Spring Has Sprung

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

It is recognised globally, that the British are known for talking about the weather. Maybe it is to do with the fact that our climate is so variable that there is much to talk about. Its never the same from one day to the next and when I used to work in the school playground, I took a waterproof jacket, hat, scarf and gloves, as well as sunglasses and sun hat. That just about covered anything that our climate could throw at me.

I took some of these photos last week when we had a wonderfully warm, sunny day. Then just as I was about to post the photos, it changed back to Winter again and everything seemed very wet and drab and dreary.

However, today we are experiencing warm sunshine again.

The first two pictures were taken on one of my walks and I couldn't resist taking a photo of the cherry blossom flowers and the forsythia.

So far, I haven't been challenged about taking photos of other peoples' plants but I often wonder if that will happen one day.

This is from a corner that I have in my own garden of Pulmonaria. I am very fond of these little flowers that are among the first to appear after snowdrops and crocus. They hang their little heads, making it impossible for someone like me to get down low enough to take a photo of the underneath. I might never get up again if I was to lie down for a better view.

I have several tubs of miniature daffodils quite near to the house and these do bring cheer as I can look at them through the window if the weather isn't good.

The same with primulas that seem to withstand some neglect and come up time and time again.

Some of you might be wondering about my health. All I can say is, that I am still waiting for a CT scan and am not in any real pain.

Similarly, you might be wondering what became of the extended family in Japan. News from the grandparents tells that they are all reported safe but some of them may have lost homes.

In Tokyo and all the surrounding towns, the electricity is now rationed by power cuts and there isn't the usual selection of staple foods in the shops.

There is still much concern about the Nuclear problems but the good news is, that a person has been found alive and well in the debris, after eight days of searching.

That makes the rescue service seem well worthwhile, doesn't it?

A Natural Disaster.

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

My granddaughters were born in Japan and have memories of a life there before they came to England. They obviously love their Japanese grandparents and are in regular contact via Skype.

We were totally dismayed when we woke up on Friday to the terrible news that a mammoth earthquake, the largest ever to be recorded, had not only shaken Tokyo, but had caused a 30ft tsunami to devastate part of the city of Sendai on the north east coast of Japan.

My ex daughter in law, Kaiko has many relatives in Sendai.

We knew that the grandparents and Kaiko's sister were safe. They work in Tokyo but live in another city just south of it. They had managed to Skype that they were well but that they were very worried about all the outer members of the family, aunties, uncles and cousins.

As all the trains stopped in Tokyo and there was no transport of any kind, Kaiko's sister had to trek a long way to her home and this took several hours.

However, they were safe.

As my granddaughters watched the terrible scenes on TV, (they were everywhere and we really couldn't avoid seeing some of it), they were extremely worried about their grand parents but this morning they talked to them via Skype. Their minds have been put at rest.

As for the relatives in Sendai, the grandparents think they are alright because they shouldn't have been near the sea at that time. However, because there are no phone signals or electricity, there is no communication and there is also the worry about their welfare. Basic things like food and water, not to mention the problem with the power stations in the surrounding areas.

I know that there will be help going out to them from other countries and the Japanese are well able to help themselves as they have had many calamities and recovered from those, but it is a bit chilling for us to see all this in a land where we have family links and where I visited and had very happy memories not so long ago.

I guess Japan will always be a bit close to my heart.

I am so glad my immediate family are in England though.

I have seen the Consultant at the hospital that I attend and I am now waiting for a CT scan. However, they seem very pleased with me and think that I am not at all typical of most people with CUP (unknown primary) and that the terrible statistics of that diagnosis, should not be taken by me. They stressed that I am very unusual in my treatment and recovery and the way I am at present. I am not in pain at the moment and feel quite well.

I am in a good position, they say, so I have to be optimistic.

Chimes

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

I have always loved wind chimes......... Well with a Japanese influence in the family it is no surprise that I have been introduced to them over the years. Now they seem to be popular in England too.

I already had several small ones that I accumulated over the years, as well as a large wooden one that I rescued from a neglected garden that I was once tending.

I quite love the sound of them gently chiming out in the breeze. I find it very soothing.

There was only ever one neighbour who referred to them as noise pollution in a half hearted kind of way but she has moved out of the area now.... not because of my wind chimes, I might add.

Anyway, last Sunday after Church, I was very surprised to be presented with the large chimes in the first photo, from a lovely friend who has just come back from a Cornish holiday.

They have a really lovely mellow sound. She said she thought I would like them!

