Monkey Magic

Valentine's Day

2012-02-19T22:19:00.001+09:00

Did you do anything special for Valentine's Day?

Here in Japan it has become 'traditional' for women to give gifts to men on Valentine's Day. Homemade chocolates are a common choice for someone you actually love, while shop-bought ones will do for colleagues and other people you feel obliged to give to. Hey! I just realised! H didn't get any chocolate at work this year. Shame, he usually brings it home and shares it with me :-) Anyway, men are then supposed to reciprocate on March 14th, known as White Day, although I don't think a lot of chocolate making goes on then...

Anyway, at K's preschool everyone in the upper classes (all 8 students) were instructed to bring in a little handwritten card and sweet of some kind for each of their classmates. He enjoyed writing them, and later showing me all the cards he had received. He even shared some of his chocolate with me!

Meanwhile, I stitched up a little card for H, from a design found here. I finished it (ie did 90% of it) late the night before. H opened it and said 'Are they hearts? I thought it was a bra at first'. Hmm...

I just looked at the website I got it from again, to get the link, and realised that the hearts aren't actually supposed to be joined together. I also should have left out the top centre stitch to make an actual heart, as opposed to bra, shape. This explains the nagging feeling I had that my card hadn't turned out as good as the ones I had originally seen. Doh.

For Valentine's Day dinner, I made cheese fondue. Fun, easy, yummy, out of the ordinary. I (thought I) was super-organized, getting all the ingredients the day before. It wasn't until after lunch that I realised I didn't have any of those little fuel blocks to cook the fondue with. Another 'Doh'. Collected K from school, drove to the other side of town to buy them, came home... couldn't find the fondue set. I. Have. Looked. Everywhere. Still can't find the darned thing. So it was fondue in a little saucepan cooked on the stove, and eaten with regular forks. Oh well.

Dessert though.

Dessert was good. No 'Doh' moments at all there.

The recipe (find it here) was actually very easy, but please don't tell anyone. The impressiveness-to-ease ratio is very good on this one. I followed the recipe with no changes, but I did make the cakes in advance and then leave them in the fridge until it was time to bake them. Oh, and the recipe said to tip the cakes out of the ramekins to serve them but there was no way I was going to chance that. Eaten straight out of the dish, with cream and strawberries - yum. Reheated in the microwave the next day - also yum. I will be making these again...

Building snowflakes

2012-02-11T22:02:00.003+09:00

K has been enjoying building felt snowflakes lately. I found this activity at My Montessori Journey (there's a link from there to print out the cards) and printed out the cards myself last winter. I stuck the pictures onto card, carefully cut them out and laminated them... and then got discouraged at the thought of cutting out all those little bits of felt. Oh, and then spring was coming (and a baby), and the moment passed.

So a couple of weeks ago, when the ground was covered in snow, I found the cards again and cut out the felt pieces. You know what? It didn't take half as long as I thought it would. I found an old chocolate box to keep the pieces in, so that each shape could have its own little space and so that K could more easily find the piece he wanted. The brown felt for the background isn't really the best colour, but it was just the right size.

So there you have it. DIY snowflake fuzzy felt. K and I looked at some pictures of real snowflakes on t'Internet and talked about the shapes, especially the hexagon bases. Then we both had a go at copying some of the cards, before making some of our own designs too. Later in the day, the Santa hat (who knows why it was being worn in the first place?) got dropped in the toilet. Never a dull moment with these little monkeys...

Spring??

2012-02-07T21:51:00.003+09:00

Last Friday was Setsubun. Mid-way between the shortest day and the spring equinox, it is supposed to mark the beginning of spring. This was how the day began...

Hmm, not really my idea of spring. Actually, the weather was worse the day before. When I took K to pre-school on Thursday, it was snowing heavily and everything was just, well, white. I couldn't really see the road. Or the traffic lights. Or other cars. On the way, at 9am, the roadside thermometer read minus 4, and even on the way back at 3pm it was still minus 1. Brr...

We had more snow through the day and overnight, but on Friday it soon brightened up. Unusually T had a little nap in the morning so I showed K the sledge I bought secretly the other day and we headed out into the garden...

I pulled him round a bit, and he had a little slide down the tiny slope. It doesn't sound very impressive but he loved it. He tried pulling me but that didn't work out, although I did go down the slope :-)

As well as playing in the snow, we did a couple of little Setsubun things too. An oni (demon) came round, but K was there to throw beans at it and scare it away. H came home just 10 minutes afterwards and K was quite disappointed that he'd missed it. K wasn't at all scared; he told me it was 'just a fake one', although he didn't connect it to H's arrival minutes later :-)

Another tradition is to eat sushi rolls, facing a lucky direction and without speaking. K and his classmates made them at pre-school on Thursday and I, with another mum, went along to help. It was fun to help the children make their sushi rolls, and also to spend the whole day there and experience K's school life. T was with me too of course; he's quite well-known at K's school now and the kids all enjoyed playing with him at lunchtime :-)

Anyway, the snow has all gone again now, but there is more predicted for the next few days. I think we'll have to wait a bit longer for spring yet...

10 month old T

2012-01-31T22:47:00.007+09:00

Can you believe it? The littlest monkey is already 10 months old. Of course I intended to write regular updates on him here, with snapshots of his life at each stage. So instead, here are loads of photos all from one month. Never mind...

With both boys we have been taking photos sitting on the sofa every month 'birthday'. I thought it would be fun to see how they've grown and developed, with the sofa there every time as a measuring stick. T looks quite happy sat there, doesn't he? I was ready to leap forward and catch him if he attempted to crawl off though...

He's been pulling himself up to standing and cruising around the furniture for a while now. He uses the kitchen chairs as a walker, pushing them round until they get stuck somewhere. This evening he was doing it while K was sitting on the chair, attempting to eat this dinner! He's also now mastered standing up unaided from sitting on the floor, grinning proudly and lowering himself back down again. Our job is to look on and applaud enthusiastically.

At the (deserted) children's culture centre the other day, T demonstrated his high-speed escape crawling. After this brief pause to look back at me, he was away and out the door.

No recognisable words just yet, but T is becoming quite the chatterbox and is set to rival K for his preschool 'loudest voice' award I think. With both of them around I can't hear myself think at times...

Putting things in his mouth is a popular activity at the moment, especially plastic beakers and Bob the Builder Duplo (usually Bob, Wendy or Pilchard). Since he needs his hands for crawling, he holds favourite toys in his mouth and sets off like a little dog...

T has a lot in common with K at this age. He eats tremendously, even more than K did. Like K, he'll eat anything we offer him, and with great enthusiasm. At the moment he eats 3 substantial meals a day and usually has 3 or 4 breast-feeds too. A typical day's menu might be porridge with fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, cheese sauce pasta bake with tuna and vegetables for lunch and meat and veg stew with rice for dinner. At the end of each meal we say 'Gochisou-sama-deshita'; if he's had enough he smiles and claps his hands but if not he immediately starts crying. He's very easy to understand. If he's still hungry it's not unusual for him to polish off a whole banana as dessert...

We're very lucky that T is also a good night-time sleeper (touch wood!). He usually sleeps from 8.30 or 9 until about 7.30 in the morning, occasionally waking up at late at night but usually settling again pretty quickly. However, he hardly ever naps. If we're out in the car or pushchair he might have a little sleep but if we're at home then the best I can hope for is 20 minutes in my arms after lunch, waking up if I attempt to put him down...

As well as giant Lego and stacking beakers, T likes his Scooby Doo toy (thanks Georgie!), bricks and whichever of K's instruments he can get his hands on. T likes to look at books, and already has clear favourites. I've seen him pulling countless books of the shelf until he gets to the one he wants.

He ignores all the teething rings I offer him in favour of his own thumb, and likes to clamp down on my leg too. He often crawls up to me and lies his head down on my lap or leg, which is very sweet. A favourite game is Get Mummy To Lie On The Floor And Then Climb All Over Her, one which K likes to join in with too...

Most of the time, T is a happy, smiley little boy, as long as I'm with him. H's mum looks after him twice a week while I work, for less than 2 hours a time. He starts screaming as soon as she arrives and doesn't stop until I get back or he falls asleep exhausted, whichever comes first. Even when I'm at home with him, if I leave the room for a moment he starts to cry and, on a bad day, even stepping into the kitchen (where he can still see me but not follow) or simply turning my back on him as if I'm about to walk away is enough to set him off. I think it's getting a bit better lately, but it can be quite wearing...

So sometimes T is a little demon...

...but most of the time he's our little angel...

*Did you spot the deliberate mistake?

One of those photos of T is actually a photo of 10 month old K.

Can you guess which one? I'll add the answer here in a few days time :-)

Planet of the monkeys?

2012-01-29T20:42:00.002+09:00

K is really into the planets, and space in general, at the moment. It was the monthly theme at preschool a while back and I was amazed at the information he retained. As well as remembering all the planets in order (so, already doing better than me...), he regaled us with all kinds of space facts, with probably his favourite being that Jupiter has 16 moons.

I have an old Usborne astronomy book, aimed at children quite a bit bigger than K, and he has spent a lot of time poring over it and reading what he can. From that, and a jigsaw we picked up the other day, he's learnt about dwarf planets, comets and asteroids too. We've also been watching an episode of Wonders of the Solar System each Saturday night as a weekend treat, which H got for Christmas on DVD. It's difficult for K to understand (heck, it's difficult for me to understand at times) but he's enjoying it, and the visuals are fantastic.

The other day, pootling around on the Internet, I found loads of free space-themed worksheets at Learning Page. I printed off kindergarten and first grade level maths, English and science pages and strung them together between card covers. K was so excited and has been telling everyone about his 'space book' and asking me for more pages to add to it.

I also printed out the planet cut-outs, showing all the planets in their relative size. I thought that K could colour them one day and then cut them out and stick them onto a mural the next day, but the combination of K's enthusiasm and an unusually long nap for T meant that we got it all finished just before H got home from work. K was so keen to keep going that he didn't even want to stop for an afternoon snack, a previously unheard-of situation!

I coloured, cut and taped Jupiter and Saturn, and H cut out the stars, but K did the rest. I hadn't got a background prepared when we started, thinking I'd have at least another day to sort something out. In the end, the best I could come up with from what we had in the house was 2 thick paper shopping bags, cut open and taped together. Don't inspect it too closely; one bag is black and one is very dark blue, and the black one had a logo on it in white, which I scribbled over with black crayon. I think it'll do though; it's not really noticeable from a distance and K doesn't mind. In fact, he was jump-up-and-down-shrieking-ly pleased with it :-)

Millions of money!

2012-01-26T16:53:00.000+09:00

Unfortunately a gross exaggeration, but 'millions of money!' was K's reaction when we tipped the change pot out onto the table the other day. I loved sorting out change when I was little and I thought that K, with his love of numbers and order, would enjoy it too. Oh, and I also thought that it might keep him occupied and quiet for a little while...

What I didn't realise was that he would insist on turning all the coins the same way up, and lining them up in rows. It all took quite some time...

Cheap(er) shipping until the end of January!

2012-01-21T21:41:00.004+09:00

I'm afraid that I've been neglecting my shop lately, but there are still lots of lovely fabrics available there, plus a few great Japanese craft books.

Today's shop news concerns shipping. The strength of the yen recently means that the amount I charge for shipping doesn't actually cover the shipping costs. I've been making a loss on shipping for quite some time, and have finally accepted that I need to put the prices up. I don't really want to, but I can't really afford not to.

The good news is that I haven't done it yet! I'll be adjusting my shipping charges on February 1st, giving you another 10 days to place orders at the old, cheaper prices. Pop over and have a look, and see if anything takes your fancy...

Tondo-san

2012-01-19T21:57:00.002+09:00

A couple of weeks ago our neighbourhood celebrated Tondo-san, marking the end of the New Year period. The day before, K and H took a walk to our local shrine to add our New Year decorations and good luck charms from last year to the growing bonfire...

Lately, especially with the building of a new house just beside the bonfire site, there has been concern about the risk of the fire spreading. This year then, instead of one mega-bonfire, three separate piles of things to burn were made. Only one was lit, and things from the others were gradually added to the bonfire as it burnt down. More sensible I suppose, but not anywhere near as much fun...

On the morning of Tondo-san, H and K got up before dawn to go and see the fire being lit at 7am.

T and I stayed in bed.

Once the fire was lit, a procession set off to take a portable shrine (o-mikoshi) around the parish boundary, stopping at various places along the way for blessings - and refreshments. The shrine looks like it should be carried on the shoulders of strapping young men, but is now pulled on wheels instead :-)

We caught up with the procession mid-morning at our local community centre. The shrine, and the drums accompanying it, was carried inside. Singing (mainly by H's dad), flute playing and drumming continued while the bearers ate and drank. Anyone who turned up was served with pork and vegetable soup and sake.

As well as the portable shrine and it's musical accompaniments, a shishimai (Chinese lion?) was also part of the parade. Being 'bitten' by the shishimai is supposed to bring good luck, especially for children. K was a bit wary of it, but T didn't seem bothered...

I realise now that this year's Tondo-san was the first one in several years where there was no snow on the ground. Although we've had a few snowy days this winter it has generally been very mild so far; keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way...

Christmas Day 2011

2012-01-13T14:09:00.000+09:00

A white Christmas

Father Christmas came!

T, Katherine, K and a little pink pig from Uncle Hide

K's favourite present

A present for T

K and T playing together (caption by K)

Another present for T!

And one for K too

A rare event - T happy in the playpen

The only present I made this year - an already well-loved sock monkey for T

Forgot to take any pictures of lunch, but H's cracker contained this star ornament

Hope you had a lovely Christmas too!

December days

2012-01-08T22:21:00.006+09:00

Not surprisingly, the times I have lots to tell you about are the times when I'm too busy to post. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that December was busy. I composed lots of blog posts in my head, usually in the shower, but never actually got around to writing anything. So here's the Reader's Digest version, just to give you a little taste of the days leading up to Christmas here in the Monkey household.

The month started like this...

... and went on to cover things like this...

...and increasing amounts of this:

One of our advent calendars this year was made up of activities to do with K, such as this...

and this:

There was quite a lot of this sort of thing...

...and this too:

We made flowers for the concert guests...

...and then it was finally time to hang up the stockings:

There were lots of things that didn't make the photographic cut too, like our annual potluck party (topping last year's, with 42 attendees), a couple of Christmas concerts and school parties.

And of course Christmas Day itself, and the all important concert; but they are stories for another day.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-05T22:10:00.002+09:00

Hello there, remember me?

Yes, I am still here, even though I haven't actually been here for a month... Sorry. Is it too late to say Merry Christmas?

Somehow, December turned out to be quite a busy month. Funny that. There was a lot of festive fun which I wanted to share with you, but I just never quite got around to it. This week I will try to post a few Christmas photos, but please don't hold me to it.

At the best of times I find New Year in Japan to be a bit depressing. It's supposed to be the biggest holiday of the year, but nothing happens. There's nothing to look forward to or really enjoy for me. This year was far from the best. Since H's grandfather passed away last year, we didn't send or receive New Year cards, one of the few points of interest of the season. And then, at the end of the year, both H and I got sick. Luckily the boys were basically OK, so we sent K over to stay at H's parents for a couple of days so that we only had to muster enough energy between us to tend to one little boy.

Luckily all of that has passed now, and I feel much happier now that Normal Scheduling has been resumed.

A message from K

2011-12-04T00:39:00.004+09:00

Lately, K is really into writing. The other day he announced that he wanted to write a message, and sat himself down with paper and pencil. Here's what he wrote:

Can you make any sense of it? Here's the most pertinent information one more time, with mirror letters reversed:

a ms f Keita

on Dsembr 26 Keita is pr ....consut

evrbod cum

Or, in non-text message style:

A message from Keita

On December 26th Keita is planning a concert

Everybody come

This was the first that I had heard of such an event, but he has been telling everyone he meets about it, with great seriousness. I asked him if he was going to sing but apparently no, it'll just be instruments. When I asked him what instruments he was going to play, he looked as me as if I were a fool and replied 'The ones we have'. So that'll be concerto for xylophone, tambourine and whistle then. That afternoon K started to spontaneously tidy up the living room, putting away all the toys and forbidding T to touch them. Why? In preparation for everyone coming over for the concert on the 26th of course. In the end I managed to persuade him that it might be a bit mean to not let T play with any toys at all until then, and that perhaps it'd be better to tidy up again nearer the time.

Today's advent calendar activity was 'Write a letter to Father Christmas'. I explained to K the idea of telling Father Christmas what you'd like as a present for Christmas, and he announced that he wanted... instruments, because he needs them for his concert and getting them for Christmas would be just in time for the 26th. I started to wonder if I could get a nice little toy piano or guitar but, in his actual letter to Father Christmas, we discover that he wants a horn... K also told H that he needs to translate his message into Japanese, so that he can invite people who don't speak English.

So, concert at our place on the 26th it is! Evbod cum!

