Happy Sunday

Seiju was up really early this morning and checked that my computer had backed up properly during the night (it had, safe again, phew! Won't leave it so long next time...) and had already installed Word and Excel by the time I got up at 8:30. I have a Mac and have resisted getting them but it means I can't read anyone else's stuff nor transfer the many hundreds of worksheets I have on my old computer. I can get started on that now.

We then went off for a long walk together, looking at houses and gardens along the way, looked in on some flower sales and then went to our local "michi no eki" (roadside station) for a cup of coffee and a look round their farmer's market. I found rhubarb plants for sale!! I grabbed three and will plant them this afternoon. We had a nice chat about the upcoming (as yet not fully decided) reform and family stuff, it was lovely. Then walked back to the boys.It was COLD and windy this morning when we set off for our walk but by the time we were heading back the weather was getting better and better, and by the time lunch was ready, it was warm enough to eat out on the deck. First time this year!
My lunch, beef sauteed in picante sauce with yellow and red peppers, mushrooms, onions and kidney beans, cabbage salad with R/Y peppers, carrots, daikon and cucumber, strawberries, and baachan's freshly dug bamboo shoots just lightly boiled in salted water with mayo drizzled on the top. Hokkaido bamboo shoots are really thin compared to Honshu ones which are more like mini tree trunks! These thin ones taste and feel like asparagus but with a very slightly bitter, buzzy feeling to the tongue in them.
Yum! The kids had sausages on sticks, veggie sticks (raw for Harry, boiled for Yoshi who can't eat raw veggies as they make him itch) and rice balls as well as the other things (that they mostly didn't touch).
Are there too many computers in this house?? Yoshi is using two at the same time! He's got two different games going and is sort of coordinating them (not sure how... he was trying to explain but I didn't get it...)
And for those of you who think I am superwoman - THIS is what happens to the house when I go out for walks or do gardening, which is what I am about to do as soon as my after-lunch coffee is over! (That dead body on the sofa is my lovely husband. He adds to the decor. Not.)