At the weekend

Another weekend, another park. This one is halfway up Mount Daisen. Saturday was overcast but very hot and humid, but it was a lot more comfortable up there.

It was the first time we'd taken K there (although I did once go with Lily, eons ago...) and it was great. He could manage most of the play equipment, even if we doubted that he could, and there were lots of slides, his favourite thing at the moment.

Lots of wide open spaces to run about in too. I suspect we'll be heading up there to try to escape from the heat quite often in the next month. The restaurant we stopped at for lunch might see us again too...

Although it was cloudy all day on Saturday, it didn't rain. Today started bright and sunny so I hung out some washing, but it was raining by lunchtime...

Nevertheless, H got a lot of weeding done and tended to his vegetables and climbing plants. Sadly, the climbing plants are not as enthusiastic about their mission to create shade for us as we had hoped. At this rate there won't be any shade on the patio until August, when K and I won't even be here, so I bought a sudare, a kind of screen made of reeds, and H and I rigged it up this morning. It's not really big enough but it's not bad, and for 500 yen I think it was a sound investment.

And after much um-ing and ah-ing, and disregarding of parental advice, I bought some patio furniture. We've actually got 4 chairs, and cushions to go on them, but for now I just set out 2. I intend to sit out there and have my breakfast each morning, depending on the weather and what time K gets up...

Meanwhile, K was in training for some footie with Grandad later in the summer...

Today also brought a tricycle for K! We have collected lots of points from the bags of nappies that K uses, and sent them off for a tricycle months ago. It was finally delivered this morning and we took it out for a little ride to the shrine and H's parents' house.

It has a handle at the back for an adult to push, which also controls the steering. And to K's delight it also has a squeaky horn! He's looking rather concerned here, but he loves it and wanted to bring it back into the house to ride too.

After taking this picture I peeled off the 'Goon' (nappy brand. I know.) sticker, and H stuck it on his shirt. And there it stayed until H noticed it in the mirror of the restaurant toilets at lunchtime! Hee hee...

H's parents weren't in when we passed by their house, but the cat (who they've been feeding every day for at least a year but is still considered a 'stray') was there. K enjoyed stroking him and I think the cat liked it too.

A new addition to the family?

No, no, I'm not pregnant. Settle down.

Lately K can be found chanting 'Da-ddy, Mu-mmy, Ba-by, Ba-tty!', over and over again and with great excitement.

'Baby' seems to refer to himself, but who on earth is 'Batty'?

I wonder if he's a friend of Eddie and Abbley-Dabbley...

Colours of summer

Summer seems to be here, although 'officially' we have just entered the rainy season. There were a couple of wet days earlier this week but yesterday and today have been bright, hot and quite humid. Driving back to town just after lunch, I saw a roadside temperature display which read 33 degrees...

When there is some wind, K loves watching this spin around. It was a present from H's relatives.

No, it's not jam, although it did put me in the mood for some lemon curd. We put dollops of this lovely gel into Ziploc bags (taped shut too, just in case...) and then K enjoyed squishing them together and seeing how the colours mixed and changed. I found this idea, called Rainbow in a Bag, on Jo's blog, A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That, ages ago and she originally got it from The Artful Parent. Shall I now pass it on to you?

Mix a cup of corn starch, 1/3 of a cup of sugar and 4 cups of water in a saucepan. Heat it and stir until it thickens, then remove from the heat and stir a bit more. Divide the mixture into 3 and colour it (red, yellow and blue), then let it cool. Put 2 spoonfuls each (or in our case, 'a dollop') of red and blue in one bag, red and yellow in another, blue and yellow in a third and all three colours in the last bag. Then squish! I forgot to take pictures of the results (....) so you'll just have to believe me that they were really quite beautiful.

The rice fields are full of water and lovely and green now, and we often see herons and egrets coming to feast on the frogs and tadpoles. We also spotted a snake close to a metre long yesterday - on our lawn!

At the weekend - part 2

It won't be long until it becomes really hot and humid here and I become reluctant to leave the comfort of air-conditioning. So for now I'm keen to get out and do stuff while the weather suits me. Following on from our little play at the beach on Saturday, we went to a little petting zoo on Sunday.

We went there with K once before, but he was too small to enjoy the playground then. Not this time though...

I hovered over K while he climbed up this laddery thing, but he did do it All By Himself, despite it wobbling on its chains every time he moved. K climbed up and over the blue pole and then stood there looking very pleased with himself, pointing out to everyone what he'd just done.