First snow

2011-11-25T00:05:00.002+09:00

No, not here in town, but on the top of nearby Mount Daisen. Last night we had a tremendous storm with howling wind, lashing rain and deafening thunder, said to herald snow. Sure enough, the mountain was white this morning.

Temperatures have dropped too; after an unseasonably warm autumn, I put the heating on for the first time this evening. I can't complain though, not when Vicky in Hokkaido reported their first 24-hours-below-freezing the other day, with a high of -1.9 and a low of -7 degrees...

The cold weather and sudden drop in humidity is playing predictable havoc with my skin. My hands have overnight turned into those of an elderly washerwoman, complete with gaping splits on the knuckles. Ever since K was born, my hands have been so painfully dry and chapped in the winter. Last year H bought me some clear, plasticky stuff to paint over the cut bits; it looks and smells rather like clear nail varnish and feels like it too when you apply it...

Musical Saturday

2011-11-20T22:36:00.003+09:00

On Saturday we all went to the city-run Children's Culture Centre to a little concert for kids. A pianist, violinist and trumpet player introduced their instruments and played for about an hour. As well as singing along and clapping to the music, all the children were invited onstage to have a go at the trumpet. I was surprised at how many of them managed to get a note out of it, but not that K didn't. He still struggles to blow out a candle...

Later the trumpet player brought round a wind chime for all the children to have a go at. In theory they were accompanying the violinist, who gamely kept on repeating the song until all the children had had a chance to try it.

In the evening we went along to a little party to celebrate Tim, Zac and Vivian all racking up 20 years in Japan. Tim and Zac had a little jam/performance session, with K on drums...

By the way, did you notice the appropriate T-shirt?

The New Car

2011-11-15T22:44:00.003+09:00

Our new car is a Nissan Serena. Apparently that is basically what Dad's van is, which is rather embarrassing, but we're pleased with it nonetheless. Apart from the fact that H had had the old car for more than 12 years, the main reason for changing cars now was one of space. The Pajero Io (known as the Shogun Pinin in Europe) was great for H as a single guy and for us as a couple; it was OK for a family of 3 too but it just wasn't cutting it for 4 people, a pushchair, shopping...

So now we've gone to the other extreme and got a car that will seat 8. It'll be useful to be able to take H's parents (or mine) out with us sometimes, or give a friend a ride without having to take out a carseat and leave a small child at home. Most of the time though, those back seats will be folded up, leaving a lovely big boot. There's a lot of head-room and, unlike the Pajero, the floor is low too, making it very spacious and easy to get in and out of. The floor of the car is completely flat throughout, and the seats can move in interesting ways :-)

The area between the 2 front seats (where you might expect to find a gearstick and handbrake) is completely empty, so you can easily walk through to the back. Or, you can fold down and slide the middle part of the back seat forward into that space, and walk through to the boot/extra seats. Then, you can also slide one half of the back seat sideways into that space, making it easy to get into the third row of from the doorway. Phew.

K's favourite feature is the automatic rear sliding door at the passenger side. Just press the button and it will open. He also likes the fitted sun blinds. H's favourite things are the way the seats move and the amount of space there is; we can even fit the pushchair in the footwell of the back seats if we need to. I must admit, I like the geeky data available on the fancy digital dashboard...

On the left is the rev counter and the big '0' is the speedometer. So far, so ordinary. But the main dial on the right measures fuel economy. It lights up to show your current km/litre at any given moment, encouraging you to drive in a more efficient way. This is further supported by the 'Idling Stop' feature, which cuts out the engine anytime you are stopped in traffic. As soon as you take your foot off the brake or move the steering wheel the engine starts again, virtually instantly. It's fun at traffic lights to watch the 'Idling Stop' data in real time, seeing the millilitres of petrol saved gradually creep up. Thanks to the all-knowing dashboard, here are the vital statistics after one week, consisting entirely of pootling around town...

Distance travelled: 186 km

Time the engine has been running: 10 hours 6 minutes

Average speed: 18 km/hr (I did say we'd just been pootling round town, right?)

Average fuel economy: 9.3 km/litre

Time spent in Idling Stop mode: 54 minutes 8 seconds

Petrol saved thereby: 591 millilitres

*** If you came here looking for photos of cute little boys, or stories about life in Japan, or fabric/sewing/crafty goodness, worry not; normal service will soon be resumed :-) ***

Update!

2011-11-11T22:47:00.003+09:00

Just to let you know that I added a few photos to this post about what we did last week, if you're interested. It's mainly pictures of K of course...

A busy week

2011-11-07T22:53:00.001+09:00

*** Now with photos! ***

Last week I had no classes at all and there was a public holiday but despite that (because of that?), it was A Very Busy Week. Everything of note was photographically documented of course, and I had great intentions of writing in detail about each event. But a whole week has now passed and my complete failure to write about our summer in the UK is haunting me, so here's the brief version.

Last Sunday was the annual festival at the kominkan, our local parish hall equivalent. There were displays of bonsai and matched vegetables, handicrafts and photography, children's calligraphy and paintings. We watched the children's paper aeroplane contest, had some free food and tea and biscuits, won a mini Christmas tree and a box of tissues and had our photos printed onto comical postcards by the Computing for Seniors club. Truly something for everyone! K had a sit in a fire engine and then we came home again, in time for a visit from Yukari and her daughter Yurara, featuring more tea and biscuits and a couple of rounds of Greedy Gorilla.

On Monday K went to school and, for once, I had nothing scheduled while he was out. Somehow though, just looking after T took up most of the day and before I knew it it was time to collect him again. The token non-busy day.

Tuesday started with a walk to the (regular, Japanese) kindergarten to enroll K for next year. Can you believe a year has passed since I was last wondering whether to enroll him or not? The international preschool has been just what we needed this past year but I think that K is ready for kindergarten now; he's keen to go to school for more than two days a week and he's interested in speaking Japanese now too. So we wandered over, signed him up and then played in the playground for a while. In the afternoon H came home early and we all bid a fond farewell to our old car.

After more than 12 years of loyal service, the Pajero Io has gone... And after all that, Vivian came to visit!

Wednesday was another school day since it was their Sports Day. We all met at the park and the children enjoyed various races and games while we Mums photographed madly ;-) It was pretty laid back, not like the Japanese-style Sports Days which are rehearsed to within an inch of their lives and unfold with military precision. K took part in an obstacle race, a running race and a sack race. Oh, and I did that last one too... Then it was time for packed lunches followed by playing in the playground until the Mums had had enough.

We got back in time for Visit From Vivian Part 2 (this time with Noboru too), since K complained that she didn't stay long enough to play with him the day before. In other words, more Greedy Gorilla.

Thursday was Culture Day, a public holiday. We didn't do anything particularly cultural, but we did take K to the local shrine for his 7-5-3 ceremony. It's traditional to take children to be blessed at the ages 3, 5 and 7, usually around the middle of November. We looked into renting a kimono for K for the day but were quoted 30,000 yen! Photographers will let you use one for free if you're having portraits taken afterwards but that can get very expensive too, so in the end we went to Jusco and went the 'modern' (ie practical and cheap) route, buying a suit set for 7,000 yen. As well as a jacket and short trousers it also included a shirt and tie and even braces!

So after our visit to the shrine we went out for lunch (conveyor-belt sushi, K's choice) with H's parents and then it was time to go and pick up the new car! It was the first time I've had a *new* new car and it was all very exciting. We took it for a little spin up to Sakaiminato and had dinner out too.

On Friday I took the boys into town for a 'mini-concert' for preschoolers, which K enjoyed a lot. We joined some other Mums and kids for lunch afterwards and then hit the supermarket.

Saturday brought the end of the lovely weather we'd been having; it's been rainy ever since. In the morning we all went to the library for the annual giving-away-of-old-books free-for-all. We came home with bags and bags of books: picture books, travel guides, craft and sewing books, a few English language novels, some history books and more. There was also story-telling and colouring for the children and bag-making from old book covers. After that it was lunch out and a bit of shopping before coming home to a visit from Hide.

Which brings us round to Sunday. There aren't many places around here to take children to play when the weather's bad. In fact, we could only think of one, so we went there - the Children's Culture Centre. They have a little planetarium so H and K went there first, and then we all watched a little puppet show for a while before heading off for all-you-can-eat pizza. Later in the day I helped out at a Hallowe'en party for a few hours while H had the unenviable task of staying at home with The Boys Who Want Mummy. Still, no-one was screaming when I came home...

Wow, did you really read all that? To think, this was the abridged version! ~~I'd like to add a few photos later but I wouldn't hold your breath...~~ I did it! I actually added some photos! And I finally got around to looking up how to cross things out in Blogger, yeah...

Happy Hallowe'en!

2011-10-31T21:05:00.005+09:00

I love Hallowe'en. Any excuse for fancy dress always goes down well with me, and the fact that it almost coincides with my birthday probably comes into it too. This year I didn't really do much for Hallowe'en myself, but I did help K to enjoy it. First off, I subliminally steered him in the direction of wanting a skeleton costume for his preschool party...

I got a cheap black tracksuit, some white fabric paint and this skeleton template. Back in the summer when I was in the UK, I bought some freezer paper, so I finally had the chance to try freezer paper stencilling. If you're not American and/or a craft blog fan you may not know that freezer paper is paper which is waxy on one side only. If you cut a design into it and then iron it, waxy side down, onto fabric it sticks to the material and creates a waterproof seal. Paint over the stencil, let it dry and then peel off the paper - ta da! Skeleton bones!

H suggested that I put bones on the back too, and then paint by hand onto the gloves and socks. Well, no. This will be quite good enough, thank you.

Anyway, we all went to K's preschool on Saturday afternoon for their Hallowe'en party. As well as his preschool classmates there were also children who attend the school for weekly English classes, and some former students, siblings, friends and all. First off they did some songs and games indoors...

... and then they headed out to trick or treat.

Hallowe'en is gradually becoming more well known and popular in Japan, but it's still not a big event and the average citizen would certainly not expect trick-or-treaters turning up on their doorstep. The school had arranged for the children to go to the old people's day centre across the road, and 2 private houses nearby. I suspect that the school provided the treats too!

The treats are behind you, little skeleton boy!

Then it was back to school for a bit of apple bobbing before going home again. Here's K with Rika-chan, his friend, classmate and daughter of 'Mr' Jason, his teacher and our friend.

Today there was another little party within school-time, so the costume got a second outing. I thought I'd add a little Hallowe'en charm to K's lunch and had a go at making severed fingers like Jo's. I showed them to K in the morning and he was very enthusiastic, but they returned untouched. So I ate them.

And now the witching hour draws near, so I will bid you goodnight. Keep your doors closed tightly tonight!

Autumn Days

2011-10-19T21:49:00.005+09:00

Autumn is my favourite season. I know some people find the shorter days and cooler weather depressing, but after all that heat and humidity I welcome the end of summer here. Mind you it's not only because of that, because I've always loved autumn, even before coming to Japan.

Right now the weather is just right for me. Clear, sunny days with temperatures in the low to mid 20s, with somewhat cooler nights. Even now in mid-October, there are still times when I'm too hot really. It amuses me when people here are surprised to see me still wearing short-sleeves, in October! They don't base their comments on the actual weather at the time, but purely on the calendar. As in, 'Aren't you cold? It's October!', even if it's 27 degrees... Schools change to winter uniforms at the beginning of October and around town people suddenly start wearing boots and scarves. The other day a woman I know told me she had just changed her cushions from summer ones to winter ones...

Anyway, for me autumn means Hallowe'en, my birthday, Guy Fawkes night... That last one passes me by now unfortunately, but Hallowe'en has been growing in popularity more and more ever since I first came to Japan. I love fancy dress, and the annual foreigner-run Hallowe'en party here is one of the highlights of the local social scene.

at the local shopping centre

our 100yen shop decorations

More typically in Japan, autumn means sports days, culture festivals (November 3rd is Culture Day, a national holiday), autumn foliage and food. There's a saying, shoku-yoku no aki, which literally means 'appetite autumn', pointing out that lots of tasty things are in season now.

If you're a small child, it seems that autumn also involves digging up sweet potatoes. Every kindergarten or primary school around either grows their own or organises a little field trip to harvest some. K (and the rest of us) went up to Daisen with his pre-school last week to dig sweet potatoes (and collect chestnuts), and he also helped H's mum harvest some the other day too. Luckily they make perfect baby food for T, boiled and mashed...

6 months old

2011-10-13T22:13:00.005+09:00

T turned 6 months at the end of September and went for his 6 month check-up last week, weighing in at 8.01 kg. His weight, height and head size were all virtually identical to K's at 6 months; average height and weight, and bigger-than-average head...

Nowadays T usually sleeps from around 9pm to 7am, with a bottle feed at around midnight, just before we go to bed. Often we can pick him up, feed him and put him back into bed again without him even waking :-) He might have a nap in the morning, and again in the afternoon, but there's no real schedule to it and he often just falls asleep in the car or pushchair and wakes up again when K disturbs him... When he's in his cot he seems to like to roll over on his side to sleep.

He has a meal mid-morning (such as mashed banana and avocado, or porridge with apple) and another one at teatime (maybe sweet potato or rice, with some pureed vegetables). Apart from that bedtime bottle, it's breast-feeding the rest of the time.

I wouldn't say that T is actually crawling yet, but he's definitely getting around. He can roll over both ways now and can swivel round in circles on his tummy. He moves forward somehow, and likes to reach up and try and grab things from the coffee table. When he's not underneath it, that is... He does get up on his hands and knees and rock forwards and backwards, reminding me of a cat preparing to pounce! With a little support he can sit up, but is still liable to flop over when you least expect it. He loves to stand on my lap and bounce, and if he can bite my neck and pull my hair at the same time, all the better.

Anyway, time for photos!

Health and Sports Day

2011-10-11T21:45:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Health and Sports Day, a national holiday in Japan. It was created to commemorate the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and is now held on the second Monday in October each year. There are always lots of sports and physical-activity oriented events, including school sports days, and yesterday morning K and H went to a city-organised event for children aged 3 to 6.

Various activities were set up in the city gym and the children and their parents, in groups, spent 10 minutes on each thing, with lots of adult volunteers there to help hold little hands...

The little boy getting onto the balance beam behind K is Rensei, who was there with his daddy Tomonori, one of H's old school friends. I met Tomonori independently, before I was going out with H, and I later (independently) met Ritsuko, who went on to become his wife. Rensei is just 3 months older than K and now we each have a second little boy, only 2 months apart! There seems to be a certain amount of fate in the 2 families' relationship; maybe we were all destined to be friends...

Anyway, back to the gym...

There was trampolining, rolling on mats and skipping; hula hoops, hopscotch and action songs; various jumping, balancing and ball games...

...and finally, tug-of-war. No sports day in Japan is complete without this one!

Well done boys, you worked hard!

H and K left home at about 8.30 and went for sushi afterwards, getting back here just after 1 o'clock. I stayed home with T and was paralysed with indecision about what to do with the free time! First I took T out into the garden and did some weeding for a while. Then he fell asleep (while I was preparing his morning food...) so I snuck upstairs and tided up my little room (it always seems overly grand to call it an 'office' or 'studio'). There was even time to sit in the engawa with a cup of tea and a magazine before he woke up again. Overall it was both a relaxing and productive morning, my favourite combination.

It did set me thinking though... What did I do with my time when K was a little baby? Unlike now, I didn't have a blog, Facebook account or online shop (recently restocked!), I was only teaching one class a week (admittedly, only 2 at the moment now) and, oh, I didn't have a 3 year old running around, demanding attention and waking up sleeping babies... And yet somehow I felt busy then too. I suppose it's that old thing of work expanding to fit the time available...

Toy Kingdom

2011-10-08T23:45:00.001+09:00

H went back to work on Monday, after nearly 5 months of paternity leave. He didn't seem to find it too hard to get back into the working routine; I suspect that he'd had enough of being at home with his nagging wife...

Anyway, last Wednesday we decided to make the most of our work-free weekdays, and went to Toy Kingdom in Okayama for the day. It's a fair way from here, over 2 hours on the expressway, but the boys were really good in the car and it was definitely worth the drive. The park was open from 10 to 5; we were there from 10.20 until it closed!

Like our trip to a closer amusement park back in May, there was hardly anybody there. As it was a weekday and not the summer holidays, parking was not a problem..

All 4 of us went on the Big Wheel and admired the view of the Seto Inland Sea and its lovely cone-shaped islands. We also had a good view of the empty car park and the deserted park itself. See if you can spot a single person..

Entry to the park was 700yen for adults and 500yen for children. This included entrance to lots of different play areas including Wooden Toy House...

... Story Book House, Game House (I had fun playing Pop Up Pirate) and Train House. If he hadn't already seen what else there was in the park, I think that K would have happily spent all day just playing with the trains...

