Reform, End of Day Ten.

I was out all day doing my last day of Swine Flu teaching (every class got an extra two hours so as to have time in hand in case we have to close during the winter) which I did in the local community hall. It went really well. I had three two-hour sessions with mainly bigger kids so it was good because they are all more able to do stuff for themselves. We had about 45 minutes of reading and writing work, then made ziplock ice cream which worked brilliantly every time, and then played some refresher games covering the language they've been doing recently. In the last two classes, I had three girls who come twice a week, so we made fresh spring rolls with rice paper, shredded vegetables, ham and egg. They all enjoyed it which surprised me! Everyone had two big rolls each.

Now I am exhausted, the house is a mess, but I'M ON HOLIDAY!!! Yes, I know I had some days off last week but somehow they weren't very restful. (Not that these next ones are going to be, either...)

Right, on to the reform stuff!

Today more framing of the walls was done. It's not such a big change as there has been a lot of fiddly stuff done.This is our room, looking at the storage under the stairs. To the left is a space for a big cupboard with hanging space. In the middle span at the bottom there's an open space for a very small futon cupboard. The space under the steps will all be available but I'll have to squish the futons up to get them in, then unfold them once they are in place.
This is the spare room, no storage space at all. The new wood is making a wall where there used to be an alcove.
The toilet is full of glass wool and supplies right now!
Harry's room. The big open span is to take a sliding door. His room has a bite taken out of it to accommodate the toilet, but there's a cupboard and quite a bit of room behind the loo. It extends to the vertical wood behind the right-most roll of glass wool!
The laundry corridor, for want of a better description. Window for light and ventilation. Hanging bars towards the window, and then there's a big shallow cupboard for supplies.
This is the cupboard. Lovely! Very wide but not deep so nothing gets lost.
This is Yoshi's room's storage. To the right is an oshiire, the standard depth to take futons, though Yoshi will have a bed. It will have hanging rails and then we'll put storage drawers in the bottom. In the middle is his tokonoma or alcove to display special things. He has a sword and stand given to him by Jiichan plus a few other things he wants to display properly. His door will be a normal hanging door on the far left.
The connecting wall between Yoshi's and Harry's room.
The loft. I am still a bit scared to go up because the access is just one rickety, very high ladder. I went up the ladder but didn't dare go off into the loft in case I kicked the ladder down... This is the wall around the staircase. It's going to block a lot of the light from the one tiny window. Sigh... Apparently it has to be this high, so that's that.

Other things today were a workman firing a nail into the mains electricity and shorting it out! Lucky he didn't hurt himself. When I got home one half of the house still had no current but it was fixed within half an hour or so. One of the design staff came round this morning to ask about things like minor fittings such as shelves etc but I had no time to answer her as I was getting lunch boxes ready for Harry and me, and sending Yoshi out to another 13 hour rehearsal day, and trying to remember what it was I'd forgotten to pack for my teaching day, so she said she'd come back tomorrow. Now I have actually got to sit down and think this out.

Reform Progress, End of Day Nine.

Another day of rapid progress! We actually had a bright, hot sunny day today, the first of the season really.

The floor took a couple of hours to finish this morning, and then they moved right on to putting up the timbers for the internal walls.This will be the doorway to our room (centre) and the stairway to the storage room.
In our room they had to replace one window as it was fixed, and apparently now all windows have to open. I like this style as you can have the window open even when it's raining and mostly the rain doesn't come in.
Standing by the window and looking back into our room.
This is the corridor - a bit of a waste of space, except that it allows for a window for cross breezes, and this will also turn into a laundry hanging space. There's also a shallow cupboard for cleaning stuff and towels.
Standing by the window in Yoshi's room.
Standing in the open space looking into Harry's room, with the toilet space carved out on the right.
This is where the stairs will go up to the storage space. The window has been cut out but the window itself hasn't arrived yet. There's only one window up there, just to allow the exchange of air.
The storage room is coming on really well now. The insulation on the walls is now in, and the floorboards are in (not the finished flooring though). The uprights will become a low wall to stop us falling down the stairs!

