Deck is finished!

The benches are what we had under the window to act as a temporary step after the glass doors were installed last year. They will do for now, and next season we will look for a nice table and benches that can be stowed under the table to save space.

We have had awful weather and a triple-booked (grrr) carpenter, so the fence and the deck made slow progress. What was supposed to be a week's work dragged out for three, but it's finally done barring a final coat of stain and the installation of an electrical socket outside, which they promise they will do some time in the coming week.

The deck is shaded in the morning, but will be in full sunshine by 2pm for most of the summer. That will make it too hot for the middle of the day, but will be lovely for evening meals.

I am really pleased with it - it's only a little diddy deck (2m x 2.6m) but it will fit a table on it and it will be a nice place to sit on sunny days.

The railings will give us somewhere to air our bedding at last! Having got into the habit with futons and apartment balconies, I miss not having anywhere to hang stuff - it just smells so much nicer after a couple of hours out in the sunshine... I don't like that we can see the gravel under the deck so we are thinking about putting some kind of lattice up there to screen it somewhat.

The fence is now complete and it looks great! We had to change the angle of the slats here and there because depending on where you stand, you can see through them. We chose the least visible angles depending on where most people look from, and it has worked out well.

The ground all along the fence is really trodden down and compacted, so I'm going to have to dig it over - again... Last time, hopefully.

Yesterday I bought a mountain of bulbs and I am going to plant them mostly in this part of the garden. I chose blue and white grape hyacinths and small paper-white daffodils to edge the footpath with. In this part of the garden there is no yellow so I also bought three big bags of mixed tulip bulbs in shades of cream, white, pink and nearly red. I also got two bags of the same but white and yellow for the front garden, which is very yellow in the spring, and a few daffodils but they are SO expensive here (about 2 pounds or 3 dollars for two bulbs. Eeek - at least they spread!)

It's nice to have the fence to keep the trees back on our plot and not lurching all over the neighbour's garden. We cut them back a huge amount so hopefully they will thicken up next growing season.

The view from inside the classroom now.
Damage to the front lawn from the timber being stacked there for three weeks. Never mind, we want to rethink this area next year anyway.

More pictures from Sunday

Harry felt a bit better when he got to see the race from a higher vantage point!

"Driving" one of the trucks!

Tasku wanted to see ALL OVER it!

...and drive it!

After the sports day, we all got into buses and went to one of the many beer halls in Sapporo for a "Jingis Kan" lunch - lamb and vegetables grilled at the table. That boy can eat! And he's tiny! Yoshi hates meat, so he ate the veg (raw!) and a lot of rice balls.

Seiju, grilling the meat for our group.
Our table - the meat was an all-you-can eat deal, so no sooner was one platter emptied than another one appeared! (And beer, but I managed slightly less than half a glass!)
Yeay! AT LAST we can reach the rings on the train without taking our feet off the floor! This was a BIG DEAL, let me tell you!Waiting for Seiju at Sapporo station - we'd been to a big bookshop on the way home and I left my jacket there, oops... Seiju very chivalrously went back for it. The kids took the chance to have a rest and a read of their new books.

Seiju's Sports Day

Yesterday it was Seiju's sports day - it was open to families but because it started so early (7:50am - eek!) it wasn't very well attended. We brought Tasuku, Yoshi's friend along because he's pleasant company and sporty.

The highlight of the morning - the relay race. We were the blue team.

"Oh no, I've been beaten by a tiger!" The red team were really no good so it seems they'd decided to dress up and run to detract from their mediocrity, but that was OK, our team was even worse even without the costumes!

Seiju ran last for our team, and by the time he was halfway round the track the race was over, and he was left running around to finish while the equipment for the next event was being dragged out! Still he enjoyed it as this is the first all-out running he's done since his knee operation last winter.

Yoshi crawling along bits of the assault course around the track.

Here comes Tasku! (He's so slight that he barely had to lower his head to get under!)

Made it to the end!

Yoshi and Tasuku helping to wave the flag in support for the relay race. I was just waiting for them to drop it on a runner as they went by... The man there had the same idea and never let go of the pole, avoiding a few nasty incidents!

Harry being a poor sad boy, after he banged into another kid in the bouncy castle and got a bloody mouth. He was OK after a while but he hates the sight of blood so the few drops mixed with a lot of spit freaked him out. He went round telling everyone he was weak from loss of blood! Such a drama queen...

Creative boy

Harry has recently got interested in "sakasama" pictures (right way up/wrong way round pictures.) He has begun to draw his own. Today in Seiju's office, waiting for the sports day to begin, he drew these two pictures:A happy little clown
or...

Turn it upside down and it's a sad little ghost!

A rabbit walking the tightrope?
or

The rabbit falling off the tightrope!