It was a lovely sunny day and a little too hot in the middle of the day, so the air-conditioned Train House was perfect for a couple of little breaks (and breast-feeding stops). K was quite happy to play by himself for a while. Look at all those train-tracks just waiting to be laid out!

There were also lots of ride-on toys to play with freely...

... as well as a sand pit and a whole other area of slides and playground equipment, neither of which we even got to! We didn't make it to the Building Block House either, although we did admire the giant models scattered around the park.

But even with all that on offer for only the park entrance price, we couldn't resist the 'free pass' tickets. The rides in the park cost at least 200yen a time, but an unlimited pass was only 1500yen. With so few people there we didn't have to worry about queuing, and we were able to go on as many rides as we wanted to.

K soon spotted this one, and went on it twice...

Actually, he went on everything twice I think! Of the 17 pay-for rides at the park, there were only 3 which K was too small for. There were several he could go on by himself but he generally preferred to ride with one of us. We worked our way around the park, with H and I taking it turns to go on with K, while the other one waited with T. And then later, we went back and did them again the other way around. H and I are both pretty wimpy when it comes to rollercoasters and the like, so this park suited us all very well :-)

There were lots of classic amusement park rides: teacups and merry-go-round, tiny flume ride and flying elephants. K and I even went on a little rollercoaster, which was just about in my comfort zone! As soon as we set off K cowered into my side and made lots of scared noises, but he later declared it his favourite ride...

H and I both enjoyed driving the go-carts, and the bumper boats. We were, in turn, the only people on them, so there was no-one to actually bump into, but that was probably a good thing.

The free passes also gave us entry to the exhibition hall, which is currently hosting a display on insects; perfect for the boys (of all ages) of the Monkey family! As well as big beetles in cases to look at, there was a big box filled with compost to dig for larvae in, and a little pond to fish for gengorou (predaceous diving beetles).

Finally, we explored the play gym, with its tunnels, slides and ball pool. There seem to be a lot of this kind of play area in the UK now but H and I had just been saying that you don't see them in Japan. But in Toy Kingdom, anything is possible!

We all really enjoyed our day. Another advantage of going when it was so quiet was that H and I could play freely too, with minimal embarrassment. If you are anywhere within a couple of hours of Okayama and have a young child or two to entertain (or a couple in their 30s...), I would heartily recommend it!

September scenes

2011-10-01T22:07:00.003+09:00

September has been and gone and, with it, the last of H's paternity leave. He will be back at work as usual again on Monday. Where has all the time gone?

We've had a few days out, and birthday dinners for Vivian and Shuko. We paid a little visit to English School, had Lisa come visit us one day, met Chieko for lunch and Miki for dinner while she was here from Vietnam. K has been back at preschool as usual and I have been teaching 2 classes a week. Generally though we have been at home this month and there has been a lot of this...

...and even more of this...

The weather has been a big factor in what we've been doing. At the beginning of the month it was still far too hot and humid to do anything - well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. After that a couple of typhoons brought strong winds and torrential rain, but nowadays the temperature is generally in the mid-20s and the humidity is low. At night-time you can even enjoy feeling a bit chilly from time to time!

T turned 6 months old last week and is enjoying his first experiences of solid food. He's now up to two meals a day and eats anything we offer him, in large amounts and with gusto. He can now roll right over; I never seem to see him actually moving from place to place, yet he can magically cover quite a bit of ground when no-one is looking.

I had high hopes of doing a lot of Sorting Out in the house this month while H was here. Are you surprised to hear that very little progress has been made? I have gone through a couple of cupboards properly but, in general, I've simply made matters worse by starting lots of jobs but, in the words of a well-known plumber, not finishing anything. Oh well.

On the other hand, progress has been made on Project New Car. I think that tomorrow we may actually sign on the dotted line!

And so to bed...

Cooking time!

2011-10-01T07:01:00.000+09:00

K loves to help out in the kitchen, and 'mixing' is definitely one of his favourite things to do. The other day we made these super-easy 5 ingredient peanut butter cookies, found via Mary Beth's blog Salt and Chocolate. They were a bit too sweet for us; normally I'd reduce the sugar in the recipe but as the only other ingredients were peanut butter, chocolate chips, an egg and baking soda I thought I'd better not mess about with it too much! Yup, no flour and no extra fat. Admittedly they did taste rather like sweetened peanut butter with chocolate chips in, but who says that that is a bad thing?

Our other recent mixing activity was rather less tasty - playdough. I found a recipe for it here, and K had fun cooking it up.

Then we divided up the dough and worked in some food colouring to make red, blue and green dough as well as leaving some plain. That's what H was doing in that picture I posted yesterday :-)

After that it was just a matter of playing! The dough was not too sticky and generally quite nice to handle. It reminds me a bit of Silly Putty, in that it will stretch but it will also snap if you pull it quickly. Still, I think the one that Mum used to make for us when we were little was better. Do you still have the recipe Mum?

49 Days

2011-09-30T14:02:00.008+09:00

H's grandfather passed away in the summer while we were in the UK. He was 95 years old and had been in hospital for several months, but it was nonetheless sad news to receive and it was unfortunate that we couldn't attend the funeral. Last weekend though, we went to the 49 day ceremony.

In Japan, funerals are usually held in the Buddhist style; the deceased is cremated and the ashes are kept in the home until 49 days have passed. At the end of that period a ceremony for the family is held and the ashes are placed in the family grave.

We all turned out our best formal wear, and K got his first shirt and tie...

I thought I was very organised, sending my black dress and jacket to the dry cleaners in plenty of time. Then I realised that if I wore that, I wouldn't be able to feed T... So I turned out my old black trouser suit. One of the legs needed hemming and I had to move the button a bit (ahem) but it didn't look bad for something I bought (ahem) 13 years ago.

The ceremony was held at H's grandparents' house and consisted of a Buddhist priest coming to the house and chanting in front of the altar which had been set up to hold the ashes, a photo of H's grandfather, various edible offerings and incense. We were each given a prayer book to join in, but I can never read it quick enough to keep up. After a while T started to get a bit noisy so we snuck off to another room, joining another noisy great-grandchild and her mum.

After that we all went to the graveyard, placed the urns of ashes in the grave and offered more incense. Then it was time for another little chanting session in the temple before we all, priest included, headed off for a meal together. We all ate a typical traditional Japanese meal except for K, who had the 'kid's lunch' option. I'm not sure what age of 'kid' these meals are designed for, but I suspect that a lot of adults would have had difficulty finishing this lot...

As the evening progressed everyone relaxed and enjoyed the chance for the extended family to get together. There are similar memorial services held at regular intervals in the years following a death in the family and I always think that it's a wonderful idea. The immediate sadness of a funeral has passed and instead the family can enjoy each other's company and reminisce about the person who passed away.

My favourite 'only in Japan' moment? K pouring beer for the priest...

As with all formal ceremonies in Japan, there was gift-exchanging involved. We gave an envelope of money covering the costs of our meals and a contribution to the temple fees, as well as a bit extra to round it up and be a true 'gift'. However we came home with a goodie bag containing a box of rice crackers, a box of Beatrix Potter themed sticks of sugar (perfect for offering to guests with their coffee) and a large digital clock. The clock, now sitting on our living room window ledge, is complete with date, temperature and humidity level so I can now offer you accurate weather information at any time day or night. Right now? 3:36pm, 25 degrees and 65% humidity. In other words, just about right for me...

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2011-09-30T13:45:00.003+09:00

OK, so that should really be 'Beard today, gone tomorrow', but that wouldn't have been funny.

Unlike the title I wrote which is obviously hilarious.

And that last picture? No, it's not a super-long piece of streaky bacon. I'll show you later...

Happy Anniversary!

2011-09-22T22:14:00.003+09:00

Today is our wedding anniversary. Well, one of them.

Like a lot of 'international couples' here in Japan, we have several. We had a wedding ceremony here in the July and then another one in the UK in September. Oh, but we were legally married in the June... On that day, I wasn't even there. I had signed the blank papers when I saw H the previous weekend, and then he filled in the rest and handed it all in while I was at work 100km away. He could have written anybody's name in the 'groom' section and I would have been married to them. Eek.

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, today is an anniversary of sorts, and the 10th one to boot. 10 years! According to British websites, it's the aluminium anniversary; several American sites I saw list 10 years as diamond. I wonder what this tells us about differences in spending habits between Americans and Brits - luxury jewellery versus roll of baking foil...

Not to outdone by that, I presented H with some chocolate and salami bought at the convenience store on the way back from taking K to preschool this morning. He, in turn, gave me a mole-bashing keyring. Cool.

Yes, the photos are rubbish, but look at that will you? I squashed that pesky mole and took a photo of it at the same time. I rock.

H and I did go out for a meal together in July, to celebrate 10th Anniversary Mark One. Just as well really, as H put K to bed 2 hours ago and fell asleep himself too...

Summer 2011: Royal Cornwall Show

2011-09-20T23:33:00.007+09:00

At long last, a post about our trip to the UK. There will be more, I promise...

The Royal Cornwall Show is a big deal in Cornwall. It's a 3 day agricultural show usually held at the beginning of June and I used to go there every year when I was growing up. Since leaving home I've only been once, when it was rescheduled due to terrible weather, so it was great to be able to go this year and to introduce it to H and the boys.

I don't think H was really prepared for the scale of it all, judging by the number of photos like this that he took...

While it's termed an agricultural show, there's a lot more to it than that. We started with the Flower Tent, a mix of trade displays and competition entries. Flower arrangements, obviously...

... but also children's classes. I remember entering collages, miniature gardens and, yes, flower arrangements when I was at primary school.

This year, with a 3 year old in tow, we mainly looked at the animals. We spent some time sheltering from the rain in the poultry tent...

... and saw other animals including (but not limited to) cows, goats, sheep...

... dogs, horses, pigs...

... bees, donkeys, rabbits...

... birds of prey, and alpacas! Do you know much about alpacas? They are like llamas, but generally bred for their wool. They seem to be the latest thing in the UK now, we saw them everywhere. They look rather comical when they've just been shorn...

I always like to visit the Women's Institute and Young Farmers Club tents. Each branch within the county competes against the others to decorate a booth on a set theme. The display must include elements of handicrafts, cookery and flower arrangement. This year the YFC theme was 'Disney' and here is the winning 'Alice in Wonderland' display:

I think that H was more interested in the 'Animal Made From Vegetables' contest though...

Of course there were also lots of things to watch in the show rings throughout the day, including the judging of the various animals, show-jumping, dog agility competitions, a motorbike display team, parachuting (sadly cancelled due to the weather) and the rather disappointing camel polo:

Now then, what else?

Well, food; all kinds of yummy and generally unhealthy fairground-type delicacies. Crafts; lots of stalls selling wonderful handmade goodies. A fairground, a collection of traction engines, displays of falconry and fly fishing, horse whispering and Cornish wrestling... and then there are all the things that I didn't see!

And don't forget the trade stands of machinery, great fun for a little boy...

Just look at the size of this combine!

K collected lots of stickers, had a go at milking a (not real) cow and even got to sit in the air ambulance...

We spent a very full day at the show and must have walked miles, but K never flagged and even ran back to the car at the end of the day.

Oh, and T was there too, poor little un-photographed baby...

The boys

2011-09-16T22:24:00.003+09:00

I thought that maybe those of you who haven't seen us for several months might like to see some pictures of the boys...

Lovely, smiley little T is almost 6 months old now!

He likes to roll over onto his tummy, but hasn't quite mastered rolling back again yet so I spend a lot of time rescuing him and turning him over. He's quite happy to have a cuddle with anyone, but really doesn't like to lose sight of me nowadays - definitely Mummy's Boy.

Just a few days ago we started him on some solid food - very wet, soft rice. The first time he looked a bit bemused; the second time he was leaning towards the spoon with an open mouth; the third time, he was grabbing the spoon himself and pulling it towards his mouth!

K is now 3 and a half, and is really into drawing and writing. Before we went to the UK he wasn't really interested in that kind of thing but now he's very keen and can write a lot of letters without any help. He does like to deliberately write 'strange letters' too though...

When he's concentrating he can do some quite good faces too...

I'm not sure if it's the current haircut, or just in comparison with T, but K seems to have suddenly become a Proper Little Boy in my eyes. He's definitely grown taller over the summer, and naughtier too I'm afraid...

Here he is pointing out a big spider in the garden:

Can you see it? Have a closer look...

And while we're on the subject of boys, here's H. He may look different to you too, because he's been cultivating a beard while he's been on leave. I think it was more of a 'I don't have to shave' thing than a conscious beard-growing policy, but I think it suits him...

When we had some hot weather in the UK he wore jinbei, traditional Japanese clothes that are often worn nowadays by artists and craftsmen. Along with the beard and sandals I think he looks as if he's just stepped away from the potter's wheel. I think he'd be too embarrassed to dress like this here in Japan, but I rather like the look - what do you think?

Keeping cool

2011-09-14T15:38:00.005+09:00

Although it's cooler now than it was here in August, the temperature is still hitting the 30s and the humidity is high. Being in the shade does help though, so we called H's mum and dad the other day and got them to come over and help put up our gazebo (or tent-with-no-sides as it's known around here).

Then it was time to blow up the paddling pool and splash about!

Lately K has been bothered about water going in his eyes so I gave him my goggles to wear, which he found hilarious. I offered him his swimsuit but he opted for underpants instead :-)

The goggles came off after a while... as did the pants. But I won't embarrass Future Teenage K by putting those pictures here!

Our other cooling off project was digging for Ice Treasure. I've seen this idea on several blogs over the last few years and always thought I'd have a go at it sometime. I collected various items of treasure from around the house (coins, buttons, beads, pebbles, odd little plastic toys from Christmas crackers and so on) and froze them into a big block of ice.

Then K set to with his tools, a spoon and my pastry brush to get them all out! We worked on it together and enjoyed guessing which things would be freed next. The hammer and the brush were especially useful, as was the occasional spoonful of warm paddling pool water. The beauty of this activity is that if it gets a bit frustrating you can just do something else for 5 minutes and when you come back it will be easier!

I think I must have got a bit carried away in preparing this because, after about an hour of fine work by K, there was still about half of it left! K had had enough by then, so the ice block has gone back in the freezer for another day.

And of course T supervised it all...

Getting back into the old routines...

2011-09-11T21:54:00.003+09:00

After more than a week back here, I think that we've finally got settled in again. Mind you, we're not really back into the old routines because H is still on leave until the end of the month and, oh yes, we've got a second child to look after now!

People who were here all summer tell me that it was particularly hot this year and that the weather at the moment is much cooler, but I'm not convinced. To me, it's a question of comparing 'extremely hot' and merely 'very, very hot'; I can't see that today's temperature of 32 degrees, with high humidity, can be any great improvement. When I leave our air-conditioned living room to go out into the corridor, it feels like walking into a greenhouse...

Broken nights and extreme climate notwithstanding, we've done quite a lot over the last week I think. K went to school on Tuesday and Thursday and I taught one class on each of those days too. We visited H's grandmother (his grandfather passed away while we were gone), took T for his BCG vaccination and a rather belated 3 month check-up, visited several car showrooms, took the boys to the play centre, popped into English School, broke out the paddling pool, ate out a lot and even made the tiniest start on Clearing Out Cupboards...

The next big challenge is to rustle up enough energy to tackle the thousands of photos from the UK. Wish me luck!

We're back!

2011-09-04T21:57:00.004+09:00

You may have noticed that I didn't quite manage to follow my plan to post once a week during our trip to the UK.... But, if there is still anyone actually out there reading this, I thought that you might like to know that we went, had a great time and have arrived home safely again.

We got back here on Thursday night but so far have managed little more than unpacking, laundry, going out to eat and avoiding the typhoon. We've all been hit by jet-lag and of course when the little boys don't sleep, neither do I. K is fast asleep in bed now though, so keep your fingers crossed for a good night tonight.

And as for our actual trip? Well, I do intend to show you lots of pictures and tell you all about it in excruciating detail but just in case I don't (imagine that eh?), here's a little summary...

We spent three months based at my parents' house in Cornwall, visiting lots of friends and family and showing off lovely baby T (and his big brother too of course). While we were there, H, T and I went on two little mini-holidays, to Edinburgh and to Prague, leaving K at home with his doting grandparents. We also spent a few days in Wales visiting my sister and her partner, stayed with friends near Oxford for a while, and met up with another old friend in Gloucester. We had lots of lovely days out with Mum and Dad, H and I went out for dinner together a couple of times without children, I went to my school reunion and sometimes the weather was even good enough for a barbecue! And of course there was lots of shopping: clothes, toys and books for K and T, and an extra suitcase to try and get some of it back to Japan...

These are a few of his favourite things...

