Silver Centers

 I posted a short video of my garden on Instagram.

This is the video.

As you can see, it is rather overgrown, and I'm feeling overwhelmed!

One person on Instagram suggested I call the Silver Center to see if they can help.

I had forgotten about this resource and think it's a good idea, once this heat has finished.

Silver Centers were first established in 1975.  There are now 1,300 centers across Japan.

The centers offer employment opportunities for retirees who want to stay active, give back to the community, and earn a little extra money.

The jobs are light, including gardening, helping with housework, and office work, among others.

Japan has an ageing population; a lot are single, either never married, divorced, or widowed. As they age, friends and relatives start to pass away or leave the area. It must be lonely for a lot of these people.

Giving them the chance to do a bit of work is a way to help them keep active, to make new friends and give something back to their community.

We would have to pay a few thousand yen for them to come and help in the yard. But a lot cheaper than hiring a professional company to help!

Looking at that video, I wonder if doing our garden is light work! 

Marine Day

 Today is a national holiday, Marine Day.

This holiday started in 1941 as Marine Memorial Day to commemorate Emperor Meiji's 1876 voyage on the steamship Meiji Maru. It became a national holiday in 1996, when it was renamed Marine Day. From 2003, the holiday has been on the 3rd Monday in July, to create a long weekend.

This is also the start of summer holidays for most schools, so a lot of families take off for a day or two at the beach.

When my kids were little would go to a beach for a day. Unlike beaches in the UK, there are very few amenities at the beaches we visited. In the UK, most beach towns would have amusement parks, game arcades, cafes and restaurants, plus theaters. 

I was so shocked by my first visit to the beach here. There was nothing, a place to sit, which was basically an open-sided hut with tatami mats that you could rent for the day. There were changing rooms and showers. But no shops, game arcades or amusement parks! 

I realized that in Japan, at least in northern Kyushu, you go to the beach to enjoy the sea. In the UK, the weather is usually bad, so other entertainment is needed.

I like the idea of a day to celebrate the sea. Japan relies heavily on the sea for food and trade. 

The sea is something we need to appreciate more and take care of better!

Typical beach in northern Kyushu

One reason I like this photo is the fact that the lady has left her bags on the table while she went to paddle in the sea with her kids. I don't know if you can see, but she left everything, including her purse. She had enough confidence in the safety of Japan to leave her stuff and go paddling. I know that wouldn't work in the UK. This was a few years ago, just after the pandemic, so maybe not that many people about, but still!

Change of subject! I'm trying to figure out how to add a Ko-Fi button! It's a donation service. Our money situation is dire, and I need to do something. 

 I have no idea what I'm doing. I've made a Ko-Fi page, but I'm having problems with the link. 

Maybe by the next post I'll have it working!!

Why?

 I've just spent over an hour trying to make a simple alphabet worksheet.

I asked Gemini, Google's AI, to create one. It was okay, but I didn't like the formatting; the letters were too small and close together.

So I took the basic idea and tried to make something myself.

But it's ended in me feeling totally frustrated and fed up. 

I asked Hannah about making lines that are used a lot in the notebooks for English here in Japan. Which is basically 3 lines, then a red line, which the letters sit on, and a blue line to show where the letters that have a tail finish. 

She found what I wanted in a couple of minutes using Google Slides! I had spent the best part of an hour on Google Docs, swearing at my computer because I couldn't get it right!

Lesson learned, ask Hannah!. 

She has to make a lot of PowerPoint presentations for university. She studied how to do that in high school, and it has really helped her a lot!

Today wasn't such a good day. It's very hot, according to my weather app, this week is going to be very hot. I keep getting excessive heat warnings! The only good thing is that the humidity is still low, which really helps. But I've gotten to the last half of July without feeling like I'm going to die from the heat, so that's good! Let's hope that after this week the temperatures will be a little bit more normal. I've enjoyed the couple of walks I've had and really want to explore this area a bit more. I'm actually looking at Google Maps to see what is near here to walk to!

Last evening's sunset

We had incredible thunderstorms yesterday afternoon. When they had moved on, the sunset was very beautiful. 

Also, I didn't need the air conditioner last night, I even had to turn the fan off at about 3am as I felt a bit cold. Nice!

The only problem was the noise from beneath my window. I had the window open, and I could hear some kind of animal moving around. I think it was a wild hog, as I could hear grunting!

The fun of living in the countryside of Japan!

A Walk In The Rain

 After I finished writing yesterday, I really wanted to go for a walk.

After having that lovely walk with Hannah the other week, I've been wanting to go out more, just to see this area and enjoy the nature.

Yesterday was cool as it had been raining on and off all day, for me, that is good walking weather.

I asked Christopher to go with me. We headed out, but as soon as we got to the road, it started to rain. I thought about turning back, but we had umbrellas and the rain wasn't that heavy!

I'd seen a tori gate, which is the entrance to a shrine that I wanted to check out. I had an idea that we could get to the shrine from a back road, instead of walking along the main road. So off we went on a little adventure!

These signs are everywhere, marking out a walking course in this area.

We walked along this road for a while. It was nice and quiet, a chance to see nature.

