In Search of Pesachs past

Rosalind Landy Pesach is here again. It is a complicated festival to organise. This year the difficulties are compounded by the fact that the Chag begins Motsei Shabbat. We have had this before, but I always have a sinking feeling of having Challot around for Shabbat when they must not leave any crumbs as we enter Pesach. How often does it happen in the 19 year cycle that we have a Saturday evening start? Barry will tell me! For the first few years of our married life we went to Barry’s parents for the whole of Pesach. It was always a great pleasure with one or two glitches. I have memories of a crisis in the Landy parents’ house when one set of grandchildren hid a favourite teddy of the other set. The crisis was averted just in time, before the Ma Nishtana was recited. After some years of visiting the grandparents, our children requested to have Pesach at home. We agreed and did that. But as you all know, one enters Pesach feeling tired, having cleaned and organised a myriad things. In addition, being one female in an entirely male household, I was usually the butt of jokes. One Seder evening, I had just sat down at table when, in addition to the required Shemurah Matsot, one of our children pointed to a bread roll on the table. I nearly fainted. Had I really not noticed the Chametz earlier? Then the child pressed the roll which emitted a squeak. Yes, it was a flexible plastic copy of the roll. I have to say that I was speechless and at the same time, highly amused. We keep the ‘roll’ to this day, as a reminder of that tense moment! Eventually, we reversed the family arrangement and parents started coming to us for the whole of Pesach. One such year, we had invited

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the down-the-road Landys for Seder. They had, at the time, two small children. Annette, the mother, asked if the children could stay with us overnight as going down the road at 1am was horribly late for youngsters. We agreed to this, but had no spare beds or bedrooms, since they were all occupied by our children or the grandparents. The agreement was that the small cousins would sleep in sleeping bags on the floor of our bedroom. On that occasion I got to bed at 3am and just as I was falling asleep, a voice from floor level asked if I could blow his nose. I got up, found a Kleenex and did the job. As I got back into bed, a different voice said: Ros, you wiped the wrong nose. I apologised and sorted that out! O tempora, o mores! This year, in Covid times, our table will be short. We will do the regular reading of the Haggadah, just Barry and me. But we remember the fun times and hope they will soon come again!

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