Reform, Lunchtime on Day 9

I couldn't take any pictures yesterday evening because by the time we got up there it was dark, and they 've got all the electricity cables hanging about on stalks which I wasn't too keen on touching! Then this morning I didn't get up early enough to take pictures before the workmen came, so I had to wait till their lunch break.
The flooring is now completely done throughout the second floor, with the exception of the final strip. This photo is perhaps the most accurate colour-wise. It's sort of a mid grey-brown with very little sheen. I like that they have put the flooring over the entire place, so that even under the stairs and inside the cupboards will be properly finished. It's probably easier that way too.The storage room now has board flooring and wires are sprouting everywhere.
You can see the old floor at the left hand side of this room - the new floor isn't really that shiny. No matter what I did the photo reflected the light from the windows.

Reform Day Seven

I'm not really sure what changed today on the outside but two men were working on it all day. One guy stayed inside and did all the joists for under the flooring, which is going to be delivered tomorrow. I am very impressed by how smoothly things are going and how things are delivered in such a fashion that there's never a huge mountain of stuff outside. Well, there IS but it's not unmanageable. The rubbish truck comes every other day or so and takes everything away. Today all the puffs of horrible old insulation went which was great. The room that was full of old and new insulation yesterday is mostly empty now.
The main designer man came today and we talked about the upper storage room, windows and window locks, air flow in the roof space, and wrote down all the numbers of the wallpaper in each room, so that's the main jobs done now. I just have to decide on the tiles and surround for the sink and we are done. I will probably keep it to whiteish so that we can change the wallpaper one day without having to worry about the tiles.

Tomorrow I have three two hour classes at the local community hall. Not really looking forward to them, and I'm not properly prepared so I had better get off my backside and get preparing.... yuck. I'm in holiday mode!

Ramen Man and Rasta Squid.

Yoshi and Harry spent the day making a flag for a walk that we are planning on going on next weekend. The kids can dress up if they like so Yoshi's making a flag to go with his costume (kimono of course...)

Harry took some of the offcuts of cloth and made this ramen-shop owner apron, with his signature bug of course!
Earlier in the month he'd bought a plain plastic ramen bowl and decorated it, so with a bandana and his bowl he was the real thing!
Here's Bob the squid, can you see the resemblance?? He sings, too! While Yoshi was out at rehearsals last night, Harry and I had a happy time singing slightly altered versions of Bob Marley songs together (Three Little Squids, Don't Worry, about a Squid .... etc).
Mr Pus got in on the act, too!

House on the morning of day seven.

The rain has (temporarily) stopped and so I was able to get out this morning to take a photo of the progress on the outside of the house.
The roofing tiles (not actually tiles, it's big strips of asphalt-like stuff) are mostly on. It's a very dark green but because everything is wet it looks darker. The upper walls have been clad in a white breatheable plastic sheet and the battens for the siding are partly in place.

Yoshi was just waiting for Tasuku to arrive so they could walk together to the local play centre where they have a day of job experience as nursery teachers! Should be fun....

Reform Day Six

Again, the progress seems to be slowing down because the more detailed work is now in hand. Despite the pouring rain all day, two men worked on wrapping white sheeting around the outside of the second floor, and the top "tiling" part of the roofing was mostly laid. I didn't get any pictures of that because the rain was coming down too hard to take the camera outside.Inside, all the windows were fitted and some of the basic pipework was put in for the toilet, sink and washing machine.
All the yucky dirty yellow puffs of old insulation between the floors was removed and new stuff put in. (Where the floors are not removed the old stuff will stay.)
Pipes!
This is the corridor window. I think the internal walls and floor work will begin soon.

Escaping from the reform for a day!

Last time we had work done on the house (the classroom) we escaped to Otaru, too. That was almost exactly three years ago and haven't the boys changed! The weather was a whole lot better then too.We had some trouble finding a parking space but eventually snagged one near the nice shopping street. This building is the Headache Shoppe. It's full of music boxes, all tinkling away at the same time!
This is Harry's favourite shop in the whole world. He ended up getting two new cuddlies as a late birthday present.
Harry found a bald friend! (Anpanman for those not in the know...)
Rickshaw pullers were waiting in the rain for customers near the canal. In this part of the town the buses are done up as old fashioned trams.
The hydrangeas were in full bloom - this one was odd with three different colours in one bush. They are gorgeous in the rain. (It POURED all day today...)