2011-05-28T22:06:00.000+09:00

This afternoon I was thinking about what we should take to the UK, and so I asked K what his favourite toy was, just in case we needed to pack it. He replied that his favourites were his 'new Lego' and his flying monkey (a fantastic present from Nicole which terrified him when he first had it but is now super-popular). Then, just for fun, I asked him about a few more of his favourites...

song? the alphabet song

colour? indigo

number? (answer one) one hundred thousand ten plus nine; (answer two) zero

letter? j

fruit? kiwi

food? carrot

animal? giraffe

place? hot air balloon (??)

character from Bob the Builder? Scoop

character from Thomas the Tank Engine? 'I don't know'

By now I was running out of questions, but he was keen to answer more, so I sunk to...

person? Mummy

Yeah! The correct answer ;-) Then K prompted me to ask him who his favourite Japanese person was, to which he replied 'Daddy'. Ahhh.

Can we make it? Yes we can! (Er, I think so...)

2011-05-27T11:40:00.004+09:00

in blurry action

As I mentioned the other day, I made a pair of shorts for K. They are based on Dana's tutorial over at MADE: elastic-waisted but with a flat front. They were quite easy to make, except that I made the very mistake that Dana warned about in her tutorial. Doh. I confused the leg part with the body part (it's easy to do with shorts, honestly) and had to rip out a seam. Also, they didn't turn out quite as big as I had expected. They do fit K, but I don't think they will last him past this summer. Oh well, we'll just have to indoctrinate T into being a Bob fan too...

Apart from all that though, I'm quite pleased with them. The material comes from an old pair of my trousers so (a) it was free, and (b) it was the perfect weight and nicely pre-softened. I found the Bob the Builder patch in a local craft shop on sale at half-price, basically because nobody knows Bob around here. For those of you without small boys around, that's Wendy there with Bob (she's the true brains behind the operation you know), and Pilchard the cat.

I've made a few pairs of elastic waist trousers before, but this was the first time I'd attempted some with a flat front. And luck was on my side, as they came out beautifully smooth, with no annoying tucks! Yeah! Next time I think I'll add some pockets too...

Paternity Leave - Week 2

2011-05-26T10:43:00.006+09:00

So, what did we do with ourselves last week? I know, it's already Thursday of this week, but I'm doing my best...

We went to an amusement park! It was the first time K had been to anything like that. The place is pretty small and doesn't have many big, scary rides, so it's perfect for K and for his scaredy-cat parents too! Going on a weekday in May was great. It was warm and sunny, and there were hardly any other people there; a few other families with small children, who we'd see at all the same rides, and a couple of busloads of retired people there to see the rhododendrons in flower. There weren't even many people working there. Each person was operating a couple of rides and would come running over when they saw you heading towards one and start it up for you. Apart from the Big Wheel, there was never anyone else on any of the rides at the same time as us! K especially enjoyed 'driving' Thomas the Tank Engine, riding a horse on the carousel and spinning round in the tea-cups (that was my favourite too...).

We went to the farm park in Mount Daisen that we've been to a couple of times before. K was a bit more wary of the animals this time, but I think he enjoyed watching them even though he didn't want to touch them very much. In the dog enclosure he insisted that I stroke various dogs, while he just observed... We had a picnic lunch while we were there, and the playground went down well too.

We spent time with friends. On Saturday we had lunch in Matsue with Scott and Carmella, and on Sunday Jason and the girls and Lisa came over for lunch. Plan A was to have a barbecue but the weather looked bad so we scrapped that idea. Of course it stayed dry all day... K really enjoyed playing with Hana and Rika, especially running around in the garden and picking flowers (weeds actually...) and strawberries. Yeah for the fence! We also visited H's aunt and uncle who live conveniently near the amusement park.

I did some sewing, but no crocheting... As well as the scary baby toy, I made a pair of shorts for K, which can be glimpsed in the photos of him playing in the garden I posted yesterday. If I get time I'll show them to you a bit better later on.

H did some painting. Yeah! The fence is all finished now, and looking good.
And that's about all I can remember... I really ought to start writing this week's report, ready to post on Monday, while I still remember it...

Another fence post

2011-05-25T19:35:00.000+09:00

After several days work by H, and over 16 litres of wood stain, the fence has gone from this...

via this...

to this! Well done H.

You can really see how the garden has changed over the last month or so too. The lawn has greened up and all the plants are full of leaves, even the ones I thought might have been dead... The broom in the corner has grown tremendously and is now covered in yellow flowers, while the 2 roses from Tim (behind K in the photo above) are blooming really well.

If you're really sharp-eyed you may have noticed the rice fields full of water in the background. All the rice has been planted now, and the paddies look lovely; shimmering water with a subtle green sheen from the seedlings. I forgot to take a photo of the other end of the garden, so you'll just have to imagine the big tree in full leaf now. We didn't bother to plant any vegetables this year seeing as we won't be here to eat them, but we do have some strawberry plants and they are fruiting nicely now.

And here is K enjoying the garden with his new bubble gun, which he is ever so slightly scared of...

A Wild Thing?

2011-05-19T23:20:00.001+09:00

What do you do at 11pm when your 3 year old and your 7 week old baby are both finally asleep? Obviously, any sane person goes to bed. Me? I made a baby toy.

I wanted to make something for T with bright, contrasting colours, using fabric and felt scraps I had. I deliberately made this little monster lopsided, for a genuine (?) monster look, and to make it a lot quicker and easier to make :-) I should have made the bottom part of the toy a bit wider though; it's rather flimsy to hold and it was Very Fiddly to sew. In fact I gave up on the neat ladder stitch, tucking in the raw edges nicely, and just, well, sewed it up. So, what do you think? Endearingly wonky, quirky and cute, or just plain old not-straight and a bit scary?

Those of you paying attention may have noticed something that I haven't been making - that crocheted baby blanket for T. To be honest, I have lost all enthusiasm for it because a) there's still a lot to do on it and b) we don't actually need it. As well as all the blankets we used when K was a baby, we were given 2 more nice ones when T was born. And it's summer now anyway. I was only really making it because I'd made one for K and it seemed right to make one for T too. I also sewed a reversible hooded blanket, and a little teddy rattle from a kit before K was born...

Nowadays I seem to spend a lot more time thinking about making stuff, reading blogs and online tutorials about making stuff and browsing shops full of things for making stuff than, you know, actually making stuff, so I'm pleased to have at least made something. Anyway, note to self: do not attempt any more big crochet projects (and yes, I'm afraid a baby blanket counts as big). Hats, scarves, little bags, maybe even tops if they're very lacy and will work up quickly, but blankets? No.

Paternity Leave - Week 1

2011-05-18T21:35:00.000+09:00

H has officially been on paternity leave since last Monday, even though he was home most of the previous week too due to public holidays. I want to keep some kind of record of what we do with this special time, both to remind me in the future and to encourage me to use it wisely by putting it up for public scrutiny! So what did we do in Week 1?

We celebrated H's birthday. K and I made a card and baked a cheesecake on Monday and then we had a little tea party after K's pre-school on Tuesday. K insisted on candles and 'switching off the lights', even though it was the middle of the afternoon and there weren't any lights on in the first place... In the evening we headed to H's favourite restaurant but it was closed. After finding several other closed restaurants, I remembered a place I'd been to twice before and liked but since forgotten about, and things all worked out beautifully in the end.

We got rained on a lot, and sunburnt. After record-breaking downpours from Tuesday to Thursday, the sun came out at the end of the week and the weather is finally more seasonal.

We sorted K's toys, books and clothes. While he was at school on Tuesday and Thursday I went through his things, getting rid of (or storing for T) old and small things, reorganising what was left and sorting out the Secret Supply of toys and books that we have in stock for him.

We had some days out. We visited H's grandfather in hospital, had a couple of picnics, felt ill at the sloping 'Mystery House' at Ryokusui-ko (well, I did, H and K enjoyed it) and had a guided tour of a new museum in Yodoe with Vivian and Masaki.

Apart from all that, we went to the play centre one morning, had a few meals out, and got K out of nappies! There have been one or two little accidents but, overall, he's 'a big boy now'...

(Sorry, no photos to accompany this list of antics. It's taken me 3 days to write this, we'd be here till Christmas if I took the time to sort out photos too...)

Photography by K

2011-05-12T20:12:00.001+09:00

Golden Weeks

2011-05-11T09:13:00.001+09:00

Last week was Golden Week, a string of 4 public holidays in the space of a week. It's my favourite holiday time in Japan because of the weather; usually warm, sunny and great for being outside, unlike hot-and-humid summer holidays or cold-and-snowy winter ones.

This year though, we didn't really do much. We met up with several friends - a barbecue in the park one day with Cian, Yoshi and gang, visited the Oyamas in their 'new' house (which was finished at least a year ago but it was the first time we got around to going there) and met up with the Kuchitas yesterday for lunch at a new child-friendly restaurant. H has spent 3 days out in the garden staining the fence (nearly finished now!), and we had the one month ceremony and photo shoot for T. Actually, when I write it all down, it seems like quite a lot!

Anyway, I don't mind if we didn't do that much, because we will have lots more days like that this year. H is taking extended paternity leave, a very unusual thing among employed Japanese men! The rules at his office have changed since K was born; previously, a man could only take extended paternity leave if his partner was working, but now anyone can take up to a year off even if their partner is at home. I think that many men are still put off by the idea that they will be inconveniencing their colleagues and may be considered lazy (not to mention the substantial drop in pay, gulp), but H's boss reassured him that he is entitled to take this leave and he should go ahead and do it. H works hard but he also always takes all his holiday each year and generally comes home on time; definitely a work-to-live rather than live-to-work kind of guy!

So, as of Monday, H is on paternity leave and, throwing in summer holiday and annual leave too, he'll be off until the end of September! One of the reasons he's doing it (apart from the simple fact that he can) is so that we can all take a long trip to the UK together. When K was a few months old I took him to the UK for 2 months in the summer but there's no way I could manage the trip with K and T without another adult. It's the only time that H will be able to make a long trip, probably until he retires!

We've got T's British birth certificate, his passport should be ready next week and the plane tickets have been bought. We leave here on May 31st (in 3 weeks time!) and come back again on August 31st, making the most of that 3 month ticket... So if you are in the UK and would like to meet up over the summer, let me know! I'm now, very slowly, getting in touch with friends and trying to organise some get-togethers. I know that, unless I take action, even 3 whole months in the UK could easily pass in a blur of lounging on the sofa eating salt and vinegar crisps and watching The Weakest Link...

Giant baby

2011-05-08T09:09:00.000+09:00

That's H's latest nickname for T.

Yesterday we took T for his one-month check-up; he'll actually be 6 weeks old on Monday but it was delayed because of the holidays this week. When he was born he weighed 3830g, and yesterday he weighed in at 5190g! Apparently, an average daily gain of 30g is good; T's works out at 46g.

T's newborn wrinkles have all gone and his thighs are beginning to get that lovely chubby baby look, but he's not really getting fat, he's getting big. According to the measurements made at birth and again yesterday, he has grown 4.5cm in height (length?), and both his head and chest circumferences have gone up 3.5cm. In comparison, K's vital statistics at one month (when he was 4 weeks old) were: weight gain of 28g a day, height growth just under 3cm, head and chest about 1cm each. I'm sure that these measurements aren't incredibly accurate, but there's definitely a difference between the two; T is about a kilo heavier now that K was at the same age!

Right from birth T has been a good feeder and a good sleeper. Recently it's not unusual for him to sleep for 5 or even 6 hours at a stretch, usually at night-time or in the car or pushchair. When he's not sleeping or feeding, he's generally moving! His little arms and legs are going all the time. He's strong too, holding his head up well when I pick him up and threatening to shoot off my lap when he kicks against me. Crying can generally be solved by a nappy change, a feed or a cuddle. He likes to be held tight and to be rocked, and seems very comfortable in the baby carrier, often falling asleep in there within minutes. Like most babies he likes movement and usually misses out on the excitement of any outings by sleeping whenever he's in the car or pushchair.

It's keeping us busy, but life as a family of 4 is good!

Hatsu Miya-Mairi

2011-05-07T10:08:00.000+09:00

or, 'First Shrine Visit'.

It's traditional in Japan to take a baby to a shrine to be blessed when he or she is one month old. I suppose it's comparable to a christening or naming ceremony. We took T to our local shrine last Sunday, just as we did for K three years ago.

We called in at H's parents' house on the way, and H's mum helped me change T into his 'ceremony dress'. It's basically a christening robe, a long white frilly thing that H's mum bought when K was a baby. To me, it's a typical example of how Japanese people borrow elements of Western culture and incorporate them into traditional Japanese life.

Our local shrine is a small place, and the priest (who also works a full-time job) is a relative of H's. He was waiting for us at the shrine, and we all took off our shoes and went up the wooden steps to join him inside.

Shinto shrines don't really have services or group worship like churches do, and people only usually enter the actual building when they are taking part in a ceremony such as a wedding or blessing. At other times, visitors just throw a small coin into the large wooden offering box at the entrance and say a brief prayer. You can see a couple of women doing just that behind us here:

The priest started the ceremony by drumming, and then prayed and blessed us all. We placed an offering of a small branch on the altar (visible in the background of the photo below), and finally, H's mum dabbed T's lips with sake (in the photo above).

This photo is a bit blurry but I love K's excited expression as he tells me something, and the look on the priest's face as he gazes at T.

And here we all are, looking very much as we did at K's ceremony; I for one am wearing exactly the same clothes... H, on the other hand, informed me that morning that apart from his very formal, weddings-and-funerals suit, he had not a single suit that didn't have fraying cuffs, hems or pockets. Looks like we'd better go shopping...

K had fun posing for the camera with the priest's hat and ... whatever that wooden thing they carry is...

The most popular type of cherry blossom finished flowering weeks ago, but there was a different kind in full bloom in the shrine grounds. It was a sunny and warm day, but very windy. At least in this photo you can actually see T's face!

After the ceremony, which only took about 30 minutes including the photo shoot, we all went out for lunch together. Then on Tuesday we dressed up again and went to the photographers to have some professional photos taken. I wanted to go on the same day as the shrine visit, but we couldn't get an appointment at the studio so it got delayed a couple of days. We should get the photos in 2 weeks, so I'll scan them into the computer and give you a peek then...

Here's one they made earlier...

2011-05-03T21:32:00.001+09:00

The other day I wrote that I drove a 2 tonne truck loaded with wood back from the home centre. It was a desperate attempt to garner a few curious comments but it seems that you all have more interesting things to wonder about. Never mind, I'll tell you about it anyway...

My parents have never been people to sit around and relax when there's work to be done. After a couple of weeks here, they were in need of A Project and so plans were sketched on scraps of paper for a fence for the back garden, complete with 3 gates. As it was, there was nothing to stop K going around either side of the house and out to the road, and there is also quite a drop at the end and one side of the garden too. Here it is, in its 'Before' splendour:

So after a couple of trips to the home centre, the workers got down to it. Driving the truck back was my sole contribution I'm afraid, but K was keen to help...

Tools were borrowed from H's dad and his cousin, who both live nearby. About the only useful things we had in the toolbox were a screwdriver, a hacksaw and a tape measure (which was a present from Dad in the first place, as was the toolbox itself!).

There is a gate either side of the house, and another in the bottom corner of the garden to enable H to take his shortcut to the bus stop. The gates all fasten on the outside (non-garden side) so that K will be unable to escape once he's out there.

As well as its enclosing and wind-blocking properties, I think the fence looks really good too. It also makes our small collection of plants and shrubs around the edge of the lawn stand out more as well, inspiring me to plant some more. Not that I have yet of course, but I am inspired to do so.

Mum and Dad have returned to the UK now, and K has had a couple of sessions playing in the fenced-in garden. I can close up the garden gates and open the sliding glass doors from the dining area out onto the patio so that K can come in and out freely. It's like having another big room added to the house!

The weather hasn't been as good as you'd expect for this season lately, but it seems to be improving now. Hopefully that'll mean more playtime in the garden soon, and a chance for H and I to do our bit to the fence - staining it. We have at least bought the stain, so that's a good start, right?

(Apologies to Mum and Dad for tagging this post 'things we made', as if I did anything at all...)

Easter

2011-04-28T22:16:00.000+09:00

I know, Easter was ages ago now, but I don't seem to have that much free time lately for some reason...

Easter isn't celebrated in Japan, even in the purely commercial way that Christmas and Hallowe'en are. I'm sure it won't be long until someone realises that it's a great opportunity to sell chocolate and then it'll become a big event, but for now it usually passes me by unless I happen to look at a calendar from overseas. This year I also had my parents and K's international pre-school to help me remember.

I hadn't planned on any Easter celebrations, but then thought it would be nice to do something. So on Saturday we boiled some eggs, got out the wax crayons and stickers...

... mixed up some food-colouring-and-vinegar dyes...

...and made a few Easter eggs. There were spots and stripes, random scribbles, the Easter bunny and Humpty Dumpty (that's his arm you can see there on the red egg at the bottom. Obviously.).

Sunday was pretty cold and windy but we headed outside for a little egg hunt anyway. Luckily I had some plastic eggs that K got at his pre-school's graduation party. Yes, mean Mum that I am, I kept them back, unopened, at the time; he did get lots of other snacks and little toys that day, so he wasn't completely deprived...

