Physiotherapist

It is Saturday today.

This morning my husband got an appointment with a private physiotherapist for his broken wrist. His colleague recommended the therapist, saying "he is definitely the best in the Midlands." Since my husband lost one appointment with a NHS physiotherapist unwillingly during our trip, and he has to wait to see an orthopaedic doctor once again before seeing a physiotherapist, he was quite fed up with the system of NHS.

He phoned the therapist this morning after 10am, and got an app. at 11:45am. He is a busy therapist and my husband would not get any appointments anytime soon if he does not have a recommendation from his colleague who is obviously a good friend of the therapist.

The session with him took almost one hour. Checking the conditions, the therapist told my husband that his wrist was operated very well. That was worth to hear. What a relief. Also the therapist taught my husband one course of exercises that my husband can do it himself so that he doesn't need to come back to the practice so soon. Surprisingly, the therapist drew pictures to explain how exercises should be done with some descriptions and clear drawings. He told my husband that it doesn't make any sense to give a pre-printed sheet of exercises because every patient needs different exercises. Wow! He really thinks of his patients. Great!!

Furthermore, he informed my husband a contact address of manufactures where he can buy some supporters for his wrist. Usually the practice wants to sell those staff to get the profit out of it. But he didn't. That is because it is less cost for his patients.


Now my husband got another appointment in October. But the therapist seems not to expect my husband to come back. He predicts that my husband would be better in one month of time and another session would not be necessary.


So...my husband's wrist will be better, I believe.
That is a wonderful news.

What a relief.... :D


←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

new chopping boards

I finished making my new chopping boards.

This material was a left over from a kitchen counter top that my husband used for his workshop. He cut the oak board to make my chopping boards. But he didn't complete them, so I had to sand the boards myself.


Then the boards were left in our kitchen without being sanded for five months.




A few days ago, I just started working on them.
Using two electric sanders, I made the surface smooth, and sanded the edges of the boards so that any sharp corners were not left.

The finish is oiling. I applied some olive oil on the boards with a rag, and dry them. This process was repeated seven times. Now the nice surface was built up and they are ready to use! YEAH!




30cm × 40cm × 3.5cm

Aren't they gorgeous!?




←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

from Germany

What do you think something good in Germany?
If you go to Germany, what would you buy as souvenirs?

Germany is good at making good tools. Their quality is excellent and often ecological. Furthermore prices of German products sold in Germany are often lower than English cheaply-made products sold in England.

So.... I bought some PRACTICAL souvenirs for myself.



Brush
With wooden handle, this fits in my hands naturally. Also the bristles are soft horse hair, so it doesn't get statics. When you clean with this brush, dusts would not get stuck on the hair.

Small Brush
This small one is for washing pans and dishes. This also has a wooden handle. Looks natural and ecological. You can buy spare brushed to attach on to the handle when the brushes worn out.



Mop
This is a German style mop. This is used as it is wrapped in a cloth. The bristle is hard enough to keep the cloth and scrub the floor well. After you finish the mopping, you can just throw the cloth into the laundry machine! You don't need a special kind of bucket for mop, and have no hassle when you mop a floor. This was a wonderful buy! I love this!

Dust pan
The blue dust pan is made of metal. It is very strong and would last long time. This should be a "heavy duty" dust pan.

By the way, the model holding the blue dust pan is my first son. :D



←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

my ordinary life

Today was the second day after coming back home from Germany. The three-week absence made incredible mess in and around our house. I cleaned thoroughly all over the house before the trip, and nothing was happening in the house during the trip... but the house seemed to be dusty when we came home...

So I mopped all over the house. Soon after that, lots of small seeds from the birch tree nearby the house flew into the house, and our house got messy again. XD

I finished SEVEN loads of laundry in these two days.

And... the weeds in the plant beds have grown so wildly. It was expectable, though. So picking weeds took all afternoon today, but still a lot more to pick.

On top of them, I have been cooking good dishes so much. It is because I suffered from German style appetite... It is so nice to have MY food, such as rice, Japanese dishes seasoned with soy sauce, miso soup and Japanese green tea, especially after eating bread and cheese twice a day for two weeks!! I feel I have had bread and cheese for the rest of all my life.


Many friends of mine told me to take a good rest after the tough trip, but I just got back to my busy ordinary life...

But I really feel I like this ordinary life very much.
And I also like to be busy...

I must be really typical Japanese..... :D



←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

back to England

Now I am back to England.

Three-week trip is over and now I am trying to adjust myself to my ordinary life.
I thought I would need one day in a bed after the trip because I was so exhausted from having driven incredibly long distance. Can you guess how long I have driven over this trip between England and Germany? The total distance I drove was 2200miles which is 3500km. Imagine leaving from Fukuoka driving through main land Japan to Aomori, and then going back all the way to Fukuoka, and some more driving to Nagoya...that's the distance I have driven during this trip. I drove all by myself since my husband got a broken wrist that still hurts badly after 7 weeks of the injury.

