Jackie's Japan Journal: Goodbye 2020

What is there to say about 2020?

I never thought that I would be living through a pandemic. These things belong in SF movies or in history. I remember studying about WW2 in school and thinking that I was lucky not to be born in such a time, that I could never cope with the stress of sending our men off to fight, not knowing if they would return or return whole! Although the pandemic was not too bad in Japan it still impacted us in a rather negative way. I honestly don't know how people in Europe, UK or USA coped.

I started off the new year determined to grow my business. I really wanted to visit UK in 2021 so a year of hard work I should be able to save enough money for that. David made new leaflets, we got them printed and the boys started to go door to door. We got a few new students and I thought things were going okay.

The end of March David left to join the Japanese Army. That went wrong very quickly. During his training he got stress fractures on both knees. He need time to recover but instead did a 10 kilo march in full gear. He got out on a medical discharge 3months later. Even now he still has pain from time to time.

March was also our lockdown. Unlike the UK it wasn't enforced. All schools closed, public places closed as did most stores, supermarkets and drug stores being the exception. I tried to shop once a week not easy with limited space but some how managed. We didn't close our school, it's our only source of income and there was little help from the government. We gave the students a choice, if they felt safe they could come, if not take a holiday. It was hard, our income went from almost 3000 pounds to about 800 pounds (our rent is 850 pounds).

April 1st my mother in law died. Old age, she was 83 and had spent the last 2 years in and out of hospital and in a care home. We inherited her house and a load of land which we are still trying to figure out what to do with.

Because we were in lockdown and not teaching so much we spent a lot of time cleaning out my mother in laws house. I had kept so much in storage there, it was really like a trip down memory lane. I shed a few tears as I remember all the things we did as a family when the kids were little.

One of our kittens got adopted by a lovely lady in the US Navy. Because of lockdown she couldn't leave the city she was in so we drove almost 3 hours to take the kitten to her. It was nice to get out and see somewhere different.

End of lockdown, start of summer David came back and got a part time job a local convenience store. Christopher was working at the local supermarket stacking shelves before it opens.

Then our lovely dog died. She had been slowing down over the past few weeks, I thought it was the heat and her age. Turns out she had cancer. The vet said that she was suffering and too far gone, she wouldn't last the night so best thing was to have her put down. Even now I'm crying about this.

The rest of the summer was hard. Too hot and not able to go anywhere because of Covid 19. Wearing masks in the heat made me rather ill.

Autumn saw Hannah begin her search for a university. Because of her homeroom teacher she decided to be a teacher. Hannah always thought that she couldn't be a teacher because she is shy but Hannah's teacher is also shy. Poor Hannah worked so hard for her first university but couldn't pass but got into her second choice.

I'm sure I've missed out a lot but 2020 is almost over and 2021 is a new start. I know things haven't really changed, if anything with this new variant of the Covid 19 things could get worse. But I feel that doctors and scientists have more idea how to deal with it and of course there is the vaccines that are being rolled out. So 2021 I need to make money, I really want to go back to the UK for a visit. I need to step up my teaching, especially teaching kids, I've kind of lost the plot there. I hope to spend more time with my kids, we are all getting older and more busy, with everybody's schedules being all over the place it is difficult to get together.

Few photos in no particular order!