishes that developed as an attempt by poor people to make the food go just a bit further, is so much nicer than some of the super-duper gourmet food! In my single days in London, before I learned to cook and before I made the decision to stop eating pig, I used to sometimes go to one of those greasy caffs on a Sunday after church for a belated breakfast (never had time to eat before church, me being not very much of a morning person). These meals are obviously not what the health food brigade would recommend - some have referred to them as "cholesterol on a plate" - but they are certainly very filling! (and if you're on Atkins or any low-carb diet, then you can go for it with no qualms at all...)

So if you come to England and you see what looks like a no-frills restaurant offering "all day breakfast", "cooked breakfast", or "English breakfast", this is what they mean. You won't get any croissants there, that's for sure! (And don't expect a decent cup of coffee in there either. They'll do you a mug of what's fondly called "builders' tea" - so strong you can stand your spade in it... If you want a decent coffee, look for a smart place with a name that seems American. I shudder to think what reaction you'd get if you walked into a greasy caff and asked for a tall skinny latte... I expect the response would be along the lines of "you wot?")

Getting used to Royal Mail, and to the English take on Spring

Oh dear. I have two friends with early April birthdays (I hope they're still my friends after this...) and I did remember, I got cards in good time, but somehow my brain didn't take in the fact that if 6 April falls on a Sunday, then the card would only get there on time if I posted it on Friday, seeing as mail isn't delivered on Sundays. Ho hum. Never mind, I thought, one day late is still kind of okay, and the other birthday is on 7 April which falls on Monday, so at least that one will get there on time if I get my skates on and get to the post box this afternoon...

Well, no. After nearly two decades of living in this country, you'd have thought I'd have got it into my head that there's no mail collection on Saturday afternoons. And as they recently cancelled Sunday collections, that's it, my cards are going to sit in that box until Monday and won't get anywhere before Tuesday. Oh dear.

But I realise I'm moaning about these things as if I've always had the luxury of the post being delivered daily, I happily join in with the general moans about second post being cancelled (someone in a letter to one of the papers, I forget which and when, pointed out that it wasn't really the second post delivery that had been cancelled, it's really the first one - at least that's how it looks where I live, when often the post arrives around 1-2pm) - but the thing is, where I come from, getting the post delivered daily sounds like a fantasy. As far as I remember, it was twice a week! And this fantastic idea that first class post is delivered the next day - wow! In Israel we don't send cheques in the post because there's no knowing how long it will take. We don't do filling a form in and sending it in the post. We don't trust the post. (Yes, I know things do sometimes go wrong here, but we're talking about a very different scale. Most of the post here does actually get delivered correctly and in good time.) Long before the invention of the English expression "snail mail", we had a fond term for our own postal system, which would translate into English as "tortoise post". (This is based on a Hebrew play on words, but it's a bit complicated to try and explain in English.)

So, thank God for good old Royal Mail, which does actually provide a pretty decent service when I think about it in this light.

And thank God for this gorgeous sunshine, and also for the rain that came down earlier and watered the gardens. It's just that I'm still not really used to this - I saw the rain and thought, what's happened to spring, yesterday was so sunny and warm! Then I remembered: in England this is spring!

I think I'm becoming more Israeli (well, that's my excuse anyway)

Having lived in England for such a long time, I often find on visits home that I've forgotten how Israelis behave, I've absorbed so many of the British ways that people have at times answered me in English though I spoke Hebrew - when I asked friends if I have a British accent when speaking Hebrew, they said, 'No, you have a polite accent.'

I remember once sitting in a restaurant with my mum and my niece, we sat outside and the waitress came out to lay the table and take our order. She'd gone back in when we noticed she'd forgotten to bring us napkins. When she returned I asked her politely: Could we have some napkins please? My niece corrected me: We don't say it like that here. Oh, I said, what would you have said? Her answer was one word: Napkins?

The reason this has come to my mind now is that yesterday I caught myself doing this to a guy at the till at my local Co-op. No, not napkins... It's just that at this shop they have the annoying habit of not giving you the till receipt unless you specifically ask for it. I hadn't been to that shop in a very long time, so am not used to this anymore. So there's this guy behind the counter punching my shopping into the till, telling me how much, taking my money and... he's ready to move on to the next customer if I'm not quick. In the heat of the moment I forgot all that I've learned about manners in the nearly two decades of living in this very polite country. I looked at him with a question mark on my face and said: Till receipt?

It worked. But I don't know if he's recovered from the shock yet.

Christmas - what is so special about turkey?

Well, I've been doing Christmas in England since 1989 and I still haven't worked out why the Brits seem to think turkey counts as festive food. Any suggestions?