Then it was time to visit the animals.

Once again, the goats were viewed purely from outside the enclosure. I saw the evil little creatures knock over a boy about K's age and so felt completely vindicated in my decision.

The guinea pigs were a whole different story (as you would expect...). K returned to them 3 or 4 times throughout the afternoon.

No proper pigs this time though, only the guinea variety, due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Kyushu.

Plenty of kangaroos though...

... and sleepy dogs lazing in the sun.

Lately K is very interested in driving so we had a little go on the ride-on dinosaur. I operated the foot pedal and K steered. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more...

And finally, something completely unrelated.

I woke up this morning, just before 7, to find K standing next to our bed. Holding an onion.

At the weekend

As you can see, finding a spot on the beach last Saturday was not a big problem.

This beach is the nearest one to our house, less than 5 minutes in the car. I like beaches more like this one really, with cliffs and rock-pools, but I won't complain about having a big stretch of clean, fine sand on our doorstep.

K enjoyed paddling in the sea; see how his trousers get wetter and wetter in each photo. There was a bit of playing in the sand too, but the most popular activity was definitely scooping and pouring water, using his new watering can and bucket...

By the way, these photos of K are post-haircut :-)

After the previous hair-cutting debacle, I was a bit nervous about doing it again and put it off until I couldn't bear to be asked if K was a girl one more time. I was also very careful not to cut off too much (evidently...) and I think the result is, well, acceptable. That's all I ask.

Dentist - done!

If you've been reading this blog for a while you may have heard that I've been going to the dentist virtually every Tuesday afternoon.... since December. That's half a year! Even by Japanese standards, where a simple filling takes several visits, that's a long, long time.

Finally, after having a tooth taken out, a root canal, a couple of little fillings and lots of cleaning, I'm done. Hurray!

Is it very strange that I didn't really mind going too much? Most of the time it didn't hurt, and I got to sit back and read my book in the waiting room, or while waiting in the chair for my turn to come around again. It was one of the few times in the week where I could just sit still and not feel that I ought to be doing something else...

What will I do with my Tuesday afternoons from now on? Oh, the possibilities...

In the shop now!

Some of the fabrics I have recently added to the shop, including a new Little Red Riding Hood one, this time in a lovely linen blend! I'm particularly keen on the super-cute musical cats, and the yellow candy and cake print, but of course I love them all :-)

Which one do you like best?

Garden update

Everything is looking quite green out there now including the weeds, although H has been working hard on that. The lawn, which we laid in May last year, has greened up nicely after the brown winter months and the lines between the squares of turf are becoming less and less noticeable.

In this photo you can see some planters along the edge of the patio. They contain morning glory seedlings which are under orders to grow up and across that net to provide some shade. There is a second row below the patio, planted directly into the ground, so hopefully enough of them will thrive to create a comfortable environment to sit outside in.


Looking back from the other side you can see that The Tree has grown a lot this spring. (I just looked it up and discovered that it's a Sawtooth Oak in English (kunugi in Japanese) and that it's described as one of the fastest-growing trees that you can find!). It's a bit hard to tell in this picture but the rice fields behind our garden have been planted now too.

From the bottom corner of the garden you can see lots of nice green camellia leaves, and a couple of roses flowering. They were rescued from Tim's garden when his house was due to be demolished, and seem to have taken to their new home quite well.

The Japanese garden at the front of the house is quite green and shady now. All I need now is the time to sit in the engawa, look out of those big windows on the right of the photo and enjoy it!

Just out of shot on the right there is some bamboo, next to the front door. New shoots which were just pushing through a few weeks ago are now up to the roof! I really like it but there is the concern that it'll pop up where we don't want it, like in the middle of the path or even through the house foundations!

As well as weeding and planting morning glories, H has been busy with the little vegetable patch too. He pulled up the old broccoli plants, but left the canola/rape/na-no-hana. It's all gone to seed now and it's making a nice little snack for all the little birds around here. We've got 2 cherry tomato plants, a couple more broccoli plants and a cucumber which appeared to have died but now seems to have popped up again a bit further along the row. H also planted some corn which has just come up so hopefully we'll have our own supply this year!

No rest for the wicked

Ever wondered what the inside of your sewing machine looked like? Ever wondered what would happen if K was left unattended for a minute or so? The following photo answers both of those questions...



Running down the hall in response to a loud crash I firstly found K, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and then my sewing machine hanging off the desk by the cable. I switched it on and the light came on, so hopefully it still works...