Anyway, K had a little note from the Easter Bunny instructing him to head out to the garden and look for 5 eggs and 5 little presents, one for each of us (Easter chocolates provided by Mum).

He really enjoyed it, and only needed a little bit of directing towards some of the treasures...

Then it was back inside to get down to the serious business of unwrapping his chocolate bunny and biting off its head. No time to waste on things like the taking off of coats!

Later in the afternoon there was time for one more little activity. A friend of Mum's had given her a decorate-your-own chocolate for K, and he had great fun squeezing out the yellow and green icing.

Most of the green icing ended up in one big heap, which he termed 'a mountain'...

To be honest I can't really say that I'm passing on my cultural heritage or important family traditions to K, as we didn't do egg hunts or egg decorating as kids, nor are we church-goers (did have the chocolate though!). But on the other hand, why not? We did some fun things together, indoors and out, that we wouldn't normally do. And there was chocolate involved - win-win, I say.

2 little monkeys

2011-04-15T20:52:00.004+09:00

Little boy, big bed...

...and vice versa.

2 weeks have passed since little T and I came home from hospital. Where has all the time gone? T has already changed so much, and seems to no longer be the sleepy newborn he was a week ago. Last week we went back for a check-up and he was given the thumbs-up for both weight-gain and jaundice.

In general, Mum and Dad have been looking after K while I take care of T, and between us we deal with meals and laundry. Actually I think they have the harder job; T sleeps well and feeds well and doesn't cry much, while K is, well, a 3 year old...

We haven't really done anything much lately, which is what you'd expect I suppose :-) When Mum and Dad have been looking after K, I have had a couple of little outings with T, to English School, the play centre and a few shops. It's been fun to show him off to people; the first comment from those who know us is usually along the lines of 'He looks just like K!'.

The other common reaction is surprise that T is less than 3 weeks old and that we are out and about, as traditionally Japanese women stay at home until their baby is a month old. A lot of women go back and stay at their parents' house from late in their pregnancy until the the baby is a month old, even leaving their husbands behind if it's far away. Nowadays I suppose less people do that, but people are still surprised to see me being *so* active - wait until they hear I was driving a 2 ton truck loaded with wood back from the home centre yesterday...

A Family Day Out

2011-04-10T21:58:00.005+09:00

Mum and Dad have been here for 2 weeks now but they have barely left the house, except to visit me in hospital last week or go to the supermarket. A trip to the home centre has probably been the biggest outing so far, so we thought we'd better make the effort to do something yesterday.

After lunch in town we drove out to Saihaku, about 30 minutes from home. The cherry blossoms along the river there were in full bloom, and the weather was better than it looks in some of these photos...

To coincide with the cherry blossoms, the town holds a small festival where townspeople display sculptures or models they have made using things from their house such as lacquer ware or ceramics. People make the displays in their homes and then open up the big windows onto the street so that everyone can see them. Here we have K studying a figure made of lacquer lunchboxes and bowls...

...and here are a couple of pandas made from baskets:

As this is the year of the rabbit, there were several rabbit-themed displays. This one shows rabbits pounding rice to make mochi. Whereas in the West we say there is a face visible in the full moon, in Japan the patterns on the moon are said to show rabbits making mochi. These rabbits here were made from traditional Japanese footwear: wooden geta sandals can be seen in the centre, the rabbits clothes are made from the colourful thongs of zori sandals and the white parts are tabi, the divided cotton socks worn with sandals.

In this prefecture there is a well-known folktale about a white rabbit, so he popped up a lot in the festival. This one is made from small bowls and dishes, wired together.

K enjoyed looking at all the displays, and running around looking for the red lanterns and numbers which marked the participating houses. T, meanwhile, spent the entire afternoon sleeping in his pushchair...

Finally we made it back to the primary school, where we had parked the car, and there was just time for a quick go on the swings before we headed home again...

Hospital life

2011-04-07T23:01:00.005+09:00

T was born in the early hours of Monday morning last week, and we stayed in the hospital until Friday. A stay of 4 or 5 days is the norm here, and people are usually quite shocked to hear how quickly you go home again in the UK. In fact, a lot of older people here still think a week is the usual length of time to stay in hospital, and consider 4 days to be rather short...

The new expanded Monkey family, 12 hours in

I had T (and K) at a small ob/gyn, not a general hospital. I had a private room (with washbasin, fridge, TV and DVD player) where I laboured before going to the delivery room. After T was born I rested in the delivery room for an hour or so before walking back to my room, where I spent most of the next few days.

Big brother cuddles

For the first day and night T stayed in the nursery and was brought to me when he wanted to feed. From the second day he was in my room with me, but the nurses and midwives often reminded me that I could leave him with them anytime if I needed a rest, or if I wanted to take a shower. Each morning the cleaning lady came in and cleaned the room, and brought me fresh pyjamas.

H, K and my parents came in to visit every afternoon, and several friends dropped by too. There weren't that many women in the hospital at the time I was there, so the staff always had time for a chat too if I had any concerns.

T was rather jaundiced and it was recommended that he have some UV light treatment. Usually that requires going back to the nursery and lying under a special lamp with a mask on to protect the eyes, but they just happened to have a new piece of equipment there on demonstration loan. This provided light from below and a naked T was fitted into the special cover-cum-pyjamas with just his head sticking out. This meant that he could stay in the room with me and didn't have to wear an eye mask.

His levels had improved by Friday and were even better again on Saturday when we went back to have them checked again. Tomorrow we'll be going back for a check-up again.

Now a big issue at hospitals is always the food, right? Before I went into hospital with K, I had heard that this clinic put a lot of emphasis on traditional, Japanese food. Now most of what I cook and eat at home is typical Japanese home cooking, but even so I was a bit worried that there was going to be a lot of oily fish, natto (fermented soybeans) and the like...

In fact, the food was fantastic, and so it was again this time! Here's what I had for dinner on the first night, along with a little 'congratulations' flower arrangement...

...and here's a typical lunch:

There was natto for breakfast one day, but H was there then, so he ate it :-)

Lots of people, Japanese and not, have asked me if I wouldn't have preferred to have given birth back in the UK. It's true that it would have been nice to at least have had the option of some pain-relief, and alternatives to the feet-in-the-stirrups delivery table, but overall I really liked the whole hospital experience here. Nice environment, lovely staff, delicious food... it was like a little holiday, with no cooking or housework to do. Oh, and did I mention the complementary aromatherapy foot massage?

Introducing...

2011-04-02T22:01:00.003+09:00

... Taisei Noah Aoto, born at 4.14am on Monday 28th March, weighing 3830g.

He waited just long enough for his grandparents to get here first (mid-Sunday afternoon) and then was born on their wedding anniversary.

We had a false alarm on the Saturday night; contractions were coming every ten minutes but, after getting H's dad to look after K and then heading to the hospital, they stopped. They monitored me for a couple of hours, with just the occasional labour pain, served me breakfast and then sent me home again.

I had random contractions throughout Sunday and then, at bedtime, they started coming every 5 minutes. I didn't want to be sent home again so I waited around a bit more until I was absolutely sure, then woke H, arrived at the hospital at 1am and gave birth 3 hours later. Phew.

Taisei (pronounced Tie-say, from now on known as 'T') looks so much like K did as a newborn. I think I'll struggle to tell the difference in baby photos in the future. He's an enthusiastic feeder and I'm really pleased that I'm able to breastfeed him without bottle supplements, which we had to do with K. T is a bit jaundiced but after 24 hours on the light box his levels are much better now. We came home from the hospital yesterday, and all is well.

And the winner is....

2011-03-26T16:05:00.003+09:00

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the raffle here. We didn't quite reach 100, but did manage to sell 97 tickets. In total, on my blog alone, you donated $268 (US), 122 pounds and $10 (Aus)! Wow! I can't wait to see the grand total from everyone involved in this.

But that's not really why you're here, is it?

I numbered each ticket in the order it was bought (eg MeeABee got 1 and 2) and then put the numbers into a random number generator. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to show that here on my blog (I know, I know...), but you trust me, right?

The winning number was... 29

... which means the winner is seeks!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you now to see what kinds of fabrics you prefer.

Once again, thank you to everyone who entered, your donations will make a big difference in the lives of many people.

Now, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go and have a baby...

What we've been up to lately

2011-03-24T21:53:00.003+09:00

March was supposed to be the time for Doing Lots Of Things but, between bad weather and my bad back/hips, not that much was achieved. We have done a few fun things over the last few weeks though, so here's my report...

attempting to pick up H's parents' cat...

K and I went to a classical music concert, his first! It was a performance by the Kansai Philharmonic, designed for small children; the poster said 'It's OK if they cry!'. The music was great of course, and they also spent time introducing the different instruments and letting volunteers conduct. A lot of the children did get fidgety, or fall asleep (it was nearly 2 hours long including the intermission), but K was great and seemed interested during the whole thing. The concert ended with a rousing performance of 'Land of Hope and Glory' which was really quite moving, especially when K turned to me part way through and said 'I like this song'.
All 3 of us went to the City Art Museum the following day (it was clearly The Monkey Household Week of Culture) to see a display of artwork from the children's books Lisa and Gaspard, and Penelope. K didn't really know the characters very well, but he enjoyed looking at the picture books on display... and then had a total meltdown in the foyer, but the less said about that, the better.

K has been brushing up in his computer skills. The other day I came into the living room to discover that he'd switched on the laptop, opened Internet Explorer, was playing a CD and browsing photos. I suppose he's preparing to help Grandad when he gets here...
We've had several visits to the play centre (usually greeted by some variation of 'Haven't you had that baby yet?), including a special one yesterday where all the mums had a go at some flower arranging. K enjoys jumping on the trampoline and looking at the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and I like chatting with the other mums and the staff.

K wishes you all a Happy St Patrick's Day!
Lunch with Chieko last week, while K was at pre-school, and then, very decadently, afternoon tea with Lisa on Sunday! We had crepes at Giardinos and they were Very Nice, although we agreed that we could really have done with 2...
The cowboy blanket I won in the MADE giveaway arrived! Yeah!
K's pre-school had its graduation and end-of-school-year ceremony. Only one girl was actually 'graduating' and going on to primary school from April, but several other children were leaving to go to 'normal', Japanese kindergartens. The children sang songs and put on a play...

... and then each child was awarded a medal for their particular strong point. In the little ones class, children were praised for being able to say their name and age well in English, for always tidying up well, and so on. And K's award-winning talent? 'He has the loudest voice in the class'. Hmmm...

And of course, there have been various preparations for the baby, and for Mum and Dad coming. I think now, we're pretty much as ready as we ever will be...

No imminent arrivals...

2011-03-24T13:21:00.002+09:00

Tomorrow is my due date, but it doesn't look like baby will be showing up quite yet. I had a check-up this morning and the doctor told me I'm about 2cm dilated. That sounds quite impressive, except for the fact that he's been telling me that for 2 weeks now!

And now we learn that our more reliably scheduled arrivals won't be getting here tomorrow either! Mum and Dad's flight from Heathrow to Tokyo has been cancelled... Apparently, so many people cancelled their tickets that the airline called off the flight. Boo! Now they'll be arriving on Sunday instead, so let's hope baby hangs on until then...

That'll give me time to draw the raffle too! There's still time to enter, go on, you know you want to!

Calling Kate!

2011-03-24T13:15:00.002+09:00

Would Kate, who generously entered my raffle, please get in touch with me? You forgot to say how much you had donated so I don't know how many tickets to assign you. There's no e-mail address and your Blogger profile is private so I can't contact you that way either. I would hate for you to miss out on your chance!

There's still time to enter; so far at least 65 tickets have been sold! Isn't that great? I wonder if we can reach 100...

A message to raffle entrants

2011-03-22T10:45:00.006+09:00

Thank you so much to all of you who have already entered the raffle. There have been so many generous donations and I'm excited to see how much we can raise in total. And of course there is still time to enter here!

I have just one request for you:

Please make sure I can contact you !

I have had several entries with neither an e-mail address nor a public Blogger profile. I have queries for a couple of people and can't get in touch with them and, of course, I need to be able to contact you if you win!

Don't forget that there are lots of other great raffle and actions going on too, each needing their own donation to enter. Jo has also posted about where the money is going; I think it's a great combination of emergency measures and long-term aid.

There are still a few places in Northern Japan where they don't have enough of basic supplies, but in most areas aid is getting through well now. The number of people in shelters has halved since I last wrote about it, as people become able to return to their homes or find family or friends who can help them. Electricity is still a problem for many, whether due to damaged supply lines or the nuclear plants being out of commission. Temporary accommodation is already being built and different areas around Japan are offering public housing to people who have lost their homes. Our neighbouring prefecture which, like many rural areas, is suffering from a distinct lack of young people, is offering free housing and a cash incentive to people who move there! There are a lot of sad stories on the news, but the discovery of an 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson, alive and uninjured in the rubble of their home, cheered us all.

And while the future of the nuclear reactors is still unsure and worrying, H told me some reassuring information about the current situation. News reports of double the usual radiation level in Tokyo sound bad but apparently the usual, background radiation level in Rome is 6 times the current level in Tokyo! It all depends on what you define as 'normal'...

One week to go...

2011-03-19T21:32:00.005+09:00

...until the raffle to win 25 fat quarters of lovely Japanese fabric. Thank you so much to all the people who have already donated to the earthquake relief fund and entered the raffle. There are still tickets available though, so have a look here if you are interested. Jo has put together a Master List of all the raffle and auctions going on, which you can see here, there are lots of wonderful things you could win so please do check it out.

And less than a week to go until The Arrivals! Mum and Dad will be getting here on the 25th (Friday), which also just so happens to be this baby's due date. I wonder who will make an appearance first? When I was expecting K, Mum and Dad arrived 3 days before his due date, but he didn't bother to join us until about 10 days after it. Even then he was in no hurry; the birth was induced, which only seemed to result in an extra-long labour as the baby still hadn't dropped down into position. Hopefully this baby will make an appearance before the doctor wants to induce, but ideally not until Mum and Dad are here to look after K...

H took some pictures of me at the park on K's birthday, 2 weeks ago. From the front it's not too shocking...

...but side-on you get the full, watermelon-up-the-jumper effect:

At that time I was having a lot of pain in my lower back and hips, but I'm very glad to report that that has improved somewhat. It's not as painful as before, and the type of pain has changed too. I still feel it every time I walk or move in any way really, and turning over in bed can be excruciating, but at least H isn't finding me sitting on the kitchen floor in tears anymore...

Apart from that (!), I'm feeling fine. The doctor told me that I was about 2cm dilated 10 days ago which prompted a slight panic, but he said the same again on Wednesday so maybe I can relax a little. When I was expecting K I was walking for an hour every day, but this time I'm getting no exercise at all and I can feel the difference. Just going upstairs leaves me feeling quite tired out, so I'm not sure how prepared I am for the task of giving birth!

feeling the baby move, a few days ago

Dr K checks on my baby...

...and his!

At least now I am starting to feel somewhat prepared. This week I did my last private lessons and finished off the transcription work I had, and from now on there is nothing marked on the calendar at all. K is now on spring break from pre-school too, so we don't even have to get up at a particular time. H has brought all the baby stuff down from the loft and is getting it all cleaned up, and I have washed and sorted all the old clothes and bought a few new bits and pieces. I finally packed a hospital bag for me, and a bag for K in case he has to go to H's parents at short notice. The hospital admittance form has been filled in, the cot is set up and I've even managed to make something for the new baby!

OK, so it's only a couple of squares of material with a bit of crinkly plastic in the middle and some little ribbon loops around the outside, but I made it and it is finished. Which is more than I can say for the blanket I'm crocheting, so we'll move swiftly on...

All that's left to do now is get ready for Mum and Dad to arrive, which basically means housework. Oh joy. I'm torn between 'must get everything clean and tidy before they get here' and 'they'll need something to do once they're here, right?'. I know that they wouldn't want me to be worrying about housework on their behalf, but, on the other hand, they don't know quite how bad it is and I don't really want them to either. At the very least I must go through the cupboards and throw out food which expired before K was born, and sew the buttons on the pyjamas that Mum helped me make (everything finished except for, yup, the buttons) in summer 2008...

Spring?

2011-03-17T22:53:00.005+09:00

Will you excuse a frivolous, non-earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis post? Actually, after reading this explanation of the situation by the British government's Chief Scientific Officer, I'm feeling quite reassured. You don't need a degree in nuclear physics to understand it (or even a GCSE in Science), and it's definitely worth a read if you're concerned.

So, is it spring yet?

I thought so. In fact, I started writing a blog post in late February about the change in seasons. The sasanqua was blooming beneath a blue sky...

...the snowdrops were flowering...

... and so were the first of the crocuses.

But then at the end of February we had some flurries of snow, and my declaration of spring seemed premature. At the beginning of March the daffodils (rescued from Tim's old garden) started to flower...

