cherry blossoms

I found cherry flowers blooming on the school campus.






Today's highest temperature in this area was only 1°C. It is a bit too cold for cherry blossoms, isn't it?


This is a cherry tree which has bit sour cherries in early summer. It is not exactly cherry flowers from Japan, but this reminds me Japan. Also this is nice for new year, isn't it??


Another photo that shows Japanese tradition is here.




Tiny ORIGAMI crane, which is the most popular pattern of origami. I made this a few days ago using a wrapping paper.




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

GP

We changed our GP (home doctor).
The previous GP was the bad choice we made. We registered with the clinic soon after we moved to England. We didn't know much about English health system, and of course had no clue about good doctors in town. Back then, we didn't own a car, that limited our choices. We just picked the nearest GP.

The GP was the busy one. I always had a hard time to talk to a person to make an appointment over the phone. They were always busy and overwhelmed, and they just don't answer the phone. After many attempts, finally I got an appointment, but you know what comes next... Long waiting time... What was the appointment for, if we had to wait to see a doctor so long??

After the long waiting time, we finally see a doctor. But the doctors were always businesslike, they didn't really see us or listen to us. The time they spend to figure out the diagnoses was only a few minutes...Maybe less than a minute. I am not exaggerating. We usually got out of the doctor's room within five minutes. I always felt I was talking to a machine, or computer..., something without human heart.

With such a poor consultation, of course they gave us incorrect diagnoses, with prescriptions which I could not agree with it.


So after my first son got an antibiotics which is harmful and unnecessary for his symptoms, I quickly changed the GP where we can see an anthloposophical doctor who can prescribe homeopathic remedies.


We got an appointment for my first son today, and all four of us attended the consultation. The doctor looked my son's ailments closely, and listened to us well, thought through what the best choice for the boy would be. It took almost thirty minutes. Our conversation was far better from ones with the previous GPs. It was actually the conversation between human being who care about the patients the most.

He gave us a prescription not only for my son but also for my husband who was still greatly suffering from his chest ailments, although it was not the consultation for my husband.


We got several homeopathic remedies and one antibiotic medicine in case it would be needed. My son took two kinds of Weleda remedies as the doctor instructed, and he slept through all afternoon. He woke up and ate his supper, soon after that he went back to sleep.

His unusual long sleep assured me that my son would be recovered from his illness soon.


Today I felt relieved after the doctor's consultation.
Actually it was the first good medical experience in England.




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

no more flu

I want to cry.

I have been poorly since mid November. It is an infection that is around in this area. Many friends got this infection and have been suffering from it severely.

I am one of them.


Before the Christmas break began, my first son fell ill. He had temperature, not so high though, and the virus attacked his nose, sinus and ears. He got middle ear infection, and it caused bad nose bleeding when the ear infection was bad.


After my son was my husband. On the first day of the Christmas break, he fell ill. He spent three days in his bed without any strength to get up. Even after he regained physical strength to walk around in the house, he seemed to be very weak.

Then my first son's virus power was back. He wanted to stay in his bed, and was very weak, as he dripped yellowish liquid from his right ear, at the same time, sudden bleeding from his nose.


And today, my husband was back to bed. All day. His dry cough sounded very painful. He claimed he is enable to breath.

Since we share one bed, of course his virus keeps attacking me again and again. Today my infection seemed to have come back. Pains everywhere in my body, chillness, sore throat and cough.

I am better than my husband, so I am the person who takes care of boys and my husband, although I myself want to be looked after by somebody as well......



It is an awful cold.


I hope you don't catch this nasty virus.

Take good care of yourself.....




I go to bed now.

Good night...

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

blogging

I have already been blogging for three years. I have some blogs which I update actively. One of them is called "Kayo in England" written in Japanese.

The reason I write is just my love for writing. As a tool of communication, blogs are such an easy and fast tool that helps to communicate with people all over the world. Also expressing my opinions and thoughts to people are important factor of blogging.



But recently I found myself getting bored writing on "Kayo in England." Since it is my main Japanese blog, majority of my Japanese friends visit there to know how I am doing and they make their comments, that allows us keeping in touch without much effort.