We had to go to Harry's favourite restaurant in the world! Naruto.
They make fried chicken. It's wonderful!
Gnash! The only way to eat it is caveman style. It is salty and greasy and yummy. I can stand it about once every couple of years but right afterwards I feel like I could never eat it again!
Then we went to the aquarium. Yoshi dubbed this the Angry Fish.
Harry introduced one of his new cuddlies to a cousin...
Hello crab. You look delicious.
This is a cowfish. I was surprised at how small he was, only about two inches or so. I've seen photos and thought they were much bigger.
Dunno his name but he's very handsome.
We went to a sealion and dolphin show. They were really cute but I wonder how happy they are there...
The dolphins were great!
We were sitting right at the front so got up close and personal with them at one point.
This is Seiju's favourite place in Otaru. It's an old warehouse that now is a glass shop and a (very expensive) cafe. We had parfaits and coffee. Harry ordered a chocolate parfait and because the lights are so low (oil lamps on the tables) we didn't notice till he had a mouthful of nuts. Lots of panic and spitting later he didn't react but it now means he's been exposed. Bummer. And of course Yoshi DIDN'T have his Epi pen with him. Grrrr. They gave us another one with no nuts. Yoshi only had a soda so he was in no danger.
Seiju went on back to work in his car and we got the train back home. Here are two tired boys with Harry's new friends. Octo Pus (that's his surname) and Bob the squid. (Because he's got dreadlocks like Bob Marley, and he bobs about in the sea - get it??!) Harry was cross about me and Yoshi naming Octo Pus because he said in Japanese his name would be Pus Octo which sent me and Yoshi off into hysterics much to the mystification of all the passengers on the train and much to Harry's displeasure....

A good day was had by all but FAR TOO MANY CALORIES consumed! Still, we walked a long way so maybe wore a chicken wing off ....

Reform, End of Day Five

Today's progress is not as dramatic as yesterday's but pretty substantial nonetheless. Yesterday the roof was boarded up but the walls were pretty much just blue sheets. Today the outside walls were all boarded up, the windows framed and the actual windows delivered. They started putting in the glass wool insulation, but ran out of time this evening so there are a lot of unfinished parts.
Harry looking into the bit of roof space over the ground floor tatami room which is just like a lean-to. He's sitting where a corridor will be, to allow cross winds and light into the hall. To his left will be the stairway to the man-cave, and then further to the left is our bedroom. To his right is Yoshi's room.
Our bedroom. The brown flooring shows where the six mat room was. It's going to be eight mats, and will now stop at the wide new pillar in the pink insulation to the far right of the picture. (So one plasterboard span wider.)
This is the spare six mat room, full of rolls of insulation right now.
Behind the kids is Yoshi's room, and to the right is Harry's room.
Standing in the window corridor, looking back at the open space. The little blue window will be in the toilet, and the open space will go from there to the end of the long horizontal window. There will be a wash basin, mirror and shelves in the space between the windows, then the washing machine and the stove (or maybe the stove in the middle, still thinking about that one...)
This is the man cave. It will end up a lot lower than this once the flooring is on and the insulation etc.
Seiju making me feel sick! I just climbed up the ladder and pointed the camera randomly upwards!

Reform Progress, End of Day Four.

It's amazing what has been achieved in the past four days. By six o'clock this evening, the roof is on, and even had some of the waterproof sheeting stapled on too. The felt and tiling will now have to wait a few days as it's going to rain. But there's lots of stuff they can be doing inside, now that there IS an inside!Today.
Four days ago.Today, looking from the classroom entrance.Four days ago.
Today.Four days ago. It's this side of the house that has grown so much! I had no idea it would be THAT big!
Here are a few pictures from inside. This is going to be our bedroom.
This is going to be Harry's bedroom and the toilet (That little clump of pillars to the right is the toilet.) Where I am standing will be an open space/multi-use room with the washing machine and sink in it.
The underside of the roof. It's only bare bones and plywood at the moment, but better than last night when there was only a blue sheet between us and the sky!

Reform Progress, End of Day Three.

This is where we were last night - all the internal walls removed, and most of the insulation etc in the outer walls, and a blue sheet tacked to it for the night. The old roof was still in place.

Twenty four hours later, the old roof has gone, and the new bones of the new rooms are basically in place. It is incredible how quickly four men are working! All the timber is pretty much pre-cut, but still...
Mountains of timber to get up there still. I can't put my car on the drive yet.
A truck came to take away the roofing materials. There was hardly any insulation at all under the old roof, so hopefully it will be a lot warmer next winter.
I can't get round to the back of the garden at all just at the moment. Here's a photo of the red maple, just beginning to make helicopters. Smashed up house in the background!
And in the shed flowerbed, black eyed susan from Karen's mum is happily flowering, along with some cosmos that I moved from the front flower bed. It's impossible to kill that stuff!

