The Return

Tomorrow we begin the journey back to Japan. The last time was in the shadow of terrible disaster to a place I couldn't create in my mind. Now I feel as though I am going home. 

Autumn in England

Hello. This is my first autumn in the UK for three years. The first thing I am surprised by is how quickly it becomes winter. It has been cold for a few weeks now. I keep checking the weather in Gifu and see the high 20s and daily sunshine. Winter is long in the UK. It is dark. Dark in the morning and dark by 6pm. But the leaves are beautiful. The colours are beautiful; yellows, reds, pinks. purples. I'm really impressed by them. 

It has been a bad year for autumn fruits. We have managed to make only 3 gallons of cider as there are hardly any apples around. It's very late in the year for cider making but we're happy to have made any at all. 

I've made a blackberry crumble from fruits foraged in the hedgerows and hope to make sloe gin after the first frost. 

We had a lovely lunch out with beautiful sparkly cupcakes. 

But the big news is that we now have a little dog in our family. A black lab called Sam. 

Japanese Friends

In amongst all the jubilee celebrations was a particularly special day. The Packhorse Fair transforms my sleepy home town into a hidden garden of a music festival with stalls and food and outdoor bars. The year was the festivals comeback after bad weather forced it to take a few years off. It was exciting for me to be back in the country for it but extra special to share it with my Japanese friends who took a day out of their trip around England to visit. 

We lunched in the Chapel restaurant and strolled around the festival before heading home for traditional afternoon tea and an in-depth guide to an English garden. 

It was a kind of magic to see the everyday transformed into the extraordinary by fresh eyes. 

すし (Sushi)

Last week the desire for sushi was too much and being a few too many thousand away from Kappa sushi we decided to make our own. It was gloriously successful but a lot of work for a few moments of happy munching. Here are the photos.

                                                       Nori all the way from Valor, Seki!

                                                      Japanese rice all the way from...Yeovil, UK.

                                                                 Mike!

           The finished products with cod, salmon and bacon and cucumber and pepper rolls.

Cod, salmon and vegetable. おいしい! (Delicious). 

England

Return to England...wow how different it all looks and feels but still so familiar. Looking at it from foreign eyes I can see how beautiful the countryside is. My birthday was the 4th day of being back and we spent a sunny day in Bath where we even found sushi!!

We've been treated to afternoon tea and traditional roast dinners.

We celebrated easter and have been drinking a lot of green tea. 

Mike's been to see a soccer match, our local team, Yeovil.

And we've even found some cherry blossom...

It's great to be home but our hearts are a little bit lost in Nippon xxx

Japan-a year on.

About a year ago we woke up to the buzz of concerned text messages and the unusual sound of a T.V on loud in the early morning. Would we still be going to Japan? It was a question that went unanswered for the next three days. In fact even as we waited for our connecting flight in Hong Kong, the news of a second explosion at Fukushima caused it to resurface. In the end the easiest thing to do was to continue on. In the first few days I felt fear. I was pretty sure we'd done something monumentally stupid and would be evacuated out by the foreign office within the week. But news cycles move on and with it so did my fear. Despite the horrors, the death, the plain disruption in the north life here continued and while people identified with and scrambled to assist those suffering there was a desperate desire to embrace life. It was a subdued cherry blossom season with none of the usual festivities. Peace. Again and again when I try to put the experience of Japan into words I come up against that single word. Peace. Today everybody is remembering. There are signs of solidarity everywhere. And as I try to put together something to sum up the sadness, the respect, the collective emotion in this reserved country I find only that one word; peace. Summed up by these pictures taken today by the Nagara river in Seki. 

Mam's Cafe in Mino City

The centre of this little shop is taken up by a huge table of breads and cakes. The baking goes on all morning in the kitchen and fresh trays of delicious things are brought out to cool on vacant tables or the counter. The hot chocolate is the best anywhere and the welcome is always friendly. We have spent many  morning enjoying the busy atmosphere and sample different cakes. The sandwiches are also especially good. This was our last visit to the cafe.