I think blog is better than exchanging emails in some way, because blog involves more than two people. It is not just two way communication, but other people can participate in the group conversation. Since the blog is one method to let my frineds know my recent life, I can update only once for each event. If it is a communication via emails, I have to write same thing so many times to let several friends know about the event...

Anyway, for that reason, I keep writing the Japanese blog every once in a while. However, I found much more interesting and fun to write a journal here in English. I think it is because writing English is more challenging for me. Also I can write more freely here than on "Kayo in England," because of the less connection with the readers. I don't have to think how my friends would feel about my thoughts that are shown on my blog.



The initial purpose of writing this blog was improving my English writing skill. At a certain level, I can say I have achieved the purpose, because I can now write English much more comfortably. Of course I have to make more effort to improve my English. The vocabularies I use are quite limited, and there are lots of mistakes on every post... XD



But certainly I am enjoying writing English here.
That is a big achievement, I must say.


Don't you think so???



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

Christmas tradition

As a non-Christian, Christmas is one of the seasonal events for me. I appreciate the spirituality of Christmas, but I cannot truly understand its real meaning underlying Christianity as well as people grown up in Christian societies do. My understanding is my own way, far from pure religious understanding. Christianity doesn't live in myself.

Also my Christmas tradition is commercialized one without any religious thoughts, which I don' like. So I usually follow my husband's way of celebrating Christmas.

I can not say it is European or German style Christmas. I think it is his family tradition.

His parents being jewellery artists have the busiest time before Christmas, since their customers buy their works as Christmas presents. They have so much work to complete their works just before Christmas.

My mother-in-law usually works until noon on Christmas Eve, then her Christmas preparation finally starts in the afternoon.

She cooks salmon with horseradish cream for Christmas Eve dinner, which my husband and I follow her tradition.

For Christmas dinner, we are establishing our family tradition to cook "lamb in anchovy sauce", and we added Greek yogurt sauce to the menu this year.






My husband has a trauma from his childhood. Since her mother sold her works before Christmas, often her beautiful works were all gone by Christmas day. She makes such beautiful things, but her works are all for other people. She makes living from making jewellery, so it is wonderful that people buy her stuff. And it is a nature of being artist that they don't own their works. But it has made my husband so sad that not having the beautiful art works on the annual special day of Christmas.



This year, we sold several Christmas ornaments my husband made. We had our own ornaments, but we had to give them away because he fell ill before Christmas, that made him impossible to finish his work.

Now our Christmas tree is not as gorgeous as usual. They don't have red and white roses. They don't have Steiner's Christmas symbols.

Missing the ornaments reminded my husband the trauma from his childhood.





He was sad.



Christmas ornaments and other beautiful art works can wonderfully decorate our events. Of course they contains the spirit in them. But still they are just physical objects.

I want him to be happy even if he does not have the objects.
Being happy in the special day is more important than having material.


I understand his sadness, but probably not fully.



But I want to believe that Christmas is a time for everyone to be happy.




I dressed up for him, and reminded him how wonderful and happy family we are.
Our sons are beautiful, and he has a cute Japanese wife who loves him so much!! :D

He realized his happiness soon and smiled at us.




Love and peace for everyone!


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

Merry Christmas!

The craziest days passed so quickly, and it is already a Christmas day today.
How fast time flies!!!


Merry Christmas to all of you in the world!
I wish you a happy Christmas and have a peaceful new year!

May the new year bring you a happiness and joy!




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

potatoes

The Christmas break began, and my sons stay at home all day...
And my husband got ill on the first day of the break...
He has been in his bed for three days since then...


I have totally forgotten how the life with two boys all day long is. Before this September, I had two boys all day, every day. They both together started going to the school in September, then I got time for myself in the morning. It is only three and half hours free time, though the free morning has been precious for me.

During holidays I have to forget about my precious free morning, and look after two boys, and now one more (big) boy. XD

My sons need some activities that are creative and useful.
So I decided to cook with my sons today.




The picture is dark, but can you recognize this food?
This is called "daigaku imo" in Japanese, which can be translated to "university sweet potatoes." The sweet potatoes are common in England as well, but the Japanese sweet potatoes are rare. If you use ordinary English sweet potatoes for deep frying, they would be melted and lose their shapes. So I cook this "daigaku imo" or "sweet potato tempura" only when I could find this Japanese kind of sweet potatoes. It is nothing special for Japanese people in Japan, but is very special for me.

