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Things have been a little quiet here this week, although in a way that’s not really true. You see the parliamentary elections are only one week away, so there’s been lots of politicking going on.

The political banners are everywhere, with each party differentiated by colour. The Sunni Future Movement is sky blue, Michel Aoun’s FPM is orange, Hizballah is yellow, and Amal is green. The various communist and pseudo-socialist parties are red, although the current government majority (which is pretty neo-con in its outlook) has been using red too so that gets a bit confusing.

We came back from Australia last month to discover that FPM has opened an electorate office just around the corner from our apartment, which is just swell of them. So far we’ve had several late night rallies complete with the propaganda van (a beat up old van with the HUGEST speakers on its roof blaring out martial rousing nationalist music) and fireworks louder than the Hiroshima bomb. Hopefully on election day the drive-by shootings will be kept to a minimum, although if they don’t get rid of that bloody van I might be tempted to do a swing past with my mate’s AK47 on full auto…

It’s quite weird to see polls which are almost purely personality driven. Hizballah is the only party to have released a policy proposal, and even that’s very vague. (I guess that means at least here you don’t get the post-elections media obsession with broken electoral pledges.) There’s been a bit of scaremongering by the ruling majority. But otherwise it’s all essentially a beauty contest. Candidates are either dashingly handsome, or else they’re from rich and powerful families.

On the security side, the elections have been remarkably stable thus far. Sure there’s been lots of punch-ups, and a couple of fatalities (and lets face it, elections are boring if no-one gets killed), but we haven’t had any massive carbombs or rampaging riots. Election day itself could be exciting, and of course when the results are announced it might get a bit loud. We’ve already had lots of celebratory gunfire, but I suspect that we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Needless to say, I think we’ll be staying indoors that day…

Got to meet Joe Biden, the US VP today. Well, kind of. His 35-car motorcade ripped past me as I was walking home from the office, so I threw him a quick welcoming wave in as unthreatening a way as possible given that there were several helicopter gunships hovering above. No sudden moves, and sir, please refrain from pointing your RPG at the motorcade.

Honestly, I’ve never seen so many shiny black SUVs in my life.

With the mountain snows melting rapidly, some friends had told us that the Nahr Ibrahim (also known as the Adonis River) was in full flow from the Afqa grotto. So Mitchell and I motored up into the mountains to check it out.

Afqa grotto is a giant cavern in the face of a towering cliff. During spring each year the snowmelt floods  the underground river so that it becomes a torrent. According to ancient legend, Adonis was out hunting at this spot and was killed by a wild boar. His lover, the goddess Venus, tried to save him but was too late. And so the torrential river that gushes forth every spring is the blood of Adonis.

Cool, eh?

Anyway, after a few wrong turns courtesy of the GPS (I thought these things were supposed to stop you from getting lost - I seemed to end up in private farmland every few minutes) we finally made it to Afqa.

At some point in every kid’s life, his or her inner pirate just has to be let loose. So now Mitchell’s free to impersonate Captain Pugwash, Captain Jack Sparrow, or perhaps as a worst case Captain Feathersword. At this rate I’m sure he’ll be ready for “Talk like a pirate day“.

Kipper me capstans!

We’ve just returned from our four week leave in Australia. After 20 hours in a plane and with very little sleep, we’re all kind of staggering around the apartment in that semi-intoxicated giddy state that only deep fatigue and jet-lag can bring you.  Mitchell woke up at 2.30 this morning and was ready to get into the day.  But luckily we managed to coax him into our bed and back to sleep until a much more respectable 6.30 am.

It was really great catching up with friends and family in Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra during the trip, but such a shame that Sheridan wasn’t feeling the best through some of it. Mitchell definitely enjoyed the trip, although I think he’d be hard pressed to decide on the best highlight. A few shortlist items might be:

- chasing Nanna’s fostered guide dog puppy Dax around the garden, pulling her tail, throwing balls for her and getting licked all over his face.

- discovering that the Easter bunny’s been and then spending the next few days gorging on chocolates. (He has now added the phrase “I want some chocolate” to his daily lexicon. Hmmm.)

- seeing the lions and tigers at the Adelaide zoo, or seeing the lions and giraffes at Monarto zoo.

- making Grandad chase him everywhere, totally and blissfully oblivious to Grandad’s dodgy hip and tricky ticker.

- playing dress-ups with Lily and trying on all of her necklaces, bracelets, rings and tiaras all at the same time.

- having water-bomb fights with Liv and Nadia in Geoff and May’s garden.

- discovering that unlike in Lebanon, Australian shopping malls have coin-operated rides every ten metres, but for some reason whenever Daddy goes to the mall he’s never got any coins in his pockets.

- riding on the carousel at Darling Harbour and saying “Hi” to uncle Christopher with every revolution.

- watching sharks glide over him and James at the Sydney Aquarium.

- consuming a full sized strawberry milkshake from Billy Baxters cafe in less than 30 seconds.

- riding on lots and lots of planes, plus a train, the monorail and the Popeye boat on the Torrens river.

- running endlessly from one end of Dubai airport to the other using every travelator in the building.

- being chased by the waves at Semaphore beach.

- swimming at Elizabeth aquatic centre, and then delighting when daddy got told off by a lifeguard for diving into the pool where there was a “no diving” sign.

- telling aunty Charmaine that she looked like a princess when she was all dressed up for work in the morning.

- playing piano and guitar with Erin.

- kicking Matt’s butt on the XBox 360.

- getting lots of really nice cuddles from all of his friends and family.

Yep, it was a pretty uneventful holiday…