Reform Day 3

You know, this is NOT the view you expect at the top of your stairs!
I like the light still there as a little touch of weird.
The music room. Also, do you like the open window, for ventilation??!
Above the bathroom and classroom entrance.
Above the classroom.
This was the boys' room!
Bringing in timbers for the new part of the house.
Looking up the stairs, to ...... daylight?!
Passing the timbers up to the second floor.All the new wood lying on the car park, and a big stack of old roofing materials lying alongside the wall. Getting into the house is a bit of a challenge right now. You sort of have to tiptoe through the flower bed to get there.From the side.
And looking directly up at the new bit which is about to be built. Eeep!

(And have you noticed that it looks like rain again...)

18 kg down!

As of today I'm 18 kg down (39.7 lb or 2 stone 11 lbs) from when I began to lose weight in early October. Only a few more kg to go! Then to keep it off...

I'd like to be at my ideal weight by the one year anniversary of my lifestyle change, but at the same time I don't want to push it either. I would rather it come off a bit more slowly and then STAY off!

Concentrating Face.

We have packed up all the Japanese books, and as I was in the bedroom escaping the mess, Harry came in to join me. We have had a pleasant hour with him reading some of the English library books with me, and now he's dug out his knitting and has started again on it after a few months gap. He's making a blanket for his cuddlies.

Our Current Living Circumstances!

Illahee asked where we are living right now. Well, underneath all the chaos!The classroom has become the bedroom.
Seiju and I (when he's here) have the bed, and the kids sleep on futons at the foot of the bed (when they are not invading the bed itself...) During the day the futons are stacked on the table, and some of the boys clothes and Lego are shoved underneath it.
There, that's their space! By the library books. The rest of their Lego is under the textbooks to the far left.
The bathroom area has been eaten up by the rest of our clothes boxes, and the hanging stuff makes putting laundry in the washer or brushing teeth difficult.
And this delightful view is of our "living room". Bleagh.
It started off fairly neat and orderly, though overstuffed, but as we got near the deadline for emptying out the upstairs, stuff just got chucked in willy nilly and that's how it has ended up. I'm slowly working my way across the room trying to tidy stuff up.

Reform Day Two, or, The Carnage Continues..

I went to Costco with my friend Tomomi (Tasuku's Mum) and while we were out, this happened!
All of the upstairs internal walls were removed!
While the workmen were having their afternoon break, I snuck upstairs and took a few quick pictures. This is standing at the top of the stairs, looking at where the storage room was...
This was the music room.
This was the storage room!
This was the boys' room. Sniff.
And this was our bedroom.

The house at the end of Day 1.

I guess we can't say "OK, we've changed our minds, please don't bother." ????

Augh! They are ripping my house to bits!

And ..... on the day they are taking the siding off the house and making holes in the walls ...... it's RAINING again. Of course. I'm sitting in the living room, watching bits of siding and wood go hurtling past. The men are not being especially careful so occasionally a bit taps the window but so far it hasn't done any damage.
There were two layers of siding (the house used to be a dark beige, apparently) so getting to the boards that you can see here took half a day.
For reference, here are some pictures of the upstairs as it is laid out right now. This is standing on the stairs looking at the landing. To the far left is our room, then to the left (the green room) is the boys' room.
Looking a bit further to the right, again standing on the steps. Left is the boys' room, right ahead is the under-roof storage room, and to the right is the spare room that used to be Seiju's music room (and my ironing/laundry room!)
Seiju's music room. This is going to be my laundry room and the spare room for guests, and a quiet room for reading.
Looking the other way. That dip in the wall that should have been a cupboard is not going to be there any more.
Our room. As you can see there were men on the scaffolding right outside the window so I didn't go in to get a shot from the back corner!
Yoshi's and Harry's room. We only just got this flooring done a few months ago. I'd say it was a waste except it saved Yoshi those months of allergies! We should have done it when we first moved in (we took the old tatami out and replaced it with the lino you can see here.)

The storage room.
Looking the other way.
Looking out of the storage room onto the landing.

Shock, Horror! It's stopped raining!