All this happened during so-called Nap Time. K has barely napped at all over the last couple of weeks (except at day-care and when H's mum is looking after him....), and now won't even just stay in his cot and rest like he used to. Instead he kicks the cot away from the wall, opens the little storage door and slides out, free to play with the stereo or wander downstairs.


Today I thought I'd tire K out by taking him to the local Mother and Toddler group (playing outside) and to the park, including a picnic lunch, but it seems that the only one feeling sleepy in the afternoon was me. As well as the sewing machine incident, I found K outside on the patio (having unlocked and opened the patio doors) while I was hanging out the washing this morning and later spotted a little traffic jam on his wooden car slide:


That's the 'B' key from this computer, prised off while I was washing the dishes, and a nut used to keep the legs on the kitchen table....

K has also figured out how to unlock the baby gate keeping him in the main living area, something which a lot of adult visitors find challenging. For now we've replaced it with a fence you have to climb over and all is well again, but once K figures out he can just push a chair to it and climb over I don't know how I'll get through the day! It has been suggested to me that full run of the house and the end of naps mean that it's time to start pre-school...

Still here!

Once again I have got out of the blogging routine.

The main reason this week was my not feeling at all well since The Air Show Drenching. I had a strange collection of symptoms including high temperature, fainting, sore throat, and aching neck but as of yesterday I am officially Better. The weather mirrored how I felt - the grey, wet weather continued from Sunday to Thursday, but today we have been back to sunny blue skies.

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week K went to nursery for the day. I was working as usual on Tuesday but, for once, had nothing on in the afternoon and I was running a teacher-training workshop on Wednesday with, again, nothing planned for the afternoon. I'd been looking forward to those afternoons for ages, with ideas of clothes shopping, relaxing at cafes and catching up on odds and ends at home running through my head. Instead I spent them congratulating myself on surviving the morning and lying on the sofa watching TV. It was good that I had that free time to rest, but it was still rather disappointing to spend it that way...

The previous week wasn't much better for Getting Things Done. K didn't nap at all on any of the days that we were at home alone together, or even stay in his cot for more than 5 minutes before escaping out and reappearing downstairs. He also figured out how to unlock the safety gate at the living room door, so I was spending most of my time chasing after him all over the house, trying to prevent him getting his little hands on things he shouldn't...

Now, however, we have a new fence to keep K out of harm's way (although the napping hasn't improved much) and I'm feeling fine again, so it's time to Do Stuff!

Note to self

For future reference, do not go to the local Air Show on a rainy day (or, crucially, a day where it looks like it may possibly rain) unless:

a) All members of the party are fully equipped for the weather including (but not limited to) raincoats, waterproof trousers, Wellington boots, umbrellas and well-protected bags and

b) All members of the party can be relied upon to walk unaided for the duration of the event without the need or desire to be carried (occasional lifting to provide a better view may be granted an exception, at the discretion of the senior members of the party).

Failure to abide by these guidelines may result in soggy shoes and sodden feet, lots of laundry, chills and headaches, aching necks, shoulders and arms, and a story which will probably be amusing after a few days.

*An aside*
While the chances of him reading this are even lower that of me staying up past ten o'clock tonight, I would like to say a thousand thank yous to the be-suited gentleman who was leaving the air show as we arrived and, on spotting K bundled up in my raincoat while I was still wearing it, kindly gave us his small umbrella. Thank you sir.

And so to bed.

Tottori Flower Park

Last Sunday we went for a little day out to the Tottori Flower Park, which means that I can now bore you with endless pictures of K and of flowers. I will try to be restrained...

The park was the largest flower park in Japan when it opened 11 years ago. It covers about 50 hectares, equivalent to about 11 Tokyo Domes - large areas in Japan always seem to be measured in Tokyo Domes! At the centre of the park is a heated dome housing tropical plants...

... and around the main area runs a covered walkway, about a kilometre in length. The walkway is level but the park is not, so that sometimes you are at ground-level and other times you are in the tree-tops.

We took a picnic lunch and ate it at the top of the Flower Hill, with lovely views of Mount Daisen, now completely free of snow. The Flower Hill is replanted throughout the year so that it is always full of one particular flower in bloom, and at the moment it is a mass of poppies...

Until K was born I'd only been to the Flower Park a couple of times, but in the last 2 years I think we've been four times. It's not far from home, not expensive and is not usually very busy; it has lots of space for little ones to run around safely and nice areas to picnic on, oh, and there are lots of lovely flowers!