I have been, and still am very busy looking after Amber and Millie while Sam is in Southampton. It has been an action packed week but my energy levels are quite high and I am only tired by the end of the day, which I think of as normal tiredness.

We have had some lovely conversations, the girls and I....... done spelling revision and looked up things on the net for homework projects and I have taken them in the late afternoons to their after school activities, fed and bathed them and wished they'd go to bed earlier.

They have helped me feed and clean out Ash the rabbit and kept him entertained.

They have spoken to their Daddy on the phone every morning and Skyped every evening, so I think they have had as much of an action packed week as Granddad and I have done.

Sam comes home late on Friday afternoon. He has passed the tests so far this week, though his important exams will be when he goes again to Southampton for the third session, as yet at an unknown date.

I surprised my self by signing up to do two evenings a week in the after school club, starting from next week. If it is too much for me, then I can reduce the hours but I can also go back to my four nights if I feel up to it later on. I will not be going back to lunch times yet as I have to adjust to things very slowly after being at home for so long.

Past Christmases

Hosted by Cecily and Honey Mommy

Photos copyright: Maggie May

As I have said before, this Christmas will be like no other because I don't know what to expect or how I will feel after chemotherapy. I have to be at the hospital by 8.15 am to start the treatment on Tuesday. My daughter and the grandsons will be here this Sunday and we are hoping to have a chicken roast on Monday just in case I feel too ill to eat over Christmas. I will enjoy a glass of wine with it as I don't suppose I will be allowed to drink or even feel like it from the next day onwards.

So I have been looking through old photos of Christmases past. The younger grandson in the above picture put on two Christmas hats.He must have pinched the second one from his brother. He certainly had a triumphant look on his face.

This one was taken a good few years ago when the oldest granddaughter received a microphone for Christmas and she practiced being a diva for days. She was only here for a short time and had to go back to Japan again after that. It always caused me great distress to say goodbye.

Here she is again showing off....... the same Christmas.

The picture below shows the wonder of Christmas to a small child (same one again) looking at the lights. I think this one was taken when they lived in Japan.

They are flying out to see their other grandparents on Christmas Eve. They will be sadly missed. However when they are here, the other grandparents miss them too, so it seems that one or the other of our families are going to be sad some of the time. Can't be helped.

Photostory Friday is hosted by Cecily.

To Kaiko

When I think back to that first time that Sam introduced you, things seemed really good.

I was happy for him to marry a girl from Japan...... after all, he had been living there for ten years, so it seemed a very natural thing for him to do. I was very open to your culture. I liked you from the start and looked forward to your visits.

So what has gone wrong? Is there no hope for our relationship now?

This separation is not what I wanted and not what I'd hoped for.

We shared the same house for nearly a year and there were obviously difficulties. Two women living in close proximity, sharing the same kitchen and the same bathroom.

Both of us at the opposite ends of the age range, from different cultures and both used to doing things a different way.

The differences in our temperaments were vast. By English standards I am rather reserved but by Japanese standards I must have come across as a demonstrative person who could change from cool to hot..... with a whole range of temperatures between. But I never bore a grudge.

You hid your feelings from me and your lovely dark eyes were like pools of unfathomable water and I could never understand what you were really thinking or feeling.

But I was there for you.

There is one thing that I want to thank you for, or rather two things......those beautiful granddaughters who have given me immense pleasure. From the moment I set eyes on Amber and Millie, I fell in love with them and I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.

They are like two little rose buds who could so easily be crushed before they have a chance to open into flower. I do so want to see them flower and mature.

Kaiko......... Its the blog name that I chose for you because I liked it. The name means Forgiveness.

Can you forgive me for upsetting you? Maybe you will in time, but it may not be in my lifetime.

Wooden Dolls

Hosted by Cecily and Kelli

I received my first Kokeshi doll (the large black one at the back of the group) as a present, when my son Sam was living in Japan. They are traditional dolls that originate in Kokeshi and they are made locally out of wood. Each doll has a pedigree and a name that means something.

Harry and I eventually went to Japan and after a lovely holiday staying with the family, I bought a few more dolls to add to the collection. My original one had looked quite lonely on its own. These dolls were being sold all over the place in Japan.

From then on, whenever my son came back to visit, he bought one or two Kokeshi dolls and my collection grew!

When I first started collecting these dolls, they were virtually unheard of where I live but I am surprised to see that many local shops now sell them. The Orient has certainly arrived in my city in a big way!