Seiju was able to get away late last night so he's got 24 hours at home. A long-standing friend moved his bike for him so it wouldn't be trapped in the scaffolding, and invited him out for a ride today. I was slightly .... miffed ... because we have a lot of prep still to do, but he redeemed himself by doing the beds last night, and two car loads of boxes early this morning, so I don't mind now that he's gone off for half the day. (Still some light fittings and maybe one more car load when he gets back!!)
This is a California poppy that I grew from seed - this is the first one to bloom! Hopefully next year there will be more of them as they are supposed to self-seed wildly.
Our poor, be-scaffolded house! It's made the rooms quite dark.
You can see the basic outline of the future walls, and I was surprised at how very much bigger it's going to be. It's hard to imagine things on paper.

More chaos. And Harry Potter.

The upstairs is very nearly empty and there is truly no more room in the genkan. Seiju came home this evening and he and Tasuku's Dad got the beds to bits and brought downstairs. We have to make them up again in the classroom now. Tasuku's family invited the boys to stay with them tonight which was very kind as it means we have fewer bodies to deal with in this very crowded mess right now! (Can they keep them for the next four weeks please????)

Tomorrow Seiju has promised to go out with a long-term friend of his, so we will have to get up very early to get more stuff over to Baachan's. IF it ever stops raining. It's still heaving down.

We went to see Harry Potter tonight. It was really good - though Tasuku's mum and I both agreed that the first 75% of the movie covered the first 30% of the book, and the last 25% suddenly zipped through the other 70%. Weird. All the teenage angst and love was fun, but the rest was all very grim. Still, all in all worth seeing!

Pouring Rain, Boxes everywhere!

Well, we are in the final stage of packing up for the reform work to begin on Tuesday. The boys are upstairs emptying their desks and packing rubbish as far as I can tell, but at this point, I don't care.

I have taken all the clothes, bedding and futons downstairs but am stuck on the beds till Seiju gets back tonight. I have to get some laundry put away and those clothes boxes brought downstairs, and then work on things like taking down blinds and other curtain fixtures. I will leave the lights to Seiju.

This is written in a 15 minute break - it is pouring with rain here so any movement is very sweaty, and it means we can't take stuff to Baachan's garage as it will get wet and mould. Boo. The genkan is so stuffed I am wondering where to put any more stuff.

The end of a hard week.

I'm sorry I've been quiet. It's been a very hard week and I have spend most of the day lolling about doing nothing. I just woke up from a looong nap!

This week one of my students died. She and her son came to classes, and she was a single mother, so she leaves her nearly nine year old alone in the world apart from his grandparents. They've been coming to my classes for four years now, so I felt like she was a friend, and I've become very fond of the boy, who's the same age as Harry. They only live a couple of streets over from us, so the kids play together too. She was 35, had no health problems, and just keeled over at lunchtime and was gone by midnight. Sachiko and I went to the grandmother's house to visit the altar with her ashes on it, to give incense and pray for her soul, and I just had no words for the grandmother or her boy..... So sad. It's been a dark week.

Then two other students quit - one of whom felt she wasn't making any progress when recently I've been feeling she has been doing very well. I need to be more proactive at letting the kids know that they are doing well. I thought I did let her know but obviously not enough, or she didn't believe me. The other was a little girl who has been blowing hot and cold for months now, so it wasn't a surprise but it was a disappointment nonetheless.

The house-emptying ground to a halt because there seemed to be so many other things going on this week. At one point we thought we'd run foul of zoning laws which caused a panic but actually it was OK. Just one more night of extra worry that I could have done without.

Yesterday was my last day of regular classes. I have two full days of extra classes at a local community hall planned for two weeks time, as a sort of anticipatory make up class for swine flu. The ironic thing is that THOSE classes are now in danger as yesterday swine flu hit the area and closed the elementary school for five days! By the time we heard about it, it was lunchtime and a quick scan of my schedule showed that no kids from that school were coming for English, so we went ahead as normal. But if the numbers increase over the next week the extra classes wil have to be cancelled. There's no point in making any decisions just yet, so I'm leaving it for now.

So, as of today I'm on summer break! Time for a long lie in!

Um, no...... 7am began the crashing and banging of a truck unloading scaffolding! By the time I retreated upstairs for a nap, there was a man bolting bits of scaffolding together at eye level! Luckily I have thick curtains which I closed in his face. The scaffolding is all done now. Tomorrow is a holiday. Monday is a public holiday but a couple of the men are coming to help me with moving the beds and taking down some light fixtures that I can't deal with. Then the true work begins on Tuesday morning. Groan.

One nice thing about tomorrow - we are going to see the new Harry Potter film! Well, our Harry is going to play with friends as he's not keen on scary, and has said he doesn't want to go. Sensible chap.