Our timing wasn't great on this visit though. Saturday marked the start of their Rose Festival but, due to a colder than usual season, there weren't many roses in flower yet. The previous big attraction, the tulips, had pretty much finished so overall there were not as many flowers as I'd hoped.

There were lots of flowers in the dome though, and in the Floating Garden. The spaces between the walkways and flower beds are filled with water, with lots of big koi swimming around...

K's favourite part was probably watching the Flower Trains - actually little tractors disguised as locomotives pulling carriages for tours of the park. There are two running around the park all day, so every half hour or so K would announce 'Choo choo!'...

Outside of the ticket gates, on the way back to the car park, there is a shop selling local produce where H spotted rhubarb! I've never seen it in the supermarkets here and a lot of Japanese people seem to have never even heard of it. I snapped some up and made a crumble on Sunday night. H wasn't too keen but I wasn't offended - all the more for me :-)

Flower festival

Last Saturday was the Flower Festival at our nearby temple, honouring Buddha's birthday. Most people around here are pretty laid back about religion and will go to Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and Christian churches depending on the event. Our local Shinto shrine has been run by H's family for generations but that didn't stop both his brothers getting married in a church or his dad coming over to take us to the Flower Festival.

You can't really tell in these pictures, but there was a small statue of Buddha standing in a bowl of sweet tea under this little flower-decorated canopy. Everyone took it in turns to scoop up a little of the tea and pour it over the statue.

K had a go too, and even the priest was taking photos of him!

After the tea-pouring we each drank a tiny cup of the very sweet tea and were given a snack cake to take home with us.

According to some of my students, Buddha's birthday was actually last month and according to my diary it's next Friday. Whenever it is, Happy Birthday Buddha!

Golden Week round-up

Everyone's been back at work for a week or more now, so I think that I have to accept that Golden Week is over :-)

We mainly stayed close to home, avoiding the crowds and enjoying the good weather with friends and family. Along with our day at the beach, one of the main events was a barbecue here with friends old and new.


Meiko and David were visiting from New Zealand, Jason and Junko live here in Yonago and Marvin and Ikuno have just moved here from Australia. Between the 8 of us, we have 6 little children so it was quite a lively afternoon...

We also met up with H's uncle, visiting from Hiroshima, one evening and spent another evening at home with Heidi and Lisa playing board games, drinking wine and eating lots of yummy things (including locusts. Not really sure if they should be categorised as 'yummy' though...).

H's mum looked after K one afternoon, so H and I went out for lunch and a movie. We've failed dismally to do that every month, as I resolved back in January, but that just made this day all the more enjoyable.

H did some work in the garden and I got some more fabric for the shop, and we also had a morning at the park...

It was a lovely sunny day and K was finally able to wear the outfit I'd made for his birthday!

He loves going through the big undulating wire-tunnely thing (above), but always wants to hold my hand on the slopes. This time he did all by himself, and he went through a little tunnel that turns into a slide for the first time too.

After that there was no stopping him and he even climbed up to the top of this net by himself, with me hovering worriedly in the background...

That was the last day of Golden Week for us, but in the holiday spirit we took H's mum out for dinner on Sunday night for Mothers' Day. Then on Monday it was H's birthday and we went out for dinner again, plus presents and cheesecake at home too...

In the garden

The azaleas are in full bloom now. Azaleas are the official flower of this city and you can see them all over the place, but these ones are in our back garden.

Last autumn we bought a couple of little broom plants, hoping they'll grow up and fill in a space that looks right into the neighbour's front door. Not much growth yet, but we do have some lovely flowers now...

A while ago H and I rigged up some bamboo poles supporting a net over the patio area. With luck these little morning glories will grow up the poles, spread across the net and provide some shade so we can actually sit out there on a sunny day.

Round by the front door the tanuki is keeping guard over some little bamboo shoots that have just started to, well, shoot.

Overall, everything is looking so green now (sadly, this includes weeds...). The lawn is greening up nicely and everything is covered in fresh new leaves (except The Stick). A couple of little plants that we put in last autumn don't seem to have survived the winter but, on the other hand, a rose we got from Tim is about to flower! In the vastly over-named Vegetable Patch, the na-no-hana/rape/canola has finished flowering and has all gone to seed, and we have a few new additions: 2 mini tomato plants, 2 more broccoli plants and 1 lone cucumber plant. Wouldn't want to get carried away now....