... but then we had a few snowflakes once again. This week though, it must be spring. On Monday it was 20 degrees. 20! K enjoyed playing in the park, and there was not a coat in sight. By then we had a full complement of flowering crocuses, yellow, white and purple, more daffodils and even the plum tree was starting to bloom.

So where are all those flowers now? Under a couple of inches of snow. After a 20 degree day on Monday, today it reached 2...

Fighting back

2011-03-16T22:36:00.003+09:00

I'm not really qualified to write an update on what's happening in Japan right now. In this area life is carrying on as if nothing had happened; in fact if it wasn't for modern media and communications, you wouldn't even know that anything had happened. Just like the rest of the world, I'm relying on the TV and Internet to keep me informed and, just like the rest of the world, I feel helpless and rather guilty to be happily going about my everyday life.

Obviously, things are bad. 500,000 people who survived the earthquakes and tsunami are now living in evacuation centres, in desperate need of basic supplies. Thousands are dead or missing. For people who escaped the direct effects of the disaster on Friday, the nuclear power plants in Fukushima now cause the biggest worry, and lack of electricity is still a major problem for many.

In Japan though, crises seem to bring out the best in people. There's definitely a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' mentality. Yes, it can be hard to decide if reassuring messages in the media are genuine or not, but scare-mongering helps no-one. There is panicked stock-piling of basic food stuffs in some areas, but there is none of the looting or other criminal behaviour we see all too often following natural disasters. Most people seem to be getting on with their lives where they can, and helping others to the best of their ability.

Would you like some examples?

Here is a collection of heart-warming stories of people doing what they can to help. I'll warn you now - some of them made me cry...

Big companies are really stepping up. Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Toyota, Japan Tobacco, Honda, Hitachi and more are each donating 300,000,000 yen - that's about $3 million. Uniqlo is donating 400,000,000 yen and 700,000,000 yen's worth of clothing, while the boss is personally contributing 1,000,000,000 yen - $10 million. Other companies are offering essential goods: $1 million worth of disposable nappies and toilet paper here, 30,000 radios there, 1.4 million cup noodles here, 1,000 generators there. Restaurant chains are distributing meals and convenience stores have been throwing open their doors to people in need.

Ordinary people are doing their bit too. When supplies do arrive, you see people forming orderly queues to get their share. People who have managed to stay in their own homes are taking clothes and blankets to nearby evacuation centres. People further afield are being asked to donate cash rather than goods, due to difficulties in distribution; a 70 year old woman in Osaka has reportedly donated 100,000,000 yen (about a million dollars). News reports show people, who are basically refugees, stoically doing what they can to help the person next to them.

There's a long, long way to go, and Japan will need a lot of help from the rest of the world, but I can't help feeling that the people who rebuilt their country after 2 atomic bombs, and again after the devastating earthquake in Kobe in 1995, will pull together once more and show the world what a true community spirit can do.

Japan Quake Appeal - Raffling Japanese Fabric - CLOSED

2011-03-14T20:42:00.006+09:00

*** This raffle is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who donated! ***

Here in Western Japan the earthquake and tsunami have not affected us at all. Obviously I am so thankful that my friends and family are all safe, but at the same time there is a certain guilt connected to carrying on as usual when so many people are suffering. I feel so helpless here, especially as local governments in the affected area have asked individuals not to donate goods since sorting and distributing those goods increases the burden on an already overloaded system. So, cash donations it is, and if you too would like to chip in, here is one way you can help...

As I wrote yesterday, Jo at A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That is encouraging bloggers in Japan and around the world to hold raffles and auctions to raise money for the relief effort. For my part, I'm offering...

25 Fat Quarters of Japanese Fabric

That's over 6 metres/yards of material in total! This photo is just to give you an idea of the sort of lovely fabrics you might win. All the fabrics will be chosen by me from my shop stock (including some that have yet to be listed there) in consultation with the winner. So if you're particularly interested in traditional Japanese fabrics, or prints suitable for boys, or florals, or a particular colour, or kawaii cutesy designs... I'll pick out a bundle that'll make you smile. Have a browse through the shop if you'd like to see more of the sort of thing you could win.

How to enter:

Go to GlobalGiving.co.uk (United Kingdom) or GlobalGiving.org (United States) and make a donation.

Every $5 donation or 3 pound donation entitles you to one raffle ticket.
After you have made your donation, come back and leave a comment on this post, telling me how much you donated (ie how many tickets you have bought) and your receipt number.
Don't forget to leave your e-mail address in the comment too - you can write it as name 'at' yahoo 'dot' com if you are worried about spam.
If you make a mistake or need to change your comment, please go back and delete your first comment and rewrite it.
Open to anyone, anywhere in the world!
The raffle will close at mid-day Japan time 26th March and the winner will be drawn at random and contacted by email. However, there is a risk that I will be, ahem, giving birth that day, so please forgive me if I'm a day or two late in posting the results here.

For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html

The raffle being held on this blog, and others around the blogosphere, is held in conjunction with A Bit of This and A Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.

Later this week Jo will be putting up a list of all the blogs involved in this appeal, each of which will be hosting their own raffle or auction, each requiring separate donations. So if you're not interested in fabric, there will be lots of other things to tempt you. Do please check out the others and enter as many as you can afford. Let's do what we can to help those in need. And if you blog, or Facebook, or Tweet, or have friends in real life, please do spread the word!

Japan Quake Appeal

2011-03-13T22:30:00.004+09:00

Following the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Northern Japan on Friday, fellow blogger, Brit-in-Japan and Etsy shop owner Jo (of A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That) has put together a fund-raising raffle/auction.

Bloggers all over the world will be offering all kinds of wonderful prizes in exchange for donations to the aid effort. Here at Monkey Magic I will be giving away a selection of Japanese fabrics from my shop, chosen to match the taste of the winner. More details here later, after I have it all set up, but please do watch this space (and Jo's space too) and spread the word!

All's well with us

2011-03-12T10:11:00.002+09:00

Just a quick post to let you know that all is well here, following the disasters in Northern Japan.

Luckily for us we are very far from the earthquake and tsunami area, and are not affected at all. The news from that area is terrible though, with entire towns washed away or burnt to the ground, trains missing (swept away?), a nuclear power plant venting to prevent meltdown and huge aftershocks continuing through the night.

We don't usually have the TV on during the day, so the first I knew of it all was when Dad phoned me from the UK to see if everything was OK! We do live near the sea, but it is the Sea of Japan not the Pacific coast, and tidal waves are virtually unheard of here. We did get a low-level tsunami warning at 5.30 this morning, but it's nothing to worry about and everything is going on here as normal. I just wish I could say the same for all the poor people in the north though...

SALESALESALE

2011-03-10T22:36:00.002+09:00

As you may have heard, I'm going to be having a baby soon, and I have a feeling he's not going to wait until the due date...

With that in mind, I'm going to be closing my fabric and craft supply shop for a little while, but I thought I'd have a *SALE* first! Anyone dropping into the shop can get 15% off by using the coupon code mentioned there but for you, my loyal blog readers, there's 25% off everything!

Enter the coupon code BABY25 at checkout and you will automatically receive a 25% discount. Hurrah! The sale will run until 9pm Monday 14th March (Japan time), and I will send all orders the following day. After that, the shop will be closed for a while, so stock up now!

K is 3!

2011-03-09T20:45:00.000+09:00

K turned 3 on Saturday. Where did all that time go? It doesn't seem that long ago that we took that sweet little baby photo but, on the other hand, it's sometimes hard to remember our life before he came along.

The day started with a pancake breakfast for us all...

... followed by opening cards...

... including one featuring Maisy! Well done H for finding that :-)

Then it was present time. K got 2 different sets of jigsaws, which had to be tried out immediately, with a little help from Mummy and Daddy...

He was very excited to get this dinosaur too, but later declared that he didn't like it. Apparently, he likes 'eating grass dinosaurs', not 'eating other dinosaur dinosaurs'.

Last week I appliqued a couple of T-shirts for him. He wasn't bothered about the one with a tie but I don't mind, it was mainly for my benefit. When he saw the grey shirt, he said 'Ooh! A pig!'. Hmm... Later in the day though he changed his mind, and declared it a dinosaur. Phew.

Note to self: stick to simple shapes for applique. Ties - good. Triceratops - bad.

H's parents and aunt and uncle happened to be going out for lunch so we gate-crashed that, and then we headed off to the park for monkey-watching...

... a visit to the planetarium...

... and general playing.

We went to the same park on K's birthday last year too, although I notice that he didn't need his coat then. Skip over the next photo quickly if you're of a nervous disposition...

A quick stop at the supermarket for speedy party food (mainly pizza, fried stuff and crab) and then back home just in time to greet H's parents, brother and his girlfriend. The crown came out again...

...and the food and drink went down well.

Unlike last year, K was very aware of the fact that his birthday was coming this year, and he specifically requested a chocolate cake (inspired by, yes, Maisy) with 3 candles. When I asked him what he wanted to do on his birthday, he replied 'blow' (as in '..out candles'). So H and I made this cake one evening a couple of days ago, and I quickly whipped up some cream to decorate it just before our guests arrived:

He was Very Excited when we turned down the lights and brought out the cake and, after I demonstrated by blowing out the first candle, he happily blew out the other 2. I think the cake (which he described as 'another present!') may have been the highlight of the day for K - even today I caught him telling someone that he had chocolate cake on his birthday...

Ups and Downs

2011-03-06T21:24:00.002+09:00

It's been quite a good week for Getting Things Done, but with a few annoyances thrown in too. Nothing too bad though, don't worry :-)

Ups (featuring way too many italics)

All 3 of us went to the dentist for a check-up on Monday (first time for K) and no-one needed any work done. Yes, even me!
On Tuesday I made an impromptu stop at the fabric shop and found some knit fabric on sale. Despite Japan being heaven for super-cute quilting-weight printed cotton, I rarely see material suitable for clothing. And here I found pre-cut pieces (160cm square or bigger) for 300 yen each. I bought 4. No idea what I'm going to do with them, but...
I managed to find the time to decorate a couple of T-shirts for K's birthday (which was yesterday; more on that another day...)
As today was the first Sunday in almost 2 months when I didn't have to get up before 7am to go to work, I put in a Lie-In Request. H got up with K at 7.45, and I went back to sleep until I woke up again naturally - at 11.50! Eek. Thanks H :-)

Downs

Lower-back pain, which seems to now have transformed into somewhere-inside-my-left-hip pain. I know that I've been really lucky to get this far through 2 pregnancies with no back pain, but that is little comfort when putting any weight on my left leg hurts so much. I'm glad that it held off until I'd finished work, but so much for March being the month of doing enjoyable things. Instead I'm just trying to avoid anything that involves getting off the sofa. Sympathetic advice from the doctor at my check-up on Wednesday? 'It'll get better when you give birth'. Right. Thanks.
At the shopping centre the other day, a little girl (but not that little, maybe around 6) pointed me out to her mother as 'strange'. As in 'Look at that funny woman Mummy'. Is it cos I is white? Or because I appear to have a watermelon stuffed up my jumper? Or because I was hobbling along like someone expecting a telegram from the Queen? Maybe a combination of all 3...

A day in the life

2011-03-01T23:27:00.000+09:00

Warning - this probably won't be very interesting for most of you. It's really just for me to look back on in the future, when I wonder what I did with all that spare time I must have had when I only had one little monkey to take care of. So here's a snapshot of how K and I spend our days...

Although K sleeps in his own bed in his own room now, he has developed the habit of coming into our bed sometime in the early hours and (usually...) going back to sleep again. He likes to snuggle up close to me, which is lovely most of the time but has resulted in me almost falling out of bed once or twice. You see that tiny space between K and the edge of the bed? That's where I had been sleeping...

Also, he always brings his bedtime stories from the previous night with him. After being hit, poked and prodded by various giant hardbacks, we've now imposed a rule under which bedtime books must be small and paper-backed...

No-one in the monkey household is a particularly early riser, and K usually prompts me ('Wake up Mummy. Get up') to get up at about 7.30. If I suggest that he tell Daddy to wake up he points out, 'No, Daddy is sleeping'. Yes. Quite.

How quickly things proceed after that depends on what day of the week it is. Mondays have no particular schedule, so by the time we've gotten up, dressed, breakfasted and generally ready for the day, it's usually about 10am.

Then K and I are likely to go to the play centre if there's nothing pressing to do, often making a stop at the Post Office on the way. Home again for lunch at about 12.30, and then an afternoon of lesson-planning, shopping and odd jobs around the house that didn't get done over the weekend.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are school days for K, so we change up a couple of gears, leaving home at 9am, with lunch packed for K too.

On Tuesdays I drop K off and then go to a student's house for a private lesson from 9.30 to 10.30 before whizzing back to the community centre for a class from 11 to 12. By the time I come home again, have lunch and clear up after the morning whirlwind, it's pretty much time to go and collect K again at 2.15. On Thursday mornings I'm free so I've been scheduling doctor's appointments for then, and going to maternity yoga on the non-doctor days. After lunch in town I have a class from 2.15 to 3.15 and then collect K at 3.30.

Until recently, Wednesday was university day. I left home at 7.20 and had classes all morning, getting back home again at around 2pm. H leaves home at 8 each day, so his mum came over each week to look after K until I got home again. Meanwhile, Fridays are pretty low-key. I have a private student who comes here each week at 10 (actually 2 women who take alternate weeks) so as long as we're reasonably presentable by then there is no great rush.

What do we do in the afternoons? I'm not really sure, but the time soon seems to slip away. Of course there's often shopping or other errands to run in town, which take twice as long with K in tow. If H is working late we sometimes drive into town in the afternoon and leave the car for him, getting the bus back. K loves taking the bus, but wants to press the button at every stop... If we're just at home we might do a bit of drawing or painting or the like, or if K is playing happily by himself I admit to sneaking off to other rooms to try to Get Something Useful Done.

By about 5.30 we're starting to think about what we're going to have for dinner. K often watches a DVD (Maisy still reigning supreme) while I cook, or he stands on a chair at the kitchen counter and watches. H gets home at about 6 and we aim to eat at about 6.30, though K usually doesn't finish till close to 7.30. Time for a quick play, then it's into the bath for the boys while I have a nice little sit down.

H generally takes care of the bath/pyjamas/teeth routine, and then I take K upstairs at about 8.30 with a couple of (small, soft) books, read to him and tuck him in for the night. Until recently he was happily going to sleep alone, but lately he wants me to lie down with him for a little while ('No, a big while'), which is not really such a hardship. He still goes to sleep by himself though, usually still clutching the book he was 'reading'...

I'm usually free from about 9, and have great plans for what I'll do with the time. All too often though, it just disappears in chatting with H and watching TV. Oh, and in writing ridiculously long blog posts that will bore my poor readers (few, but very valued) to tears...

I won!

2011-03-01T21:57:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Dana of MADE fame. Just seeing that message in my in-box left me super-excited and somewhat star-struck... Then I opened it and found that I had won a prize in one of her Celebrate The Boy giveaways! A chenille cowboy blanket to be exact, which you can see here. Perfect for snuggling up with little boys I think... Thank you Dana!

It's time to...

2011-02-27T22:06:00.000+09:00

Yes, once again Rae from Made by Rae and Dana from Made are dedicating a whole month to all kinds of crafty goodness for the little men in our lives. Actually, the month is already half-way through and there have already been lots of great tutorials for trousers, bags and more, round-ups of cool fabrics for boys and lots of generous giveaways which you have, well, missed. Sorry. But there's still a lot more to come, so pop over and have a look. And if this is all news to you, you probably missed Celebrate The Boy last year too, so don't forget to look through the archives while you're there...

Last year I got quite into it all, but this time the extent of my boy-celebrating seems to be limited to preparing to give birth to one. I would like to make something for K's birthday too (which is Saturday) but we'll see how that goes. The pile of crochet squares is slowly growing - I've made 23. Thanks to ridiculously early trains to work, I made 2 this morning before 9am! Unfortunately the pattern calls for 64...

I made the same blanket for K and was horribly behind then too. I remember that I took some shortcuts so I had a look at his blanket today; not 64 squares, not even 49, but a mere 36. Then I just sewed them together and crocheted round and round the edge of the whole thing until I ran out of wool. Add that to the fact that I was stitching together those 36 squares while in hospital having just given birth, and I don't feel quite so behind schedule after all...

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-23T15:59:00.003+09:00

No, I haven't cracked the secret of time travel and magically sent you back to the beginning of last week. This is just how long it took to get around to showing you what we got up to.

K made a couple of Valentine-themed crafts at school. A crown (or 'king' as he insists on calling it) decorated with hearts...

...and a butterfly made from hearts too:

Here at home we were not as organised and didn't actually make a card for H until the afternoon of Valentine's Day itself. Luckily H had it in his head that Valentine's Day was on the following day, so we got away with it :-)

We were limited to what we had in house, so potato-printing it was. K enjoyed covering half a dozen sheets of paper with red hearts...