These might be persimmons.

Big field of sunflowers

We couldn't find the shrine, but we found an old burial mound, built in the year 600!

Just a short video of the burial mound.

This is the big tree that is growing over the burial mound.

Beautiful, majestic tree

Christopher had my phone to take photos and video, I should have known he would take one of me. Not flattering at all but this is how I look. 

The fat foreigner

It has given me more incentive to try and lose weight!

On the way back, we came across these plants. Again, I have no idea what they are, but I love this color.

The color didn't show up very well, but it's a very light, smoky green.

We headed back the way we came. I think I walked about 1 kilometer, it was hard but I felt very good after!

Notebooks

 I came across a video a while back talking about how to use a notebook.

The creator of the video stated that he used his notebook to help him step away from technology. He showed a page in the notebook that listed things he could do, broken down in how many minutes it takes to do each task, instead of just scrolling through social media. Simple things like making a nice cup of coffee to things that take longer, like going for a walk.

I will admit that I scoffed at this idea. I mean, do we really need to be told how to use a notebook? 

Then I started to watch my own kids more carefully. They use their phones for everything, of course, social media, and YouTube, but also to keep notes or appointments. The same is true for my students, if they ask to change their lesson time, they check their phones to see when they are available. 

I understand that it's convenient to keep everything on your phone or iPad, but what happens if you can't recharge them, or you get hacked and all your information has disappeared?

I suggested to Hannah that she keep a journal to help with her stress. I've written a journal since I was 16 years old, not daily, but a few times a week, I write down what's going on and, more importantly, how I feel. It helps me to stop internalizing things and gives me something to look back on, to see how I've grown and changed or how I'm still struggling with the same things (losing weight is a constant theme!). Hannah said she can use her phone, but I told her that the physical movement of writing helps a lot with stress and anger. I showed her some of my old journals and pointed out the difference in my handwriting when I'm stressed or angry, compared to when I feel alright and happy. The more stressed I am, the smaller my writing gets, and I press very heavily on the paper. When I'm in a good place, my writing is larger and flows very nicely. I gave Hannah a nice notebook to use. I hope she does use it!

That is one good use for notebooks, but I have other notebooks for general things.

I was cleaning out a cupboard the other day, I was actually looking for something, but I can't remember what, when I came across a stack of notebooks. I decided to look through these notebooks and found that they were what I call my scribble books.

These are notebooks that I use when I watch things on YouTube or look things up on the internet. They contain web page addresses that I saw somewhere to check out later. They have ideas for this blog or plans for making a web page (still just a plan, as I have no idea how to do it). There are recipes that I saw somewhere that I should write into one of my recipe notebooks. 

But most of the content is "To Do Lists"!

These are usually weekly lists. They are titled something like "Between July 18th to July 25th I have to do....". Then there is a list of about 10 items that need to be done.

These made me laugh as they never change. Some of these notebooks go back to 2020, pandemic time! But the lists are the same: clean the kitchen, do the toilet, clean the bedrooms, lose weight, and study Japanese. 

On one list, I wrote "Clean the chicken", I think I meant clean the kitchen!

The list I have now includes fold the clean laundry that is dumped on my floor!

Clean laundry mountain!

I will do it, one day!

These are a couple of the notebooks I've been using, they are from Daiso, 100 yen shop. I love Daiso, I'll have to do a haul one day!

The one on top is the one I'm using now.

Does anybody else use a notebook, or are you all digital? Let me know!

Just a good laugh to finish. I took a pack of mince out of the freezer last night to defrost. I usually put the meat in the fridge after an hour, but I forgot last night! When I went into the kitchen this morning, I found that the pack had been broken and the meat nibbled at!

I think somebody had a midnight snack!

Change Of Plans

 I had great plans for today!

I was going to get up at 5am, clean a bit outside and leave Christopher with a long list of things to do. Then I was going to clean the kitchen and the corridor. Make lunch and then spend the rest of the day reading, studying Japanese and watching TV.

Unfortuanlly, most of that didn:t get done!

I didn't fall asleep until 3 am!  The cats wouldn't settle down. Then my brain went into over drive. I kept thinking about how I really wanted to get things done and thinking about how good it would feel to have at least part of the outside sorted. I know it sounds crazy but I'm really worried about the weird weather Japan has been experciening this summer. None of this is in Kyushu (except for that crazy thunderstorm last week) but that doesn't mean it can't happen here. There have been a lot of localized floods caused by what the media is calling "guerrilla rain", these sudden, intense down pours. Also, a couple of days ago there was a small tornando in Shizuoka.  It wasn't very long, just a few hundred meters but the damage was very bad, a garage had it's roof ripped off. The roof was found 100 meters away! Christopher was showing me that in another area cars were flipped over.

We have so much outside that could go flying if we got hit by a tornado, typhoon or even high winds. I don't like to think about the kind of damage that could be caused by some of the stuff out there!

So last night, I lay in bed, just thinking and planning and not sleeping. Which means I didn't get up at 5am! I woke up almost 8am, but felt awful! I decided that I wouldn't try to outside this morning, I can do it in the evening! I thought about sending Christopher out but asked him to clean the tatami room instead!

