Sayonara

Just a quickie before the last minute mad rush to the airport on Saturday. The imac has gone, the sofa has gone and so too have many boxes, with yet more to process.

We are dog tired from cleaning and packing and being parents and saying goodbye. The job of organising the house for the new teacher is still only 70% done. Where will we find the time to finish?

But we are looking forward to settling down at last in the Blue Mountains after years of to-ing and fro-ing between Japan and Australia. Its been a great experience and a privilege to have had such good opportunities. We have been very lucky indeed.

I think that all of this will make more sense, and perhaps I will write more coherently, even creatively, when the dust of travelling settles and we are ourselves again.

Goodbye Japan and thanks for all the inari.

packing

Well, we are nearing the end of our sojourn in Japan. The whole family have now had the flu and we are in various stages of recovery. Packing is continuing, albeit slowly and somewhat haphazardly. Boxes are wending their way homeward with more to come. There is still a lot to do and we are trying not to think about it too much.

This has been a very difficult 12 months. I wouldn't recommend to anyone bringing a new baby to a foreign country, even one as advanced as Japan. The loss of family and friends at such a critical time is too much of a blow to bear, really. In many ways we have been like prisoners in our own house, too tired to travel on weekends. Or its been just too difficult to get organised to go anywhere.

So my fondest memories are probably reserved for our first trips here, the times spent wizzing from city to city by train, the temple and museum visits, the trudging home late from a full day outing. Even just dropping in to a pub. Oh, my misspent very late youth!

happy birthday tom!

Tom is one today. Right now he is having a nap while I dash out these words, though he customarily wakes in the middle of a sentence. There is no escaping this tyranny. And this joy.

Time seems at a standstill as we try, vainly, to get our things together. There are empty boxes and part-full boxes, flat boxes and parts of boxes. Getting them in a complete state to the post office is the hard part. We just don't see to have the time to make it.

The Australian PM is in Japan at the moment. I have tried hard to avoid this man but he seems bent on thwarting me.

So Happy First Birthday Tom! The photo above was not taken today, but a week or so ago in Sasayama. Country Japan.