He's only 7 years old, so I think this ability to see detail and to sketch it in a couple of seconds, which is all these doodles took, is pretty amazing!

Handsome boy (?)

A photo of my lovely, gorgeous, handsome elder son. Doesn't he look so grown up and poised? But wait, isn't there something not quite right about that picture?
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Ah! I see.................
At least I never have to trim his toenails. (Ewwwwww!)

Weekend Gardening

It has taken three separate sessions but finally we are getting the fence around the garden completed, and a deck in the corner of the house where I am standing. We had a bit of fencing done two years ago when we had the parking and the front of the school done, then last year when the classroom interior was done, we had another few metres added. This summer it will be complete, and we'll have paid for it all without loans, which we both hate. (Well, the parking bit has a loan but it is nearly paid off!)
The back of the house. Next year I want to widen the gravel as we all walk down the side of the house, then put grass down the middle, and have a narrow bed along the fence, which I hope to plant raspberries and so on along, with strawberries along the front.
Decking materials killing the grass in the front garden! That's OK because it's a weedy mess and next year we want to tackle it again. We seeded this and it was no good. The back lawn is sod and has worked out much better.
I weeded and trimmed all along the bed under the wall, and took SIX rubbish bags off it! The man in the back is the man building the fence.
I also weeded part of the side garden, but got tired and gave up. This summer we had lots of daisies which were very pretty, but they seed like mad, so I spent a long time getting the seedlings out.
Here's the point at which I got fed up and gave up for the day - you can see the ground is GREEN with daisy seedlings!

Forestry Day

Today the boys' entire school (all 75 of them!) went off to the mountains above the dam to take part in some forestry work. They'll get a tour of the dam (including walking the length of the dam INSIDE it - yuck!) and a talk about ecological issues. Then they'll be issued great big saws and told to get on with lopping off the lower branches of the trees to allow light and rain through. Even the six and seven year olds will be doing this! Then they'll have a picnic lunch and finish off with a tree planting session. This is not a token thing - last year they had about ten trees each to plant....

Kiddie Sumo!

Harry saying "AAAA", which is the first sound in Japanese. The lion dog has his mouth open, and is saying "AAAA", too. There is often a pair of statues (not always lion dogs - sometimes giants or other beings) guarding the gates of a shrine or temple.

Yesterday was Respect For The Aged day here, so a public holiday. There was a kiddie sumo competition put on at a local shrine by the Rotary Club, and both kids decided they wanted to take part.

I hadn't realised when we got the letter that it was at the shrine, (occupational hazard of being semi-illiterate...) and then once I'd agreed it was too late to go back on my word. Ah well.

The other lion dog and Harry saying "NNNNN", the last sound in Japanese. Between these sounds, the sum of all knowlege and wisdom is contained, and that is what these are guarding.

Arriving there, within about ten paces, I became a total and utter foreigner. Normally I can go about my life and not feel too conspicuous but yesterday I got stared at and pointed at, and the whole lot of rituals etc were completely alien to me. I understand and join in most aspects of the culture pretty well but Shinto ritual isn't part of it! In a subtle way too, we were not welcome. There was a lot of whispering and pointing that I didn't like, and when we got to the registration table there were two lines, one for pre-registerd kids (ours) and one for on-the-day entries. We lined up at the preregistration table, and told the man our school. He turned to the page and without looking for more than a second, he waved us brusquely away to the on-the-day line. He kept saying "No, your names are not there" and I had to grab the paper and show him my two kids names before he'd agree that we were in fact on the list. This is because he was expecting to see names in Katakana, the script for foreigner's names, and he couldn't see anything except Japanese names in Japanese script (obviously not us, then.) Gah.The torii gate and lanterns leading up to the main shrine building from the road.

The start of the ceremony. Local Rotary Club members are in the blue jackets on the left, and the two priests are up on the mound by the sumo ring with a little altar actually inside the ring.

Swishing that bunch of papers on the stick apparently purifies the ring and the people to enter it...

The kids noticed none of this, they were just racing around, finding their friends and shrieking a lot, just like every other kid there. I was happy to see that this applied during all the Shinto stuff (Sumo is very linked to Shinto, with all the purification rituals etc before each match and bout).

Harry, warming up before his bout!

About to bow to his opponent.
One second before he was pushed out!

Slightly embarrassed loser...

Of course, Sumo is usually played near-naked but for kids they get Judo belts and tie them round the kids' waists so that there is something to grab, and the rules state that there can be no pulling on clothes, only the belts. Beyond that, and no hitting, slapping or hair pulling, there were few rules, and the kids were let push and pull in any way they wanted. There was a big emphasis on the bowing before and after, trying to the very end, and being good winners and losers, which was nice. Every single kid got a bag of snacks whether they won or lost, so as far as my kids were concerned, they both came out winners!