As I deep fried the sweet potatoes, I just thought of making potato crisps.

So I let my first son to slice the potatoes like this. ↓



Sorry, the picture is blurry, but it is not my fault. :D He was working so hard, and I couldn't find a moment when he stayed still. hahaha.


In the end of the cooking activity, we got a plate of "daigaku imo" and another full plate of "potato crisps."




These potato crisps didn't last even five minutes...


It is ok. My sons liked them so much.



...After the cooking, they had a fun with gardening as well.
It was nice and warm today.:D


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

Space for family

Today the school's autumn term was over, and my boarding girl moved out. She is going to rent a room at a eurythmist's house in the same town after the Christmas break.

She is a very good girl, and is mature for her age (17). However it was not very easy to live with non-family person for a long period. At least for me, it was quite difficult.

I guess Japanese has more distinct division between private and public, generally to say. I want to keep my space private, and don't want anybody else to disturb the space. I want to cook whenever I want to cook without clearing up somebody's mess or telling somebody to make a space for me to cook. I want to work whenever I need to without being annoyed by stranger's presence. The home should be a private space for me.

I found that Westerners often don't mind much to share individual stuff with somebody else, which Japanese care much more. For example, using my kitchen with her friends without asking me, or looking for some stationary at my office, where there are lots of private documents, without any permission.

I think Japanese tend to care too much NOT to disturb other people, that gives us some kind of tension in our relationship. The Westerners' way is more easy and is good to keep easy relationship unless one of them go beyond the limit.

But I guess my limit is a bit stricter than Westerners'. My boarding girl jumped over the limit quite often...

I don't think Japanese way of relating people is better than Westerners, at the same time the other way around can not be said to be better. I just think keeping the balance between different individuals from different culture is important, and that is a key for the good relationship.

The conclusion in me was that I DON'T WANT TO HAVE THAT KIND OF TROUBLE AT HOME.
I want to keep my home as a space where I can freely breath, and I don't want to worry about my privacy at home.

Actually having a boarder from abroad was an interesting experience.
But...no more boarders.


I just want to express my feeling how happy to have gotten my place back to my family.
I feel like I can relax now for the first time after she joined us.


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

Messiah

Yesterday we went to Hereford Cathedral to see Handel's Messiah. It was a performance by an orchestra, four solo singers, and choral group of 150 singers.

This was my first live "Messiah" experience.

The performance over 2 and 1/2 hours was brilliant. I really appreciate sacredity which they created in the cathedral. The experience of listening to it in cathedral was special. It was not neither CD, concert hall, nor ordinary church, but the cathedral in England, the country Handel lived. The power of the place (cathedral) with spirit and the music with soul in it was enormous. I felt I myself was cleansed by music and then a light was lit inside of me. The light is little now and it is in a darkness. However it will grow to be a big fire to generate a strong energy in near future.

I think it is a part of the meaning of Advent, and I actually felt it through the concert.


It would be great if we are going to have this as one of the family tradition of Advent and Christmas. Next year, maybe "Messiah" at Worcester Cathedral.



By the way, my sons pleased other audience with their behaviors.
The people around our seat praised them.
"You are such good boys with the best behavior. I am proud of you!"


Yes, we, as your parents, are proud of you, too!


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

vegetable cutter

Recently one of the most popular goods among my boys is vegetable cutters. If you are a Japanese, I am sure you have seen a piece of carrot cut into flower shape. The cutters are smaller version of cookie cutters. I remember my mother used them when I was little, but she stopped using them at some point when I got too old to be pleased with that kind of decoration.

Now it is a time for me to use those cutters for my little sons.

I was sure that my mother still has those cutters somewhere in her kitchen. She is a person who can never throw things away even though she would never use them again.

So I asked my mother to send them to England so I can please my sons!



It was actually great idea. First, they were simply pleased to see the flowery shaped carrots. Then, of course, they tried to cut vegetables themselves. It took no time for them to learn the technique.

One morning, they made many flower carrots out of two whole carrots before breakfast, packed them in ziplocs and took them to the school.