...and when they were dry, I cut out heart shapes and we stuck them on a piece of red-ish thick paper we had lying around. I forgot to take a photo of the finished card until a few days later, by which time it had lost its will to stand up unaided. Oh well. You get the idea.

While the paint was drying I also made a very simple chocolate orange mousse for after dinner. I only made a half batch of the serves-4 recipe, but that was still enough to make 5 individual little mousses. We had one each that night, but H wasn't particularly impressed. Rather than greedily eat the other 2 all to myself, I sent H round to his parents' house with them, avoiding over-eating and acting the dutiful daughter-in-law all in one fell swoop. Hee hee.

One month to go!

2011-02-21T22:29:00.003+09:00

Can you believe that I only have another month until my due date? Where have the last 8+ months gone? This pregnancy seem to have just flown by. I suppose it's a common refrain from women having a second or subsequent child - the older kid(s) keep you so busy that you don't have time to focus on the new arrival. Still, I do feel a bit sorry for him (I did tell you it was a 'him', right?), neglected before he's even been born...

Touch wood, this pregnancy has gone very smoothly so far. Very little morning sickness and no real problems with backache or other common pregnancy ailments. Compared to when I was expecting K, I have been having less leg cramps at night but more heartburn, but really I'm feeling fine. I have to remember not to eat or drink anything after about 9pm though, or I can't lie down in bed without feeling sick...

My doctor here is very big on walking, and recommends a brisk, daily, 60 minute walk throughout pregnancy, or at least in the final month. When I was expecting K, I was out there in all weathers, clocking up some major mileage. It's surprising how far you can get in an hour at a good pace; I remember meeting a friend in the centre of town on a snowy February day and giving him a real shock when I told him I'd walked there. Of course this time, I haven't walked a step, apart from 15 minutes to the nearest station to go to work on Sundays. On the other hand, the other big thing at the doctor here is weight gain. They are Very Strict and declare that no-one should gain more than 10 kg. The first time around I was very careful with my diet, walked my socks off and was constantly nagged by the midwives, finally reaching D-Day just the right side of the magical 10 kg. This time I've just carried on as normal, with no special attention to diet or exercise, and heard something from the doctor last week that I never thought I would hear - 'No problem at all with weight gain'. Wow. It rivals the other 'Never to be heard from a doctor' quote of a month or so ago - 'It's definitely a boy, no mistake'.

With just a month to go, I suppose I should be starting to prepare for this little one's arrival... A couple of weeks ago I did manage to go to one ante-natal class, for women at at least 30 weeks, where the midwife said she assumed we'd all packed our hospital bags, and got everything set up for the baby. I struggled not to laugh out loud. I've tended to think 'oh, we've got everything we need already', but I suppose I should dig out K's old baby clothes and wash them. And it occurred to me that we don't have anywhere to put things for the new baby, so we did go out and buy a chest of drawers on Saturday. That's a good start, right?

In theory I should have a little more time soon (assuming the baby doesn't come too early of course...), as I'm finishing work this week. University classes have already finished for this academic year and I handed in all the final paperwork last week. The 2 group classes that I run will meet with me for the last time this week and then Vivian will take over from March for 6 months. My little side-job of kids interviews has been wearing me out recently (yesterday I interviewed about 140 children, with 30 minutes for lunch and no other break), but there's only one more to go. I do have a couple of private students that I'll keep meeting with until I go into hospital, but that's just sitting around and chatting really. Oh, and I'm still working on those transcriptions too...

If I do find some time I'd like to fit in some walking, and Making Stuff! The baby blanket I'm crocheting (you know, the one I bought wool for extra early so as to have plenty of time to complete it) is far, far behind schedule. I'd like to sew a couple of things for the baby too (plus it's K's birthday soon and I'd like to make something for him...), but we'll see. Must write more blog posts too! Actually, I blame Lisa for my lack of free time, for lending me lots of good books at New Year's...

Victims of the snow

2011-02-14T22:19:00.003+09:00

Our house is about a kilometre from the sea and, until 30-odd years ago, most of the land between here and the coast was filled with pine trees. Nowadays all that remains is a narrow strip, between a major road and the sea, which stretches about 10 kilometres along the coast.

When we drove along there the other day, to go to the Sea and Life Museum, it was quite shocking to see the damage that all the snow we've had recently caused to these trees.

The weight of the snow ripped branches off a lot of the trees, but what really surprised me was how many trees had simply been snapped in half, with the entire top part of the tree missing.

I suppose the weight of the snow bowed the smaller trees right over (as in the far right of the photo below) and a lot of them never recovered.

Severely damaged trees along that roadside have been marked with pink tape, so I suppose they will be chopped down before long. It's very sad...

Sea and Life Museum

2011-02-12T16:12:00.004+09:00

If you've been reading my blog posts so far this year, you'll probably be relieved to hear that this one has nothing at all to do with snow, or the weather in general. After 6 weeks or so of work and bad weather, we finally Did Something on a day off!

Friday was a public holiday here, in honour of Mum's birthday (or maybe something to do with the constitution...). After a sushi lunch, we went to the Sea and Life Museum in Sakaiminato, just a 15 minute drive from our house. H and I had been before, but it was something new for K.

It's a museum rather than an aquarium, so there are no living fish, but there are over 4,000 preserved fish and crab specimens. The English-language leaflet boasts that it is 'Japan's largest museum of taxidermied fish!!' and also states that 'The ocean is kind of interesting.'

One of the things the museum is most proud of is this 2.8 metre long giant mambo/sun fish (yup, it's real). Upstairs there is a collection of old farm tools, fishing equipment and household items, but K was much more interested in this little tunnel with hundreds of harisenbon (porcupine fish) suspended from the ceiling...

His favourite thing in the whole museum was this fishing boat though. You can go up some steps on one side, walk along the deck and then go down again on the other side. There wasn't really anything very interesting on the boat itself, but K wanted to go up onto it time and time again.

Finally, I couldn't resist this shot of K being eaten by a shark. His worried little face fit that hole perfectly!

You can never have too many boots, right?

2011-02-08T07:48:00.000+09:00

Back when there was still plenty of snow on the ground, I treated myself to a new pair of boots. They are a rather pleasing bronze colour with a slight metallic sheen, and have just the right amount of heel for comfort...

But the best thing about these boots? They are basically wellies! Yes, they are rubber boots, all moulded in one piece with no pesky seams to allow leaks (unlike, well, all my other boots and shoes, I have discovered...). Definitely a step up from the blue wellies I stole from H and have been wearing to the supermarket lately. These beauties are perfect for tramping through the snow and then going straight to work or social engagements... or the supermarket.

The last snow post of the season (I hope...)

2011-02-07T21:25:00.003+09:00

I don't write anything for ages and then, when I do, it's about snow again. Can you tell that there's not a lot going on here at the moment?

As forecast, we had quite a lot of snow again over the last weekend in January (as pictured above), and I was glad that I decided to stay the night in Tottori instead of trying to get there in time for work on Sunday morning. As well as avoiding being late, I also got to enjoy a peaceful evening to myself in a comfortable hotel, paid for by someone else. Definitely no complaints there...

Now though, one week later, we are virtually snow-free! Here's the last little bit that was still hanging around on our lawn this afternoon...

... and looking out over the fields you can see that there's not much there either:

Of course, there are still huge mounds of snow (or 'snow mountains' as K calls them) in carparks and other places where the snow was cleared, but places that just had their natural quota of the stuff are pretty much clear now.

This change in the weather coincided exactly with the old Japanese calendar. Setsubun, the day dividing the seasons, was on February 3rd and on the 4th, the official first day of spring, it was warm and sunny and the snow was melting. Today was rather overcast but until now we've had really lovely weather and it truly feels like spring may just be around the corner...

Yet another post about snow...

2011-01-28T23:23:00.003+09:00

In short, there's still a fair bit of it about. After close to a metre of snow at New Year, we got down to this year's least-amount-of-snow-on-the-ground-so-far on the 14th:

But over that weekend it returned to this...

Again, it gradually started to disappear, only to be topped up again last weekend too. Luckily it hasn't really inconvenienced us too much; H has been taking an earlier bus to work everyday (but still managed to be late once), and I am getting braver and braver about driving in it. My reluctance to drive with even the slightest bit of snow on the ground is often laughed at, and I almost kept K home from school one day, but in the end it wasn't really a problem at all. The weather gods have been kind to me though, keeping Wednesdays, the day I go to university, virtually snow-free (on the roads that is). If the weather is really bad I can get there by train, but it's a bit of a pain: 20 minute walk to the station, 12 minute train ride, change trains, another 40 minute train ride and then a 15 minute bus ride, plus time for all those connections; not ideal when class starts at 8.30! I've got one more class next week, and then term ends; keep your fingers crossed for me...

There have been some lovely bright days though and, now that the snow doesn't come up to his neck, K has been enjoying playing in it. Making looping tracks through the snow is one favourite...

... and another is very gentle sledging down the little slope in our garden, using a multi-purpose seat/spinning/ who-knows-what toy that H's brother gave him for Christmas:

We had a bit more snow just the other day and, guess what? More is predicted for the weekend. I'm doing more kids' interviews on Sunday, this time in Tottori, which originally was supposed to entail somehow getting to the mainline train station before 7am... However, due to the potential snow, the company has asked me (and will pay for me) to go the day before and stay overnight. Is it really bad that I'm actually quite looking forward to a night in a hotel, all by myself, with no little people climbing over me with picture books in their hands at 5am, and with several consecutive meals eaten in peace? Maybe the snow is not such a bad thing after all...

Goodies from New Zealand!

2011-01-24T22:03:00.004+09:00

The other day the postman brought me this lovely parcel of goodies from Hanna of Craftykin. I had commented on all her wonderful opp-shop/thrift shop/charity shop finds, and she offered to send me some! I offered to send her some Japanese craft books and odds and ends in return and so a swap was born... Here's what I found when I opened the parcel:

I couldn't believe the number of things that she managed to fit in that parcel! Let's have a closer look...

A tea towel destined for my kitchen, and some great vintage linens calling out to be re-purposed into, well, something. The detail in that embroidery is beautiful.

Some child-orientated goodies - K is loving that little sheep finger puppet...

A set of five little cards made with the coolest vintage flower prints. Hand-made by Hanna maybe??

Some lovely ribbon and lacy edging, plus a tiny pair of scissors. So cute.

And look at this! A little booklet of patterns for soft toys, even older than the dinosaur one I have :-) It's got some great ideas in it, although I must admit that the doll on the front scares me a little... Plus a little purse that definitely was made by Hanna (it has her cool Craftykin label inside) and a little tissue case - I didn't even know that they existed outside of Japan!

Thank you Hanna, for suggesting this swap and for your kindness and generosity. When a virtual stranger thousands of miles away offers to send you a present out of the goodness of their heart, it does a lot to help you believe that the world is not such a bad place after all...

Busy days...

2011-01-21T21:26:00.004+09:00

After all the inactivity of the New Year, things seem to be going non-stop now (as you can see by the lack of recent blog posts...). K is back at pre-school and H and I are back to work as usual. Actually, I'm working more than usual. I'm doing some work for a friend's research, transcribing interviews with Asian EFL students. I can only do it when I have some peace and quiet, which translates to 'when K is asleep'. Unfortunately that is also prime blog/crochet/laze in front of the TV time, but I can't do it all at once...

I'm also doing kids' interview tests for ECC again this year. Starting last week, I'll be spending every Sunday in January and February (and a couple of Saturdays) doing English speaking tests with kids ranging in age from 3 to 15, generally about 100 a day! They can be quite enjoyable really, but there is a lot of travelling involved. Last week I 'only' had to go to Matsue and Izumo, leaving home by 6.30am on both Saturday and Sunday. This Sunday is a 'late' start, leaving home just after 7, but the following week I'm supposed to be getting the 6:01 train from the main-line station. Unfortunately there are no trains or buses to get me to the station at that time in the morning, and I can't see H being terribly enthusiastic about getting up to take me. Seriously considering going the day before and staying overnight...

Oh yeah, and being 31 weeks pregnant, that can be a job in itself sometimes! H took the day off to take care of K on Wednesday while I was working, and then took him out in the afternoon so I had a couple of hours all to myself at home, a very rare event. I didn't know what to do: transcriptions? blog? lesson plans? TV and crochet? In the end, I fell asleep on the sofa...

Dinosaur

2011-01-11T13:07:00.000+09:00

This is the chap I made for K for Christmas. It was all done in a bit of a rush, with some very shoddy workmanship, so please don't look too carefully. K seems happy enough with it anyway, though it is nowhere near as popular as The Maisy Doll.

I made a few alterations to the original pattern (and when I say 'alterations' I generally mean 'shortcuts'). When I opened up the pattern I realized that this creature was huge so I reduced it by two thirds. Of course it wasn't until later that I discovered that this meant that much of the sewing became a lot more fiddly... I also just used single pieces of felt, unfinished, for the claws, instead of two pieces sewn together and turned for each of the 12 claws. That would just have been ridiculous.

I'm not sure how this pattern ended up in my sewing basket. I suspect that it was either pilfered from my mum or, like so many things in this house, was given to me by a friend who was leaving Japan. If you recognise it, let me know! I noticed that it is dated 1986, which makes it practically vintage now I suppose. The best thing about it was an advert on it for McCall's Patterns ('Sewing's Fashion Magazine'). I tried to take a photo of it but it didn't come out well, so here's the highlight for you:

You'll find ... top celebrities including Linda Evans, Joan Collins,

Diahann Carroll, Brooke Shields, Shari Belafonte-Harper, Mariette Hartley and more!

Yeah for the cast of Dynasty! I wonder if the magazine featured shoulder pads in every garment...

Back to the usual routine

2011-01-10T20:39:00.002+09:00

Tomorrow K and I will finally be getting back into our usual routine. H started back at work last Tuesday, but my 2 classes last week were cancelled due to the snow so I've been on extended holiday-mode. Tomorrow though, K will be off to preschool for the first time this year, and my usual schedule begins again tomorrow too.

With the heavy snow over the New Year we haven't really done anything of great interest lately. In fact, in a week I only left the house twice, both times on foot, to go to the supermarket and post office. The rest of the time I've been at home here with K.

So what did we actually do with all this free time? As always, I seem to have frittered it all away. K and I have been sleeping quite late in the mornings, although poor H has been getting up earlier than normal to take a train to work. Luckily the buses are now running so he should be back to normal tomorrow too.

We did manage to do some useful things over the holidays: I tidied up my office and filed class notes, we caught up on the mountain of laundry, got a new TV, shoveled snow...

Mainly though, there was a lot of lounging about at home. I crocheted a few more squares for the baby blanket, read an entire book (that's good going for me nowadays) and caught up on some blog reading.

Today was a public holiday so we had a three day weekend. Now that the roads are pretty much clear of snow, we went out! Two lunches out, a bit of shopping (including a diary for me - I love buying a new diary each year) and a little cinema date for H and I (Tron, my first 3D cinema experience). Today was Tondo-san, marking the official end of the New Year festivities, so it really is back to work for everyone now...

Still snowy

2011-01-04T22:14:00.003+09:00

We haven't had any more snow since the 1st, but it's still causing problems. Snow ploughs have been out clearing the roads; the fact that H had never seen one before shows you how unusual that is! Ploughed roads are now clear enough to drive on easily, but there's one slight snag; the snow ploughs create big banks of snow at the sides of the roads, making already narrow roads even narrower. The road in front of our house now poses no problems at all for a single car, but when 2 meet someone has to reverse a long way or everyone leaps out with their shovels and starts digging out a passing place...

Yesterday I ventured out on foot to our second-nearest supermarket. We weren't in desperate need of supplies but it was H's last day off work and I realised that if I didn't go then I would have to go today or tomorrow - with K...

It was a good chance to see what was going on too. Next to the supermarket is one of the biggest roads around here, with 2 lanes each way. Traffic was moving easily, but again the road was significantly narrowed:

Smaller roads were clear just in the tyre tracks - 4 tracks if you were lucky, 3 tracks on narrower roads and here, where a car had been abandoned, it went down to just 2:

The very smallest roads though were still pretty much impassable. Believe it or not, this next one is actually usually used by cars; look very closely and you'll see a car parked at the end of it:

Today was the first working day of the year for a lot of people, including H. He usually goes to work by bus but the buses still weren't running today, due I suppose to the narrowed roads. So poor old H set off on foot, a distance of 5 or 6 kilometres. He returned home tonight with stories of downed electric cables and a collapsed car port, a blister or two and, of course, photographic evidence of his adventure. Here's the route he would normally take if walking into town...

... and here's the less snowy option he chose today. This is the road his bus would have taken too, if it had been running...

Even in the centre of the city, where the traffic was moving steadily, it was still tough for pedestrians. The pavements were pretty deep in snow and crossing the road meant navigating your way over huge mounds of snow at the edges of the road:

Apparently the buses still won't be running tomorrow, although rubbish collection will be. H's planning to try the train tomorrow; by the time he walks to the station, waits for the train and then walks from the station to his office, it won't really save him any time, but hopefully it'll give his feet a bit of a rest...