It was crazy.
It was madness.
I knew it from the last trip to Germany. Two years ago, after the first trip to Germany, I declared to my husband that I would never never drive to Germany.

But I happened to do this again....

Anyway I am back home in England safely.

When we arrived at the port in Harwich, England, the sky was dark grey that was neary depressing atmosphere. It was totally different colour than the grey sky I saw in Germany. Oh, gosh. This grey sky welcomed us back. I felt it ironic after having a bad homesickness through the trip. XD But still I felt good about being on this small island of the UK.

England is our place.
Our lives are happening in this beautiful country.
The country is covered with a grey sky most of the time, but grey sky is typical English thing. It is all right to have a grey sky over myself. I am totally happy with coming back home!

I don't mean the trip was not enjoyable.
Trip itself was good.
I just missed my place, my kitchen, my bed, and my food...

Let me upload one photo.
This is a picture of Malchow, Germany, which is between Berlin and Baltic Sea.


Can you recognize a brown church on the right of this photo?
In front of the church was an old monastery where my father-in-law currently lives. We stayed there with him for ten days.

This area has countless numbers of lakes and is surrounded by beautiful nature.
It was a wonderful place.

I will write more about the trip later on.

←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

See you!

Today we are leaving for Germany.
We will drive across England, and take a ferry to get to Holland. This is an overnight ferry brings us to Den Haag in the early morning.

Staying with our friend in Den Haag and spend a whole day with her and her baby, then we will be bound for Germany.


Ten days at my husband's father.
Four days at a teacher at Schros Hanbourne(sorry, not sure the spelling) Waldorf School.
One night at a five-star hotel :D in Stutgurt. (again...sorry about the error)
One day at my husband's mother that will be a gathering with my husband's family.
One night on a ferry coming back to England.


We will be back on Sun 24 Aug.


It will be a three-week journey.


According to a cosmic spiritual message, now it is a time of radical change. Two eclipses in August which moon and sun influence the earth from opposite direction. Last three months were kind of "test" period for human beings. And this period will be over on the second eclipse in August.

This message makes sense to me. My life in the last three months were tough. I suffered from emotional problems that were brought by so many little troubles. On top of it, my husband got injured. I have been wondering what tasks were on me.

Now we are on the important time. And I will be on a journey. What does this mean?


We will see...


See you!
I will write about the trip in three weeks!


←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.

chalk and cheese

They are as different as chalk and cheese.

What I am talking about is...... books from Oxford University Press.



↑They are cheese. Wonderful books. Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus are my favorites.

The book on top of these dictionaries is "Practical English Usage" written by Michael Swan. This is my best English grammar book. You can find almost everything about British English in this book. In other words, this book might be too precise for the people who want to study the book thoroughly. There are too many contents which even native English speakers don't really know...I guess. But for me who tends to look up the usage, this book is a treasure. Not only you can find what you want to know, but also you learn something extra every time you open this book. The explanations are straightforward and the examples are often interesting. These examples are often very realistic.

Have you not found sentences in your English book, which unlikely fit in our world? We know these were made up for the book. But in this Swan's book, you can find something that fits exactly in our world. They often make sense, which is great.

There is another book called "how English works" by Swan. This book is widely used in English lessons for foreigners, and is very clear, easy to understand with lots of exercises. This book gives you all you really need to know about English grammar although the contents are not much less than "Practical English Usage."



So what is the "chalk" ?



Here they are.
They are the revision books for IGCSE published by Oxford University Press. I have three book from this series, biology, physics and chemistry. I have almost read whole three book, and am surprised how many mistakes these books contain.

The mistakes varies. There are quite many typos, of course, and lots of unclear graphics. They are still acceptable since these mistakes don't affect readers' study. But I found many incorrect descriptions about the subjects, as well as faults in the questiona and answers.

It wtill works for me who have studied sciences before because I know if it is correct or not. But these faults must be confusing for young learners.

I must add one more complaint about these books.

There are English mistakes in these books as well.
I usually don't find English mistakes in English books. I usually just trust natives' writings more than my English skill. Still I find grammar, usage, mistakes in the books. I guess there are more mistakes that I didn't notice.



But... don't be surprised. Generally it seems to be rare that there are few mistakes in these revision books. It is not only about the Oxford revision books.

A person wrote a book review at Amazon.co.uk for a revision book from another publisher to say "this book is excellent. I didn't find any mistakes"....... That book got five stars for not having mistakes.

This is one of the English realities...XD



←This is a banner for the blog ranking at the "Blog MURA".Each click encourages me a lot! Thank you for clicking this.