The second son shared the flower carrots with his classmates. Both the class teacher and the classmates got one flower each and admired the pretty carrot.

The first son's flower carrots were cooked in the soup. Each child got one flower in his/her soup for snack.

They all pleased, and of course the admiration made my sons happy.


What an easy and successful project, it was!!



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

Goodbye Tsugumi

I read a novel "Goodbye Tsugumi" by a Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto.
I have read the original Japanese "Tsugumi" soon after the book was first published in Japan.

I had a lot of fun by reading Banana Yoshimoto's novels at that time, but soon I got tired of her writing. I felt her writings were bit too girly, and they gave me an impression of "girl's comics." I was also not fond of her being bestseller author. I often don't like things that are too popular. I know ... I am a perverse person.


Why did I read her book again after twenty years of its publication? The answer is quite simple. I just wanted to read some Japanese novels in English. I guess it is one of my homesick phenomenons. I just wanted to feel something Japanese-like.

As I expected, the scene and its description were very familiar to me. Japanese society and its culture are big part of myself, and simply the pictures appear mentally one after another as I proceeded reading. The novel perfectly achieved its purpose and made me feel "Japanese".

I have not compared the English translation to Japanese original, but I guess the translation is quite faithful to the original. I can imagine Banana Yoshimoto's original writing from the English sentences at many parts of the story.

The fact this translation was done by a male translator amused me. For me, Banana Yoshimoto's novels were typical girlish stories based on female feelings. How could a male writer interpret its feeling??? Did the English language make it possible, because English doesn't express the genders by its language as much as Japanese language?

However it was well translated and it made me want to read each word carefully.
I think I enjoyed it more than Japanese original.



Let me introduce you a part of the book review;

"beautiful water-colour writing."

I have never seen a description as good as this. Her writing is exactly "water-colour"-like. The descritions beautifully float along a stream and are purely transparent.



I want to read other translations of Banana Yoshimoto's.


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

transparent stars and...

Our annual event (?), one of the preparations for Christmas is making the transparent stars.

Using rectangular translucent papers, fold them to shape stars.

Like this ↓


The different number of layers make subtle shades over the stars.
Of course the two or three colours mix to make another colour.




And I went to the entrance to take another picture..., and what I found there is....




A rainbow!!



It was a huge rainbow!

We, myself and my sons, ran out of the house to look at the rainbow.



It was not just a huge rainbow, but double rainbows! Wow!!

Do you see the second rainbow over the first one?
It was already shading, so it may be hard to see it on the photo.


But it was a nice gift from nature!


I guess I have a great luck today!!


I wish you a luck, too♪


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

gloves

It is cold recently.
But amazingly my body has gotten used to the cold weather quickly.

This morning I felt warm, so I went out without a coat. Just one jumper over a cotton top.

As I predicted, it was not cold at all unlike ordinary December.






The thermometer said the temperature was 3.5 ℃.

3.5℃ is not cold for me...
My sense of warmth must have gone bad..., thanks for English climate.




Anyway, it is just the beginning of real winter.
So I knitted two pair of gloves for my sons so that they wouldn't be cold outside.




While I was knitting, a Japanese song was repeatedly in my mind...

母さんが夜なべをして手袋編んでくれた♪
My mother stayed up nights knitting gloves♪


Also these gloves go with their matching hat and scarf.
Like this ↓




Aren't they cute??
The gloves are suspended from his neck, but they are not worn on the photo.
I put buttons for the scarf, so the boy wouldn't lose it so easily. People including the kindergarten teacher love this idea as well as myself.

hehehe...


By the way, when my sons say "gloves," the word sounds like "love" without "g" and "s." It is not correct, but hearing the word "love" for hand-knitted "gloves" is heart-warming as well. Actually the gloves are knitted with my LOVE for my beloved sons♪





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

Main lesson book

In Steiner schools, pupils don't use textbooks. They create their own textbooks as a part of learning. It is a time consuming work, but it is worth to spend a lot of energy and time for making the books themselves.

The books contain not only academic contents but also artistic presentation. They use colours to decorate the pages, and illustrate the diagrams and pictures beautifully.

The more effort they put into the work, the more precious the book becomes.

As a Steiner school teacher, I loved creating my main lesson book. I am good at art, especially I loved to colour with Lyra colour pencils.