I have always been interested in Babushka dolls ............ Russian dolls that fit one inside another. When I was little I had come across a set when I visited someone's house and it seemed fascinating to find one doll inside another doll, inside another and so on until the tiniest one emerged. They were really exotic and unheard of in my locality.

These dolls have also stormed our city and there seems to be no need to go to Russia to get a set of them now. Most of mine came from charity shops, though some have a doll or two missing from inside!

Have you got a collection of anything that you want to share?

Photostory Friday is hosted by Cecily.

Freedom At A Price

Once again it is time to write Portrait of Words, which is a monthly challenge to write a fictional story about a given theme. You could go to Jeff B's Blog and look at the photos. I do not use the photos in my stories.

The March story had to be about a trendy boy in his twenties, feature a coach with a Japanese background, a piano, a dentist and a rusty bag of screws. Brilliant!

Only in his early twenties, Tom Berry knew that he was really lucky to have found a sponsor to send him to Tokyo for two weeks. This seemed to be beyond his wildest dreams. He was excelling in his piano playing and he was a good singer too. He had played in several English cities and had proved to be popular. This was to be his first tour overseas. A different culture. A different race, on the other side of the World.

Tom flew from Heathrow to Narita and was met by Miho Tanaka, who was the representative of the firm who had sponsored him.

She gave a short bow, produced a business card and ushered Tom towards a luxury coach that was to take him the two and a half hour journey into Tokyo.

Miho was a typically slim, petite Japanese woman in her thirties. After the first courteous greeting and then the small talk, they relaxed into the plush seats and into an easy silence.

Tom had been travelling for a long time as his plane journey had been twelve hours long, but he had spent hours travelling to Heathrow before he even started the flight. It had been mid day when he boarded the plane in England and now it was first light in Japan. The excitement had kept him awake on the plane, so now he was feeling jet lagged.

In between dozing, Tom stole glances at Miho when he thought she wasn't looking, but he knew she had been looking at him and had pretended to be shy and diverted her eyes when she realized he had noticed.

Not long into his tour, Tom developed a gnawing toothache that threatened the whole trip. He had appeared on stage in Tokyo for three nights when it first started to bother him. Miho had soon found a dentist for him and he was surprised at the difference between Japanese and English dentistry. This dentist took out the old filling and made an impression of the hole that was to be filled. The filling would be tailor made and fitted at the end of several visits. He left his first visit with a temporary filling and his pain had gone. On his last appointment at the dentist, Tom was very impressed with his new white filling that was cemented in to the cavity. He was really grateful to Miho for finding him such a good dentist.

Most of the audience at the theatre where he was playing, seemed to be made up of what looked like schoolgirls in white socks and short skirts and they tried to mob him afterwards. He was proving to be quite popular.

Tom was seeing Miho regularly and she seemed very eager to meet him in sushi bars and to accompany him for a drink after his gigs.

Although she was a good deal older than he was, Tom found Miho really attractive, especially after all those school girl fans. They had slept together several times but Tom realized that this relationship wasn't going anywhere and he had tried to cool it.

Miho wouldn't take no for an answer. She turned up everywhere that Tom went, whether it was at the theatre or in a bar - whether alone or with people from his sponsor group, Miho was always there. She shadowed him wherever he went, so he began to ignore her.

Her eyes were dark and steely. He had no idea what was going on behind them. They could be soulful one minute and look cold and distant the next. All Tom knew was that he had to get away from her. He felt he was being stalked. He needed his freedom. He was young.

She had told him she was going to come to England to be with him. She was going where he was going and for the first time in his life Tom felt suffocated and disturbed.

The night before he was due to go home, Tom spent the evening in an English bar that he'd frequented over the last few days and lots of British people as well as other foreigners spent time there. All foreigners were known as Gaijin to the Japanese. The exact meaning of the word is outside people.

Laughing and drinking with some people who had befriended him, Tom looked up.......... to find himself looking straight into those deep pools that happened to be Miho's eyes.

He walked over to her.

"You know its my last night,"He stated. "Tomorrow I fly back to England."

Miho showed him her ticket. She was flying too. She was looking for a sponsor so that she could stay there a long time.

He took her arm and they walked out into the night. Tom kissed her in a stairway and Miho leant against a door, while Tom pressed his body against hers. The door started to open and they stopped and looked at the steps that went down into a kind of cellar.

"Let's go and find a place to be alone," Tom suggested as they made their way down the steps and Miho eagerly went down into the cellar, following him.

