allurgee

I've been suffering from an allergy for about six weeks now, and the nose blowing finally got to the point where I went to the doctor on Saturday. Two hours and 10,000 yen later, I emerged with sufficient drugs to quell the sneezing, though I am left with a sense of vagueness and a slight wooziness. I seem to always get sick one way or another in Japan (last it time it was only pnuemonia!) and something here, or probably, many things here, seem to disagree with my body.

Racing into October as we are, it seems like only yesterday that I was complaining loudly (and to whoever would liten) about how hot is was. Yes, how hot and how bloody humid. The nights are cooler now and sunny days are very pleasant though the signs of winter are omnipresent. The layers of cloud, for example, are like so many moth-eaten bunnyrugs, rather than a majestic pile of cotton wool. (Here I am reminded of Larkin's 'Summer, Mother, I', the 'high-builded cloud', but that's beside the point.)

Now with the routines of teaching and looking after our demanding little one, life has assumed a predictability. It's hard to do anything really interesting because of the train travel and risk of Tom's loud complaining, so Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto, once regular destinations, are like phantoms now. Parenting is such a life change that there is no way to describe the difference. One day we were on a this planet, the following day, on this one. And there is no way of travelling between these two worlds. Really, there isn't.