When I was in a school, I loved making my notebook, summarizing the contents from the textbooks, and making the book beautiful, although I was not in a Steiner school.

It is wonderful work to create a book like this. It helps to understand the contents better. On the other hand, I found that creating a book could not be enough study. After understanding the contents, and then students need to MEMORIZE/EXERCISE the contents. Memorizing is very important for exam preparations.


Now I quit the teaching job, and I myself is a learner now, preparing for the exams.

So... I have been trying not to spend too much time for creating a notebook, to study more effectively. If I spend too much time for it, I would not have enough energy for memorizing.





But recently I found myself not enjoying the study. Just reading the textbook, understanding the contents and memorizing the terms are not very fun. I felt my understanding becomes shallower when I just read it.

So I started making my main lesson book... of course I am trying not to make too perfect book, so I can still have enough energy/time for memorizing.


Yeah..., it is actually FUN to make a book!


The exams in England has more questions that require written explanations. So it is a key to be able to describe and explain the scientific matter in ENGLISH in a short period of time.

For that reason, making my own book is helping me to improve my English writing.



I think it is a great way of learning English.
Reading something you like, take a note and summarize it in English.
You would need better understanding than just reading English to express it in English.

We learnt our native language like that when we were at school, didn't we?



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

throat infection

I've got an throat infection for over two weeks.
I think this is just a cold, but it has already been ten days since I lost my voice.

I don't like taking antibiotics, and I normally take only natural remedies, herbs, and homeopathic remedies for the ailments.

This time, the symptom is worse than usual. One of my friends sent a cough remedy recipe to me. That was given to her by her INDIAN friend. It seems to be an Indian traditional remedy.

This remedy is made from a whole onion, sugar, and hot water. The essence of the onion is extracted to make the cough syrup. Very easy to make, and simple, good syrup.

Since I have had this symptom already for ten days, I didn't expect too much. A quick treatment in the beginning is the best remedy for a cold. But still this remedy reliefs me quite well.

My sons also got infected. Yesterday my first son was coughing hard, and I gave him a teaspoon of the syrup. Only one spoonful of syrup stopped him coughing for several hours, and he didn't suffer from cough much. Amazing effect.


Another thing that relieved me was "amazake." Japanese sweet drink made from sake lees. It is not very tasty drink, but is nice to drink when I miss my country.

The sake lees is not the item I can buy anywhere in England. Only Japanese grocery shops deal with it. And the Japanese grocery shops are only in London, not in where I live. So I asked my friend to buy one for me, when she goes to one of the shops.

I received this sake lees from her, exactly when I was so much suffering from the infection.

I think the "amazake" warmed both my physical body and my soul.





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

Advent garden

We had an Advent garden at our school yesterday.
This is a festival for little children at Steiner School, and it was the first Advent garden for my sons.

A spiral shaped with branches and leaves was in the centre of the school hall. In the centre of the spiral was a light of a candle.

Each child was lead by a teacher to enter the spiral, and then the child walks along the spiral towards the light without the teacher. He/she lights his/her candle in the centre of the spiral, and walks and brings back the light to the world..


Older children are more aware of people watching them and the events, but for little children, the spiral was a magical world. As soon as the child enters the spiral, it is like in the middle of woods. He/she has to walk alone in the darkness. This is an adventure for little ones. After the child reaches at the candle in the centre and lights his/her candle, the child has a task to bring the light back to the world. The child walks back the path they just came as he/she carefully holds the candle in his/her hands. He/she places the candle by the pathway of the spiral.

The spiral was dark, but the spiral path was lit with candle lights after the children walked through the path. In the spiral, there are the caldles left as many as the number of the children walked in the spiral. There, it is not dark any more...

In this dark season, the children bring the light to the world.

It is amazingly magical. Little children are truly absorbed into the world with their pure souls.......They were not playing the roles. They were actually bringing the light to the world to light up this darkness.

And of course, it is wonderful to see our own sons purely absorbed in the world...


Children are beautiful.
Our world is beautiful.

I appreciate that we and our children can experience the beauty of this world.





This is the candle brought back from the festival. The candle is set on a handmade candle holder, which is made of an apple, a toothpick, and a golden star.



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