Garden, July 14th

Again, it's been such HORRIBLE weather for the past week that I have barely been into the garden. Some stuff is almost over before I had a chance to enjoy it.... Apparently Hokkaido has had less than 50% of the average sunshine this July, and I can believe it. Yuck.

Still, things are struggling on, blooming where they can before they rot.
This is the view from my front doorstep.
I planted these Asiatic Lilies last summer and I am so pleased with them. They are such a strong, deep red!
My nasturtiums are all flowering but they are sick, I think there's not enough nutrition in this soil which is odd, seeing as nasturtiums are supposed to be able to grow on anything.
One of my bush beans has ambitions to be a runner bean! There's another one about to take off, too!
I've got one baby courgette. Turns out these are yellow plants.
The rhubarb seems to like where I've put it and is putting out new healthy leaves and getting bigger. I won't be able to pull any till next year or the year after, but it's there. (If it survives the winter...)
All the tomatoes have one or two fruits on them, but hardly any new flowers.
The Swiss chard is just sitting there, so can't harvest any yet...
This is the red flowering broom that my friend gave me. Hopefully it will get nice and bushy and cover up some of the fence.
This flowering shrub is nearly over. It's so pretty, like pink snow, and it blooms for quite a long time, a good couple of weeks. Underneath are spikes of blue perennial campanula.
Yoshi and Harry's rambler rose is flowering on the wood it had last year, which wasn't much, so they are right at the bottom buried under the lilies and hollyhock. But it's really shooting up now and working its way up the fence so next year it should be pretty.
Phlox has begun to flower. I bought a lovely white one with dark pink stripes last year, but I think it died as there's no sign of it this year.
These red leaved penstemon were magnificent. They made a high, round clump with the lovely bell like flowers waving in the breeze. Then the rain came and smashed them up before I'd ever taken a picture. Grrr. Ah well, there's always next year!

The start of the chaos...

...Too much furniture in the living room.....
Heaps and heaps of music equipment in the back of the living room......

Bleh!

Six weeks to go.

Harvest! A mini one, but a harvest.

Ten strawberries, ten bush beans (found two more after I took this photo!) and a whole bunch of lettuce leaves. I ate the beans with a big salad and it was yum.

17 kg down

I seem to have taken a looong time to get this recent kg off. I'm not exercising enough (too busy and too much on my mind...) but at last it's gone and I'm 17 kg down since I started taking control of my lifestyle.

Empyting The Upstairs.

Reform work begins next Saturday, but this is Seiju's last weekend home. The problem is that we want to put a lot of stuff, like our beds and the kids futons, into the classroom for the duration but I am using it to teach for the whole of next week. Till 8:30pm Friday night, to be exact!

The building company said they would move the beds for us, as there is no way that I will be able to cope with them myself. The rest has to be gone over the next week and weekend.

Yoshi was great, shifting furniture with Seiju. They are evenly matched in height now, if not in strength and Yoshi did a man's job today. Harry started packing up books and toys in their room but was overcome with the dust that was billowing up from behind furniture, so had to give up and have a shower to recover. We were all sneezing our heads off - embarassing!!

We took a break in the middle of the day to go to the reform company, where they showed us the planning permission papers which will be submitted this week. I am amazed that work starting a week later can be applied for, but it seems to be normal here! We will have to have a few things added to the downstairs, such as electric fans in two outside walls, and handrails on the stairs, as they are now law since our house was built, and the whole house must conform to the new laws if new planning permission for anything is sought. That's OK with me. The man said they can do it all within the budget so the price won't go up.

We are storing most of the stuff in Seiju's parents' garage, but his music stuff is in the back of the living room, plus we have an extra sofa and two extra chairs in here so it's a bit crowded. I'm not really going to enjoy living like this for the next month. Bleh.

There are still A LOT of boxes for me to pack up and get over there but I can do that over the course of the week. All the really heavy stuff is out now except for the kids desks, which will go tomorrow. (Not that heavy but I can't get them down the stairs by myself.)

I'll take some pictures of the chaos at some point and post them so you can have a good laugh at our living situation!

Super progress in the garden!

Yesterday was a busy day, so even though the weather was good, there was no time to get into the garden. In the morning, we went into Sapporo to pick up Seiju's motorbike that had been fixed during the week. Then we came home, had a quick lunch, and got right into cleaning up the pig heap. It was HORRIBLE, so it took four of us a good couple of hours to get it under control.Yoshi then rushed out to meet some kids from school to make some CDs for the school trip - they ended up coming back to the house to do it, which was nice. I had to go out to an English teachers' meeting that was OK but went on late and meant two trips to Sapporo in one day. A bit much!