Being Jewish, I have this in-built expectation that festive food would have some symbolic meaning. I also have an in-built expectation that we would sit around the table telling the story, singing songs about it, remembering what we're celebrating. Maybe one day I'll trying writing a Christmas haggadah...

It just feels so weird. What have all these customs got to do with the birth of the saviour of the world? A decorated tree, tinsel, holly, turkey and stuffing, Brussels sprouts and sausages... But the worst bit as far as I'm concerned is this utterly ridiculous business of pulling the crackers, reading out the awful jokes, putting on a silly paper hat, and trying to muster some enthusiasm about the plastic toy or novelty keyring or whatever it was that you were "lucky" enough to get in your cracker.

And then there's the exchanging of gifts, which is an art - due to the unwritten rule of not appearing to be greedy, you have to take your time and look quite nonchalant about the whole thing, as if you don't really mind if you don't get anything at all; but then, when you do unwrap one of your presents, you must suddenly switch to boundless joy and excitement or you will seem ungrateful.

Mind you, I didn't have to pretend to get excited by the thesaurus I was given yesterday - oops, I shouldn't have confessed, now that you know I own one I won't be able to get away with too much repetition of the same word...

Sunshine doesn't necessarily equal warmth

Even after all these years in England I'm still not used to this. You get up and look outside and see beautiful sunshine and blue skies. To me as an Israeli this means a hot day. But in England this can actually mean a freezing cold day, which is how it feels at the moment. Have looked it up on the web and it says 12 degrees (that's Centigrade/Celsius - I'm sorry, I don't speak Farenheit), which is fair enough for the end of October I suppose. I guess I'm a bit more used to it than I used to - I do remember the first time I came across this kind of day in London, went out in completely the wrong clothes and had to rush back in quickly to put something warmer on!

My wardrobe has certainly changed since living here. I'm sure I'd never owned a pair of gloves before. And I've had to get used to the fact that rain is something that happens often so you can't put things on hold until after the rain or you'd never get anywhere. If you live here you learn to put a raincoat on and take a brolley (yes, the Brits have a nickname for the umbrella - well, it does go everywhere with them) and go out anyway.

In my London days I used to go away to Wales now and again - found a little retreat house which became my regular bolthole. One of my visits was in winter, and I remember sitting in my room and thinking of going out for a walk. But it was raining, so I thought I'd wait a bit. Every once in a while I looked outside and saw it was still raining, until at some point the penny dropped and I said to myself: Come on, you're in Wales in December, what do you expect? Are you really going to wait till the rain stops?

So I put my coat on, took my brolley, and went out... and was rewarded with the most beautiful rainbow!!! Thank you, God. It was worth it!

P.S. Yes, I know I digressed here - I'm officially writing about living in England and here am I telling you about my visits to Wales. Maybe I should have called these postings "living in Britain". Hmmm...

The unwritten rules on telling jokes in England

I was sitting at a restaurant with my family on my visit home last year and I told a joke. My niece's reaction was: you look like you don't like this joke. And then I realised: I had learned to tell jokes the English way.

In Israel if you tell a joke, you start with saying: hey, this is really funny, wait till you hear this... and you're laughing whilst you tell it. In England that would not go down very well at all. In England the way to tell a joke is to keep a completely straight face, to pretend that what you're saying is not a joke at all, and leave it to your audience to work out that it's a joke. The best reaction is if they fall for it until the very end, and then you see this look on their face, you see them thinking about it, wondering, then coming to the conclusion that you weren't serious...

But of course the English are brought up not just learning how to tell a joke (deadpan, straight face) but also how to respond to a joke (deadpan, straight face). So don't expect them to roar with laughter. If you get a raised eyebrow and a half smile, you've done pretty well.

As for my niece's comment that I looked like I didn't like the joke I was telling - that's because it was what is called "a groaner". In Israel we call them bdichot keresh, keresh meaning a wooden board, but I've no idea why. But why here they're called groaners is pretty obvious, as the reaction you get from your audience is a groan, expressing the great suffering involved in hearing it. (Awful puns come under this category.) So when you're telling such jokes, the unwritten rules of English joke-telling say that you must look extremely apologetic whilst you tell them.

Thus we all play our part in the pretence that we don't really like these jokes, although of course if people didn't really like them they would have died out long ago (I mean the jokes, not the people). It's just that it's sort of beneath us to admit to liking groaners because they're not very sophisticated. That's my theory anyway.

So, have you heard the one about the frog? My pet frog is called Jumbo. Why Jumbo? Because he is not my newt.

Oh, and there's more... My pet newt is called Tiny. Why Tiny? Because he is my newt. Sorry...