Lovely weekend in lovely London

Last weekend was a long one :) I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. Banzai! So on Friday afternoon we went to visit my sister and her family in east London (Walthamstow). Edie-chan (our British niece) is now one year old and very very busy and very fluent in her own special language. We met her and my sister and their friends in a baby-friendly cafe first (see above photo of Shun in the role of Mary Poppins - Edie-chan is on the right in cool jeans).

After the cafe we said goodbye to the friends and went back to my sister's house. Here we became Slaves of Edie-chan and could not relax at all in her kingdom. Finally she did baby things like Having a Bath and Going to Bed and Shun and I could sit down and say, "Ah!" After that we had a really nice evening with my sister and her husband (George), drinking wine and eating the delicious lamb and roast vegetables which they cooked for us. My sister also made a great dessert from mascarpone cheese and limes. Sadly, the next morning we became Slaves of Edie-chan again and were saved from Death by Playing only when George produced his amazing giant and juicy omelette. At that point, we rebelled and said "No, Edie Your Majesty, we are not playing with you anymore. We are going to eat breakfast." It was a terrifying moment. At first, we thought Queen Edie might try to execute us with her plastic singing teapot. Luckily, she found the cats instead and marched away to torture them.
We left the Kingdom of Edie at lunchtime and decided to explore Walthamstow a little. It's a funny place. At first, it can seem a bit rough and not very pretty. But we had a lovely walk in the local park, found the William Morris Gallery (small and great) and finally walked through the market (the longest street market in Europe! And full of plugs!) We were very satisfied with all of this, but Walthamstow had one more treat for us: just outside the bus station we were given an enthusiastic performance by some energetic Native American street musicians (and you don't find them everywhere, let me tell you). They even had their own tee-pee. Impressive.
After such delights, we got the tube into central London and did a little shopping. It was a sunny afternoon which became a beautiful dusk. Our friends, Ken (Japanese) and Tanya (British), are moving to Japan and in the evening we went to their leaving party. There were nice, interesting people there and delicious snacks and beer. We chatted and snacked and drank and relaxed. We felt good. It was a lovely weekend in a lovely city.

Now

So, yes, I hope that was a little bit interesting. Shun arrived back in Britain on Tuesday evening. Banzai! I know you have all had a very very hot summer this year in Japan. I really hope it wasn't too tough for you. I hope you could still enjoy lovely Japanese summer things like ice-cold beer, edamame, bon-odori festivals and the sound of Japanese semi. Those are the things I missed this year. But Britain was fun, even with an exploding brain.

Birthdays, punting and damsons

August is now a busy birthday month for my family. My cousin, Tom, my squashy niece, Edie, and my Dad, all have August birthdays. Edie was one year old and had a big party with many other squashy, non-walking and very small friends. I made Japanese tori no kara-age for her birthday tea. My sister's and brother's families were both on holiday for my Dad's birthday, so he, Mum and I went to a country pub and had a really really good meal (yum!) and then we gave him a cup-cake with a candle in it (lucky him!). My cousin, Tom was 32 so of course he went for lots of beer to a pub with his Men Friends. (Maybe)

After the Birthday Madness, one Sunday in the middle of August I went punting with my friends, Simon and Kate. Unusually, they own a punt. A punt is a long, thin, flat-bottomed boat - a bit like a Venice gondola but without the singing Italian man. Not many people own punts these days, but Simon and Kate do, and they invited me for a boating day-trip on the Thames. After leaving central London, the River Thames becomes much smaller and goes through beautiful countryside. It was a very pretty trip.
Simon did most of the punting . . .

. . . I tried but I wasn't very good at it. At lunchtime we stopped by a pretty island, ate and relaxed for a couple of hours and then punted back. It was a lovely way to spend the day.Finally, at the end of August, Mum and Dad decided it was time to pick the damsons in their garden. Damsons are like a small plum. You can't eat them raw but they make very good jam. Dad and I picked a lot but unfortunately, many of them had a lot of insects inside. Some were good though and my Mum made a few jars of jam. I really enjoyed climbing the damson tree.

Nan's house

In August, Shun was still in Japan (sweating a lot, I hear) and I became bored with myself. I visited my Mum and Dad at the weekends. My Nan (grandmother) has finally moved into a special home which takes care of old people (she's 90) so the family was busy clearing out her house. I tried to help (despite my exploding brain) and it was quite fun . . .

. . . and I inherited some interesting objects - Nan's old coffee table and her REALLY old typewriter, for example. Her house is now completely empty, we said goodbye to it and Mum gave the keys back to the local council (it was a council house which my Nan had rented for about two hundred years).Bye-bye Nan's house.

Summer Paris!

Maybe the highlight of my summer was my four-night trip to Paris at the end of July. I went with my friend, Vicky, and her three children. In Paris we met our American friend, Molly, and her husband and two daughters. We were a very happy group! The weather was warm and sunny, the company just lovely and we did lots of Paris-ey things! For example:
Parisian Eiffel Tower (high!):
Parisian bars (cool!):Parisian take-away sushi (surprisingly delicious!):And Parisian apartment evenings (chic!):I loved being in France so much that I'm planning to visit my friend, Jane, who lives in Montpellier, in October. Ah, la vie Francaise!

Sorry! I'm back now - sorry, sorry, sorry!

Oh, lovely Japanese friends, many apologies for my absence. I became lazier than ever this summer. The problem started in the middle of July. After visiting a lovely lavender festival in the countryside (see photo - beautiful! Not me. The lavender, I mean) and watching Spain win the World Cup, I was ill. I had a really bad cold. As you know, colds are very bad for the head, so I think part of my brain exploded and then after that I forgot I had a blog. (Possibly, since then my brain has repaired itself but it's difficult to know for sure - it was always a strange brain, you see.) Anyway, please forgive me and here, for your entertainment (or torture), is a short history of The Rest of My Summer. I hope you enjoy it.