Today Yoshi had extra dance rehearsals which ended up going on all day. Seiju took him this morning and then we went to the home centre for lovely things like ant killer and lawn mower blades.

When we got back to the house, we found Seiju's mum and dad in the garden, with the house unlocked and gone through (grrr!) and they were both busily weeding away. We got right out and joined them, mainly so that I could control what MIL yanked up and where she decided to plant things! In the end it turned out very well. They were here for four hours and between the four of us, we got a huge amount of work done.


FIL weeded a corner of the lawn and along the edges, then went behind the fence to the house behind our garden which has nobody living in it and is a forest of weeds, and did a big slash and chop along our fence line, as the fuki was threatening to overwhelm our fence.

Seiju cut the back lawn, and MIL tackled the flower beds in the front of the house while I went at the veggie patch. We all had an hour's break for lunch, then afterwards Seiju finished the grass while FIL had a little snooze (well, he is 82!) and MIL and I went back to our respective weed patches.

I went out afterwards and took pictures!MIL - "No! Don't take pictures of me all dirty!"
"Stop!"
"Oh, go on then, just one picture."
The day lilies are in full bloom now.
The oriental lilies are about to bloom.
This was the back of the veggie patch this morning...
... and this evening! Nary a weed in sight!
The baby lettuce is growing bigger, and the space in the back has been taken up with two zucchini plants.
In the first box there are four tomato plants and two Swiss chard plants, bought from our local farmer's market. Baachan says she has some cucumber and pumpkin plants that will be OK to plant out in a week or so, so I'm planning to put them in the back box. I am sure it's too late but she swears not, so.....
After I finished the veggie patch, I turned to the flower bed under the trees. This has been a weedy mess for as long as we have lived here. Today I dug it all over carefully (hard because of the tree roots) and then moved some autumn flowering anemones (shu mei giku), hostas and primulas there from other parts of the garden, plus two pinks that I bought at the farmer's market.
This is what it looks like now.
A view of the roses in the back garden, looking down the back of the house.
I also bought two thrift plants (one white, one pink) and two red geraniums at the farmer's market, so I planted them in front of the yellow rose...
...... which is still going strong.

Garden July 3rd

My yellow climbing rose is magnificent this year. I am really delighted with it.I took this photo from my bedroom as the flowers tend to face upwards, so look lovely from there.
The weedy lawn patch, and the rather colourless shed flowerbed. Yellow daylilies are about to be in full flower. That's about it...
View of the "lawn" and trees. The bright green are foot-high weeds for those of you who think my garden is so perfect!
I came downstairs for a more standard view of the yellow rose. You get a nice view of the weeds too, but I did actually weed the flowerbed (which is now seemingly empty but there are dahlia bulbs in there).
The veggie patch. My bush beans are growing nicely and have flowers. The lettuce and mizuna actually like being chopped up and grow even stronger each time I pick them over. The green peppers are being chewed alive by something. Grrrr. I have two mini eggplants.
The weeds are starting to come back. I hoed after I took this picture. My four whole runner beans (don't laugh Heather!) are not doing that great, though they have a flower or two each. The rhubarb is actually getting a few new leaves so it seems to have accepted its new home. I've got a few more lettuces from Sachiko. I put two zucchini plants in there this afternoon.
Another view of my "perfect garden". I started weeding here today and tomorrow will FINALLY plant my tomatoes out. On the 4th July!!
Not sure if I like this purple linaria, orangey rose, purple geranium combination but it's certainly bright! The rose has the most gorgeous scent which is why Yoshi chose it. It's three years old but last year half of it got smashed up by the snow, so it's back to being low to the ground again. Sigh.
A close up of the orangey rose. I forgot to save its label so I don't know what it's called.
Lavinia rose is flowering and is really lovely. Yoshi chose this rose last year but just as he brought it to show me, the flower fell off, so this is the first time I've seen it! It is supposed to be a climber but it's not doing much climbing yet.
Rose Fantin Latour and white lupins. This is a lovely combination.
The rose is a really weird shape but the flowers are so lovely and they have a very heavy, vanilla-y scent that is delicious.
It's an old fashioned French cabbage rose.
Hollyhock is suddenly growing up and has buds!
This is a white rambler rose called Wedding Day that the kids bought me for my birthday last year. Again, we didn't see the flowers but they are simple white flowering from a yellow bud. The scent is very strong. This is still very small but I have hopes for it growing all the way up my neighbour's snow fence!
My raspberry is flowering and it's a pink flower! I thought raspberry flowers were white.... There are three flowers, so I think that's three raspberries this year.