There was not much light down there and there was nobody about. A window at street level let in enough light for Tom to see the surroundings and it seemed to be a place where carpentry items were stored. He noticed saws and hammers and nails.

He drew Miho towards him and she surrendered to his kisses.

With a swift movement of his right arm, he picked up a bag of rusty screws and clutching the bag firmly in his hand, he smashed it into the back of Miho's head.

She gave a gasp and her legs crumpled slightly. Her eyes reflected horror and disbelief when she realized what was happening and she started to struggle. By then Tom had snatched a hammer which he smashed into her head with all his strength.

She crumpled down onto the floor like a rag doll.

Tom slowly walked out of this place into the Tokyo night. He felt free again.

Time To Discard These?

authorblog: Weekend Wandering

This week, David asks us, "Do you have an item of clothing that you haven't worn for a year?"

Well, yes, several if I'm honest, though I do generally have a policy to to get rid of anything that I haven't worn for a year. Some things I have though have never been worn. Why are they in the wardrobe then? What right do the have to be there at all?

There are three things hanging up against the wardrobe in this picture. The first is a waistcoat made out of silk from an ancient kimono and was a present from Japan. It is lovely to look at but there is something wrong with the way the armholes pucker up at the back. So if I was to wear it, there would have to be major surgery on it. Like wise the second waistcoat. My mother gave me that one and I think it was made in South America and I like the colour and design but once again, there is something about the way it hangs around the back of the armholes. Now I have put this down in writing, I feel that there must be something wrong with the way my arms or back makes it hang. Obviously I should not be wearing waistcoats but strange to think that other people give them to me!

I don't know why I have them still. I just seem to not be able to bear get rid of them. I have just been waiting to get them fixed!

The third thing is a yukata (kind of Japanese dressing gown) that I bought when we visited Japan in the year 1999. I have had several given to me as presents and obviously cannot get to wear several at a time. Also in England, for much of the year these flimsy things are too cold and so I need to put on my warmer, cosy one.

What am I going to do with these three items after this post has been published, you may well ask?

Well they are going back in the wardrobe of course! In the meantime, if you bump into anyone wearing these articles of clothing, you will be able to say, "Hi Maggie May, I recognize those clothes, so it must be you!

Our Japanese Invasion - and how we survived it

"Grannie, get out of this house, Grandad, get out of that chair, it's my house, my chair!"

Three year old Millie is going through a possessive phase at the moment and thinks everything belongs to her! Only six months ago Harry and I were living in our fairly large town house by ourselves. Pensioners, apart from my two part time jobs, living a quiet life, only pleasing ourselves, with nothing to hurry for, or worry about, in our lives (quite boring really!) - apart from the RAT, that is, but that's another story!

In August we suffered an invasion from the Orient! My son Sam and his Japanese wife Kaiko, five year old Amber and of course Millie, came to live with us. Coming from a bilingual family Amber and Millie could understand English well enough but as they had never lived here before they only spoke Japanese which made talking to them extremely frustrating as they could understand me but not I them! They soon learned not to speak to me in Japanese!

Deciding to 'up sticks' and build a life over here, they came almost like refugees with most of their possessions crammed into just two suitcases.

Amber settled into school very well and both children started speaking English at an incredible rate.

I would like to be able to write "and we all lived happily ever after" but this is no fairy tale. We are a real family with real people, each with individual needs and habits. At first, we all thought it was like a wonderful holiday but after a month or so, Harry and I felt shellshocked and felt a little bit like it wasn't our home anymore. We all felt claustrophobic, except for Amber and Millie who loved all the extra space they had in a large English house after living in fairly cramped conditions in Japan where space is a premium. Harry and I are really pleased to have the family with us and adore the children. Following some initial heated differences of opinion we have settled into a pretty good style of communal living and maybe after six months we are now much more tolerant of each other. We have grown used to waiting for the bathroom, finding a slot to do the cooking in our kitchen and sharing the car. Occasional nights when the children are wakeful means we are all wakeful, and crotchety the next day. Did we really mange to survive sleepless nights when our children were young? Suddenly we felt our age.

When I think about it, I feel we have really achieved something and I am very pleased with the last six months. There is no way Harry or I could have survived that long with our in-laws, not even for a fraction of that time, without a murder or two taking place!

We might need to get along well for another six months, but hopefully Sam will get the job he wants, buy the house around the corner and that will be the ideal condition for all of us. Until then we are quite enjoying our situation.