Harry was out in a second! He didn't really get the idea that you have to rush in and grab your opponent, so he sort of skipped round his partner until he got too near the rope edge and was just nudged over it! Yoshi lasted all of a millisecond longer, but his kid seemed to have some Judo techniques so it wasn't surprising. All good fun in rather bad weather - pouring rain by the time it was Yoshi's turn.

Belted up and waiting for his turn.

Yoshi struggling valliantly not to be pushed out.

We had a really busy day yesterday, as we got up earlyish and drove an hour into Sapporo to look at cars at a car show, then hurried back to the Sumo competition in our town, in the middle of which I took Harry to his piano lesson and then picked Yoshi and Seiju up. We went to pick up Yoshi's glasses which had had new lenses put in, then went home for an hour of play for the kids and money talk and plotting for us. THEN back to the car showroom, did all the paperwork, ate dinner out because it was nearly seven o'clock by then, and were home by about 8:30 - way too late for a school night!

A New Car

Seiju's little sewing machine (a two-seater Suzuki Twin!) is really too old and too flimsy to drive in the snow that falls in this area every day during the winter, so we decided that before the next winter sets in, he needs a better car. Paradoxically, when we were living apart and he was commuting home four hours at weekends, it was safer than now. If there was a blizzard on a work day, he could leave his car and walk in, and if it was really bad he didn't come home that weekend. Now that he commutes 45 minutes a day, he must use the car no matter what the weather.

He's been doing lots of research and six months ago had decided on the exact make and model that he wanted, and he's been watching the internet ever since. Last week the car he wanted came up second hand (they don't come up that often as they are newish and still popular) so yesterday we went to look at it. That one was no good, as the engine was rusty but one thing led to another and we found a good car yesterday. It fitted all his criteria, so this afternoon we decided the price that we would be willing to pay if we could haggle the salesman down, and today we did it!

So here's his new car, hopefully for the next few years - a two year old Subaru R2 with an ENORMOUS 660cc engine! Its colour is officially "wine", but we'll make that a muddy pink... We'll get it at the beginning of next month.
Now, this is the bit that alternately makes me very proud of my lovely husband, and also cross with him, and also proud of him...
One of his staff at work got himself into a financial fix as a young man a few years ago, by and ended up going bankrupt. He is now barred from having any loan or any credit card for the rest of his life (strict, here!). He has spent the past few years digging himself out of debt but he can't buy a car now unless its for cash. We thought that Seiju's old car would have little or no trade in value because he's pretty much run it into the ground, so he told the man that he could have it as a gift.

Tonight we were told that it could have been traded in for a quarter of the new car's price. Gahhhh! Seiju looked as sick as a parrot for a few minutes. And I was cross with him for being so free with his possessions. BUT a promise is a promise, and we both agreed that he could not go back on such a big promise that means so much to the couple who are going to get his old car. One of the reasons I fell in love with Seiju is that he is a problem solver - if he sees something that he can fix, he wants to fix it. So what he did was entirely in character. And then tonight he was honourable and agreed with me that a promise cannot be broken because of an error of judgement on our part. So though we have lost out on quite a chunk of discount, I got to see an honourable and kind man in action tonight, and I'm proud to say he's mine.

Haaaa....

I have spent the day half-cleaning the kitchen (which was absolutely revolting) then trying to tame all the papers that hang around our house. I moved two sets of drawers out from under my desk, and put them in the kitchen. Yoshi and Harry now have a drawer each for all their homework sheets that never actually seem to get done and sent back the same day, a drawer for school letters and calendars etc, one for "town" information (pizza flyers and maps to friends houses!), one for pencils and paper and one drawer that I bet no-one else has mixed in with their stationery - a drawer for nori, furikake and ochazuke (seaweed, savoury sprinkles for rice and green tea powder, also for rice!) We always want stuff like that as we eat, so it made sense to have it at the table!

Then I had to deal with the stuff I'd chucked OUT of those drawers, so did that, and then was inspired to sort my own desk drawers out, which have never been properly organised since I put them there a year ago. They have all now been weeded, tidied and labelled.

I've also finished printing the kids' photo sheets for them to write their diaries on. I got about halfway through the holiday photos and ran out of steam. They are all stapled together and in a basket with some of the ticket stubs etc that the kids can stick into the albums too. I'd really like to see them finished and handed in this week.

There are such a lot of jobs hanging over me at the moment, but I do feel better that at least I can find a pen or a stamp when I want one. I also found the savings bond certificate that I'd been thinking I ought to look for over the past six months or more. It was in an entirely unexpected place so I'm glad I never got round to looking for it - it would never have turned up. It's properly filed now and that is a great weight off my shoulders.