Finished that Ticker at last!!

Well, I did it! I think this ticker got started in November but I didn't note it, and there seems to be no way of checking at the ticker site. Anyway, it means that I have exercised roughly once every three days since I began. Not good enough!!

I shall start another ticker and see how long this one takes to reach 100 times!

Harry's Models

Harry's mushi (bug) characters have ruled his life for three years now and are still going strong. He requested modelling clay for his birthday so we got him Fimo, the oven hardening polymer clay and he's hooked. This is what he has made so far. I have put the Japanese names and an English attempt to explain them but as they are mostly puns, it's really hard!This first photo is with a (short!) pencil for scale.
目つむり Metsumuri. "Metsuburi" means to shut your eyes, and a Katatsumuri is a snail. So this is a snail shutting his eyes!
舐めくじ Namekuji. A Namekuji is a slug. But to Nameru means to lick something. So this slug has a big tongue for licking.
冷やし虫か Hiyashichuka. Hiyashichuka is cold Chinese noodles. But Harry has changed the Chu character for Chinese into the Chu character for insect. So he's a cold worm in a bowl of soup! ミックス虫　Mikkusuchu. A mixed up bug!
竜虫 Ryumushi. A dragon bug. Behind is the main character of the series, おじゃま虫 Ojamamushi. Ojamamushi is someone (in this case a bug!) who gets in the way.
At the back is ソフトクリー虫 Softcreamushi. He's a softcream bug! At the front is アイスクリー虫 Icecreamushi. An icecream bug!
The black one is いじけ虫 Ijikemushi, who is a Bully Bug, and the purple one is ガス虫どくん Gaschudokun. Gaschudoku is poisoning by gas. This is a poison gas bug - again, Harry has taken the chu out of chudoku (poisoning) and replaced it with the character for bug.
Here are ヤマブドウ虫 Yamabudomushi or wild grape bug (no pun, just a cute shape) and 実の虫 Minomushi or Fruit Bug. A Mino mushi is a little bug who makes a coat around himself with sticks and twigs. But Harry has broken the word into Mi No Mushi, which he has then interpreted to be a bug made of fruit! In this case, an orange, a persimmon, two cherries, and apple and a banana for a tail.
These are 泣き虫 Nakimushi (a crybaby - literally a cry bug!) and ベビー虫 Babymushi, or Baby Bug. He's got a dummy in his mouth which is hard to see with the flash.
The red bug is 怒り虫　Ikarimushi or an angry bug. He's got the angry mark used in manga on his head. The green bug is 豆虫の赤ちゃん Mamemushi no Akachan or a bean bug's baby. He's just popping out of his bean!
And this is my absolute FAVOURITE. This is ムチ　Muchi. He's a cross between a ハチ, a bee, and a 虫、a mushi (bug). But in Japanese "muchi 無知" means brainless or dopey, so isn't he just a brainless lumpy little bee bug??? So cute!

Harry's Drawings.

Harry is currently drawing a series to go with the "Convenience Store" song that is going the rounds on You Tube. He's decided to redo it with his mushi (caterpillar) characters!
"The convenience store."
"It's the middle of the night. My parents are asleep and I can sneak away and get up to no good." (I love this drawing of the futons, and the furtive caterpillar as he sneaks away!)
"Right, what can I do??"
"I can't meet up with friends as they are all asleep. And there's no TV on."

...to be continued!

Happy Birthday Harry!

Harry was nine on Monday! Wow - no little ones left in our family at all....
"I'm NINE!" He's been waiting for his birthday for a long time, counting down the days. Seiju of course wasn't here but we had a nice dinner. (Saturday was Harry's treat day, when we went into Sapporo for him to buy the modelling clay that he's been wanting.)
Harry requested a lemon iced cake, somen noodles and salady bits to put on top. I added vietnamese rice paper wrappers and hot chili sauce for me and Yoshi to make nama harumaki. Same ingredients to go inside!
The lemon iced birthday cake with gold and silver sprinkles. Both boys said it was delicious and they ended up finishing it on Tuesday morning for breakfast. It was LOADED with sugar so I bet they buzzed through their day!