Guests From The BBC

We had two people from BBC sleeping over last night. We haven't done this for a while. I'm sure I said that I'd never do it again, but... OK, I hope I said "bli neder," don't consider it a vow.

Aleem Maqbool is trekking, first with a donkey and then by foot, from Nazerth to Bethlehem as a Xmas special.

Basically, his route is part of the Derech Avot, Patriarch's Way, which goes from Shechem, Nablus, to Beersheva. Shiloh's in the middle, and he reached here, accompanied by a photographer, just after Shabbat. Since there aren't any hotels, motels or whatever in modern Shiloh, they've "taken rooms" at the Medad Inn.

I tried clearing out two of the kids' rooms for them. This is no 5 or even 4 star hotel, but as I type this, there's fresh coffee and Herby's legendary Chocolate Chip Cookies waiting for them on the dining room table.

Last night, after they dropped their stuff off, they went to Eli, armed with their camera, just north of us, to check out the "night life" and found a nice pizza place.

After they got back, my husband and I were interviewed, separately as per my suggestion, and then the usual smalltalk before going to sleep. The big surprise was that the photographer, a native Israeli, had been a neighbor of ours over thirty years ago in Bayit V'Gan, Jerusalem. Small world, it's hard to say who was more surprised.

In a short while my husband will give them a tour of Tel Shiloh. More about all this later on.