Right, to bed! A busy day tomorrow!

Creativity!

Yoshi's great love is Lego. He spends hours setting them up in elaborate situations and then taking an entire card full of pictures. He's even started rudimentary animation, to the point that I want to get some proper animation software for him to try his hand with. Here are a couple of the million pictures I found on my camera today.
Harry's more into paper craft. He spent two days at the after school club painstakingly making this sushi set out of light card and tissues for the rice. It is SO cute, and even just about life size, too.

Sachiko's Baby

Over the summer in England, I finished that baby blanket I was making for Sachiko.

Which was just as well, because she had her baby on Wednesday! We went today to see him and her in the hospital (they stay for five to seven days for a normal birth here, and 10 to 14 for a cesarean!) today and he is sooo cute. No name yet but I am sure we'll find out soon.

He looks TINY but apparently he's 3600g or nearly 8 pounds. She thinks he's big, but compared to Harry... who I thought was small until I saw these pictures..... Such a lot of black hair, too!

Harry got first cuddle!Such a cute babe! Just wish we knew what his name is... Hurry up and decide, Sachiko!

Food Production Expo

This week has been very busy for the kids, particularly Yoshi, as they both went on the annual "School in the Forest" trip for two days on Wednesday and Thursday. Their programme was absolutely packed, ending with a night hike at 9:30pm! As Harry is usually ready for bed at 8, that must have been a bit of a challenge for him. Still, he survived and even enjoyed it. (The night before he'd come into our bed unable sleep for the worry that someone might see him sucking his thumb... I told him just to go to bed and suck it and who would care? That seems to have worked out. Yoshi still takes his blankie and he's a fifth grader!)

Yoshi, classmates and homereoom teacher (in the blue t-shirt) in their booth.

Friday was supposed to be a holiday for the kids, but NHK has been following the school, making a programme about them having their own field, rice paddy and green houses, and they wanted to film the kids making pumkin cookies etc with their harvest. This also coincided with this town's food and lifestyle expo (can you see I am not quite sure what it would really translate as?) Basically this is a farming town with its main products being pumpkins (hard green squash, really) tomatoes and rice, though it's a flower and market garden area too.

Yoshi giving his tour of the booth, being recorded for the local radio station.

The local university hosted the event today (Staturday), which had booths from all kinds of local businesses plus our school, two or three of the local kindergartens (stressing how they did gardening and how healthy their school lunches are), the local dentists' association (brush well after eating healthy foods, and have some xylitol gum!) the city hall recycling centre, and the school meals service. They were all brightly produced, fun, "home made" booths, with lots of hands on stuff such as testing the Ph of your saliva at the dentists' booth, feely boxes of vegetables at the school meals service booth, and home made cookies at our booth.

On stage, holding up the vegetables from the fifth grade plot - back row: sugar beet (they are going to make their own sugar next month), rice, potatoes, sweetcorn, soybeans, mini tomatoes and beef tomatoes. Front row: carrots, zucchini, eggplant, yaakon (no idea what that is in English!) and Yoshi with a pumpkin!

Yesterday was spent making cookies for 300 people and wrapping them, setting up the booth and then rehearsing for the expo interview on stage, which would be filmed by the NHK team on the day. Yoshi was picked up by his class teacher at 12:30 yesterday and didn't get home till after seven. Today he left at 8:15 and we brought him home at nearly 4pm. He had spent all morning helping set up with final bits and pieces, and then he'd been the most popular "guide" round their booth. The kids (only ten of them in their class, remember!) had made posters with all kinds of details about pumpkins from their history, to their development in our area (the most popular brand in Japan was developed here), their botanical classification and their relatives, nutritional fact - you name it, they had posters on it, all bright and clearly written, with lift the flap quizzes throughout. At the end of their presentation the kids gave their audience a cookie and a recipe sheet - all of this produced by the kids themselves.

Harry making a straw frog (with a lot of help!)

Yoshi turned out to be the most popular and efficient guide of them all - he is not afraid of adults, and if he is interested in something then he goes for it all out. He is very earnest and cute when he's in this mode and when we turned up, the head, deputy head and his homeroom teacher all praised his attitude and told us what a great job he'd been doing. He'd actually lost his voice when we went to see him just before 1pm!

Braiding the frog's legs.

The stage presentation bit got later and later, so while we were hanging around waiting, Harry made straw animals at one of the booths that the university students had set up. They also made paper of straw fibres. Harry made a horse and a really good frog but when I came to take pictures tonight, I couldn't find it anywhere... (It must have hopped away!)

The horse - isn't it cute?!

I sometimes hate the Japanese school system, with its tests, rigid learning methods that don't suit Yoshi, and its obsession with filling every holiday with busy work, but today his school excelled itself, and what they did was truly educational for all involved.