2010, 2011

2011-01-04T08:20:00.000+09:00

What kind of year was 2010 for you? It sounds rather melodramatic but when I look back at last year I can't help thinking that the theme for me was 'Life and Death'. My grandfather, one of my very best friends, and a close friend of my parents all passed away within a few months of each other. The loss of my friend in particular hit me hard, and I'm still mourning her in many ways. On the other hand, I also found out that I was expecting a baby. We had been trying for a baby for quite a long time before I got pregnant with K, so it was lovely that things went so easily this time around.

In our everyday life, not a lot really happened in 2010 to be honest. There were no changes at work for H or me and no exciting events; most things just carried on as before. I did get to spend a month in the UK in the summer though, and just being around K and watching him grow and develop brought us a lot of pleasure.

Looking to the year ahead, I think the theme could be 'Family'. As well as the arrival of K's little brother (we think!), Mum and Dad will be coming over to visit us for a month. H and I are also hoping that our new family of 4 will be able to make an extended trip to the UK in the summer, spending lots of time with friends and family. However things pan out, I hope that it's a year of health and happiness for us all. Happy New Year!

Overnight Caramel Walnut Rolls

2011-01-03T21:18:00.000+09:00

Since getting the bread machine I've been wanting to make something a bit fancy, so when I saw this recipe (found via Penelope Loves Lists) I thought I'd make them for breakfast on New Year's Day. You make the dough and shape the rolls in advance, put them in the fridge overnight and then just leave them to rise for half an hour and bake them. Easy!

Of course, I hit a slight snag when I got up on New Year's Day - no electricity. Luckily the recipe calls for the rolls to be left in the fridge for at least 12 hours and no more than 48, so we had them on the 2nd instead. And there were still some left for this morning too. Yum.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T19:06:00.009+09:00

No sign of the garden wall, the compost bin or the patio

It may only be January 2nd, but already it's a year that people around here will remember - the year of the snow. It started to snow on the night of the 30th and continued throughout New Year's Eve Day, with biting winds sending the snow in horizontal sheets. By the morning of New Year's Day the wind had dropped and the snow lay deep and crisp and even.

Our bedroom window faces the direction the wind was blowing from, so the balcony was filled with snow up to the height of my waist.

K and the car demonstrating the depth of the snow

The previous night the electricity had gone off for a minute or so, and when I got up briefly with K at 5.30 I noticed that it was off again. We all slept in until about 9 o'clock, and we were still without power. Like a lot of the newer houses around here, our house relies entirely on electricity for heating, hot water and cooking as well as lighting and appliances. Luckily we do have a single table-top gas ring so I was able to make hot drinks for our breakfast.

An important part of New Year's Day morning is reading your New Year cards. The post office holds them all back until the big day and then delivers them all early in the morning on New Year's Day, hiring extra part-time workers to help deal with it all. This year though - nothing. I'm hoping they might come tomorrow...

H dug out a little path, just wide enough for us to walk out to the road. He didn't dig right down to ground level and even then the snow was deeper than K's waist. I guessed the total amount of snow to be close to K's height and the news today reports that there was indeed about 90cm.

In front of our house on New Year's Day

The plan was to spend New Year's Day at H's parents' house. They had a power cut too, but they also have one old-style kerosene heater so we headed over there once H had dug us out, leaving candles and torches on stand-by for our return. Their house is only a few minutes walk away, but we visited the local shrine on the way too.

Japanese people traditionally visit a shrine at the New Year, either just after midnight on New Year's Eve or in the first day or two of the year. The priest, a relative of H's, told us that he had only had about 20 people show up the previous night, while a man with a digger (also a relative) dug out the road for everyone.

At the shrine H and I each bought a fortune for the year and both got 'small luck' - better than plain old 'luck' and 'bottom-of-the-barrel luck', but still lagging behind 'medium' and 'big'. Oh well. There are also 'bad luck' fortunes but our local shrine, not wishing to disappoint, buys the boxes of fortunes which don't contain bad luck at all. We tied the slips of paper to trees around the shrine and went on our way again.

A stone lantern at the shrine

Announcements on the public address system told us that 28,000 homes in the city were without power, due to a fallen pylon. Today H found a picture of it on the news - eek!

At H's parents' we all stayed in the living room with the one heater, and for once I was glad of the traditional New Year's food, o-sechi. Made (or bought..) ahead of time so that no-one needs to cook over New Year, it isn't really my favourite but at least it was all ready to eat without the aid of any electricity...

After lunch the power came back on and H's mum rang round to see how everyone was doing. H's younger brother was planning to come over on his way back from a trip to Kyushu, but on hearing what it was like here he wisely decided to go straight home. We were all relieved when we heard that he'd got home safely, especially as the news was reporting a thousand cars stuck on the main road from Yonago to Tottori. A thousand!

A not-very-tropical palm tree

By late afternoon the falling snow was turning to light rain, which continued overnight. By morning a lot of snow had melted, but there's still a lot out there too. All the snow has gone from the car, but the roof is slightly dented from the weight. Overhead cables are hanging dangerously low, again due to the weight of the snow, and lots of trees have lost branches.

In front of our house this morning

The airport is closed, buses and branch-line trains are not running yet and H's cousin reports a queue for taxis at the main station 60 people long. H goes back to work on the 4th (Tuesday), so we're hoping the buses will be running again by then. Like most people we stocked up on food before the holidays, since a lot of supermarkets are closed until tomorrow or Tuesday, so I suppose we'll just carry on our hermit lifestyle for a few more days...

Broken branches at the shrine

Mistletoe

2010-12-30T09:48:00.003+09:00

Here's something else I didn't get round to showing you until now...

Last month I found the online magazine and blog Rhythm of the Home, just when they happened to be having a giveaway. I entered my name and later discovered that I had won this lovely handmade mistletoe! I've never seen mistletoe in Japan and every Christmas I think I would like to have some - and now I do!

This mistletoe was created from wool and recycled wool felt by Kendra of by hand at home, who I have just noticed had a baby on Christmas Eve! Thank you Kendra and congratulations!

Demolition, done.

2010-12-29T21:33:00.005+09:00

Actually the demolition work next door was all finished a few weeks ago, but I'm only now getting round to showing you. The house itself was knocked down and cleared away in just a couple of days...

Adding extra earth and levelling the site took longer. K loved watching it all, every step of the way...

We can now see straight out to the road from our kitchen and dining area and K still enjoys standing by the window and watching the traffic. Last week they came and moved an electric pole in the middle of the site's road-side, which entertained K for another hour or so.

Notice anything strange about the digger driver in this next photo?

Have a closer look...

When the men were packing up on the last day, they asked if K would like to ride on the digger. I imagined just sitting in the driver's seat, but the guy had him pushing and pulling the levers to go forwards and backwards, spinning around, tilting the bucket, blowing the horn... K looked very serious at the time but was grinning for the rest of the day and spent several days telling anyone who would listen 'K drive digger!'

Christmas Wrap-up

2010-12-28T21:23:00.002+09:00

How was your Christmas? I hope you had a relaxing time with friends, family, lots of lovely presents and yummy things to eat.

We had Lisa and Vivian here for lunch on Christmas Day, and Lisa stayed for a few board games too. In the evening H's parents came over for tea, and we had a couple of nice Skype chats with my family too.

Of course, there were presents too. K was very pleased to get his 'Maisy doll', and he has also been enjoying doing his new puzzle, riding his hobby horse, and undressing his baby doll. Both K and H have been wearing their new dressing gowns too - over their clothes, in the daytime...

My best present was, unusually, from H (sorry H). I always covet those sets of perfume miniatures you find in duty free shops, and H remembered that and gave me a set of Dior scents! I assumed he got it online, but H said no. Then the penny dropped; he bought it at the airport in Paris on his way back from the UK in August! Thank you H :-)

In the days leading up to Christmas I was busy in the kitchen, making quiche, sausage rolls, cookies and desserts. We're still eating some of those things now, but I'm not complaining. It's been lovely to have a supply of tasty things ready to eat, with no cooking required. Today K and I had the last of the turkey in sandwiches for lunch, and the bones have been cooked down in readiness for a soup tomorrow.

It was great that Christmas Day fell on a Saturday this year, as H was home and we could also have a proper Boxing Day on Sunday too: eating leftovers, playing with new toys and lazing about watching TV. There won't be much of that last one going on for the time being though as our TV, which has been threatening to stop working for a while now, has completely given up. It looks like we may be hitting the electrical stores in the January sales... It's rather pathetic that we feel that we need a TV. Still, when I told a friend about it today, he was incredulous that we only had the one set in the house!

H was at work as usual yesterday and today but from tomorrow, Wednesday, he's off for his New Year holidays. It always seems funny to me - my big winter holiday preparation and cooking rush is over now but everyone else around here is just getting started on theirs. New Year is the biggest holiday of the year here, but nothing really seems to happen... We'll spend New Year's Day at H's parents place but, other than that, we have nothing planned for the next week. I'm hoping to strike a good balance between getting some useful things done (so that I don't feel guilty and time-wasting) and having fun (so that I feel like I've had a holiday). Catching up with my blog a bit is one of the things on the to-do list!

Christmas Day

2010-12-26T17:12:00.005+09:00

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T10:35:00.003+09:00

Over the last week...

... I finally sent off the last of the Christmas cards. They're going to be terribly late but, seeing as most of them are going to the UK, I'm going to blame the bad weather there for the delay :-)

... the last of the Christmas present shopping was done. Yeah for late-night shopping at Jusco without K!

... the 3 of us went to K's pre-school Christmas party on Saturday, and then went to look at Christmas lights afterwards.

... I helped out at a workshop for medical interpreting on Sunday, playing the role of a pregnant woman. Not too much of a stretch for me at the moment.

... all my classes for this year have been finished, apart from a private lesson next Tuesday which just consists of having a cup of tea and chatting.

... I finally finished that dinosaur soft toy last night, for K tomorrow. It's not very well-made, but I'm hoping he'll like it anyway.

... over 60 cookies were baked, some to give to H's parents as a little present and the rest for us over the holidays.

... K has been getting more and more excited about Christmas, telling H that he wants a 'Maisy doll' from 'Farmer Christmas'.

Today's plan is to do a bit more baking and food preparation for tomorrow, take those cookies over to H's parents and watch a Christmassy film. Merry Christmas everyone!

Advent

2010-12-20T22:15:00.003+09:00

I've been meaning to show you our Advent calendars since the beginning of December and time is now fast running out! The one above is the star of the show this year, a gift from my friend Chieko. She had it delivered directly to our house from the store (Muji), addressed to K. It arrived on November 30th and, thinking it was a Christmas present, I wondered whether to open it or not. It was labelled as 'food' though, so I thought I'd better open it just in case... In each little drawer there was a sweet, but I took them all out (and, with H's help, ate them...) and replaced them with tiny wooden cars, lorries and buses that I bought a long time ago (also at Muji!). I happened to have 23, so number 24 is still empty. I'd better find something soon to put in it, or I could probably sneakily take back one of the cars K has already had and have him find it again! He wouldn't notice, he's only 2... On the 3rd day, H realised that if you put the drawers back in backwards once they had been opened, they formed a Christmas tree. It's a great Advent calendar and I'm looking forward to using it again in future, assuming I can find things small enough to fit in it!

This Nativity scene calendar was sent over by my Mum and again it's one I want to keep for future Christmases. Aside from it being an Advent calendar it's a lovely, simple view of the Nativity and I think it would make a nice decoration. This year I haven't really introduced the true meaning of Christmas to K, partly because I don't want him thinking that our baby will be arriving on Christmas Day!

Mum also sent this joke Advent calendar too, full of cracker-worthy jokes such as the classic 'Why do birds fly south for the winter?'*

Our fourth and final Advent calendar is this fabric one, hanging in our hallway. Everyone who comes here comments on it. I need to fix the loops on some of the little ornaments - see if you can spot the red ribbon attached to the tree purely by the magical sticking power of felt-on-felt...

When we opened the first part of each calendar on December 1st, K was determined to open all the others too and got quite annoyed when we wouldn't let him. He soon got the idea though, and there have only been 2 occasions when temptation got the better of him. He knows, without looking, what number we're up to and greeted us this morning with '20 today! 21 tomorrow'. He's also grasped that it ends on the 24th and that the 25th is Christmas Day, although I don't know what he thinks will happen then...

*'Because it's too far to walk'.

Party, party, party

2010-12-17T23:01:00.004+09:00

Last Sunday we held our annual Christmas party. Like last year, I roasted a turkey and prepared a few other things and all our guests brought something to add to the table. People came and went all afternoon but we always had a full house and I think about 30 people came altogether.

As always, H was chief turkey-carver, carefully monitored by K and Holly:

H worked hard throughout the party, clearing up as we went along and helping Emerson with his pasta...

Here, for example, you can see him 'clearing up' the pavlova!

K had a great time, playing to the crowd as always. He's quite the little socialite. I think he really enjoyed himself all afternoon, whether he was reading Bob the Builder books with Chan...

...pulling crackers with Pamela and Shuko...

...or just wandering about looking cute :-)

I just had to include this photo of Lisa apparently reading 'Maisy Big, Maisy Small' to Cally too, especially as I just noticed Cally is playing with a toy helicopter at the same time...

I really enjoyed the day; lots of lovely food and great company, including some people who I hadn't met before. Thanks for coming everyone!

And of course, that's not the only party of the season. The previous weekend I met up with some other 'foreign wives' for a little potluck party, and tomorrow afternoon all 3 of us will be going to K's pre-school Christmas party. This evening H has his work end-of-year party, staying overnight at a hot spring about an hour away from here. Tonight was also the night of the English School Christmas party. At first I thought I'd have to miss it since there was no-one to take care of K, but then I decided to take him along. We had a quiet afternoon so that he'd be able to stay up later than usual, and went along right at the start of the party at 8.00. How uncool. There were a lot of people there but K wasn't fazed at all. He seemed to have a great time, didn't seem overly tired, agreed at 10.30 that it was time to go home and was asleep withing 5 minutes of setting off in the car...

For Mary Beth...

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...who writes one of my favourite blogs, Salt and Chocolate

When I saw these biscuits for sale, I had to buy them to show her. Well, and because I thought they might taste nice too. They did.

Mary Beth also recently wrote about making paper bag monsters with her boys. I had just acquired a large brown paper bag myself (they're not so common in Japan), and thought K might like to make one too. I showed him Mary Beth's picture of her little monsters and he was very excited to do the same thing, even declaring that he had to start with purple circles around the eyes, just like Dieter's...

An early Christmas present

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Recently I commented with envy on the lovely 'opp-shop' (charity shop) finds that Hanna at Craftykin had discovered. Meanwhile, she was interested in the great craft books available in Japan, so we decided to do a little swap. I sent a parcel to her last week but of course, forgot to take photos of what I had included. Luckily it has now arrived safely in New Zealand and Hanna has written a great post about it, with lovely photos, here. Her pictures and comments make it all seem so exciting, even to me who knew what it all was! Thanks Hanna, I hope you enjoy it all.

Monkey Magic

Valentine's Day

Building snowflakes

Spring??

10 month old T

Planet of the monkeys?

Millions of money!

Cheap(er) shipping until the end of January!

Tondo-san

Christmas Day 2011

December days

Happy New Year!

A message from K

First snow

Musical Saturday

The New Car

Update!

A busy week

Happy Hallowe'en!

Autumn Days

6 months old

Health and Sports Day

Toy Kingdom

September scenes

Cooking time!

49 Days

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Happy Anniversary!

Summer 2011: Royal Cornwall Show

The boys

Keeping cool

Getting back into the old routines...

We're back!

These are a few of his favourite things...

Can we make it? Yes we can! (Er, I think so...)

Paternity Leave - Week 2

Another fence post

A Wild Thing?

Paternity Leave - Week 1

Photography by K

Golden Weeks

Giant baby

Hatsu Miya-Mairi

Here's one they made earlier...

Easter

2 little monkeys

A Family Day Out

Hospital life

Introducing...

And the winner is....

What we've been up to lately

No imminent arrivals...

Calling Kate!

A message to raffle entrants

One week to go...

Spring?

Fighting back

Japan Quake Appeal - Raffling Japanese Fabric - CLOSED

Japan Quake Appeal

All's well with us

*SALE*SALE*SALE*

K is 3!

Ups and Downs

A day in the life

I won!

It's time to...

Happy Valentines Day!

One month to go!

Victims of the snow

Sea and Life Museum

You can never have too many boots, right?

The last snow post of the season (I hope...)

Yet another post about snow...

Goodies from New Zealand!

Busy days...

Dinosaur

Back to the usual routine

Still snowy

2010, 2011

Overnight Caramel Walnut Rolls

SALESALESALE