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...

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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???



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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!


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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!




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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


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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.


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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!


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