I cleaned the kitchen, got David to sort out a problem I was having with Amazon Photos (I'm really bad at computer stuff, I try but get so frustrated). Made lunch, then spent the afternoon in my room, with my air conditioner on. Today was hot, 36C, but again not too humid. The air conditioner really helped at lot.

At about 5 oclcock I decided to go outside. There are still some blueberries to be picked, I thought I could do that then start on the garden and the cleaning. But this happened.

A sudden down pour. There was thunder about as well.

Fluffy wasn't happy about the thunder!

Fluffy under the chair because of the thunderstorm

Tomorrow is another day! I have to try to get things done. I really want to get things sorted as soon as possible. Problem is everyone is so tired from work and I feel bad to ask them to do a lot, especially if I'm not doing that much. I keep telling myself that they are young men with a lot more energy and stamina than I have. 

I hope tomorrow is better! Wish me luck!

Blueberries

 The blueberry bushes have a load of berries this year.

I'm so happy to be able to go out in the morning and pick a big bowl full.

I keep thinking that they have finished, and I am amazed that I can find more and more.

I really wanted to make jam, but without an air conditioner, the idea of sterilizing jars and making jam is not tempting at all! So, the ones that are left after I've eaten them are going to be frozen. I love blueberry muffins, but again, it's too hot to bake at the moment!

The past week, I've been having a bowl of blueberries and yoghurt for breakfast. 

It's nice to be able to eat something that we've grown. 

Picking the blueberries

Just being able to go out and get these fruits is such a nice feeling. In Japan, blueberries are rather expensive. I remember seeing about 10 in a pack for 400yen, about £2.00. To have enough to really enjoy them would cost a fortune!

Our attempt at growing other vegetables ended in failure. The only plant that survived is the strawberry plant. But I've decided that we have to try again. A friend sent me a video about growing potatoes in pots or containers. We have a lot of old plastic bowls and other containers, so I'm going to wash them out and prepare them for autumn/winter potatoes. I also want to find out if we can grow sweet potatoes!

Fortunately, the weather has been good so far. It's been hot, but the humidity is low, which really helps. I hope that the weather keeps on like this, if it does I think I can work outside in the early mornings and evenings. Evenings are harder because of the mosquitoes.

I will get this garden sorted out. This has become my mantra!

Goodbye To Hannah

 Mikey drove Hannah and me back to her apartment.

We made a brief stop for shopping on the way. Hannah had no food in her apartment, and I needed to do a weekly shop. Even though I didn't buy that much, I still managed to spend 10,000 yen, about £50.  I try to get the bargains, but food is getting more and more expensive.  Anyway, it's motivated me to try and grow some vegetables, even just potatoes.  Have to start somewhere!  

On the way to Hannah's apartment, we passed a restaurant, at least I think it's a restaurant. The sign they had outside was a bit strange. 

Strange Restaurant

That statue thing is supposed to be a hot dog!  Hannah said it was creepy, and I would have to agree!

And believe it or not, I managed another little walk this afternoon. I'm making the most of the nice weather we are having.  It's a little hot, 29C, but the humidity is still low. It might rain a bit later, but so far this summer has been a lot more bearable than last year. It's going to get hot from Wednesday, but still not like last year when the highs were over 38C.

Today I walked up to our land and it's overgrown!

The weeds are back

I need to make money so we can hire a digger to get this cut down. The land opposite was worse, even the entrance to the field is overgrown!

I managed to move some of the trash that is in front of the storage building. I want to clear that area so David can put his car in if there's a typhoon. We have so much plastic to get rid of. Some of the large bowls and buckets I'm going to use to grow potatoes in, but there are a lot of bits that need to be dumped. Must get this done!

A Little Walk

 It's July, and I actually went for a walk and enjoyed it!

It's hot, the temperature right now is 29C, earlier it was up to 34C, but the humidity is low, about 50%. That might sound high, but the humidity is usually in the 80s.

Yesterday evening, I noticed that outside was cooler than inside. I'd been out picking a few blueberries. I suggested to Hannah that we have a little walk. I planned to walk up to our land, just to see how bad it is! Hannah had a quick look at Google Maps and found a small shrine just behind our house. But because of the stream, we had to walk around the block to get to it. According to Google Maps, it would take about 10 minutes to get there. I still want to know who does the walking for Google Maps, as I think they have longer legs than I do!

The worst part of this little walk was walking on the main road, just a couple of minutes, but there is no place to walk, and cars tend to go by really fast. Also, this was about 6pm, so people are heading home after work.  Once we got off that road, it was really nice! The air was fresh, the scenery so wild and beautiful, lovely mountain views, and stunning cloud formations!

Walking toward the shrine

I think the cage on the right is for trash pickup!

Rather wild!

This was actually an overgrown house. Hannah went up to it and could see the house under the foliage. Interesting and a bit creepy. I'm amazed at how nature just claims back everything. You would think that with all the man-made material used in a standard house that nothing could grow over it, but given time, nature finds a way!

Shipping container

The first question that comes to mind is why, the second is how?  It's just left there. I would love to know what's inside. 

The tori gate

This marks the entrance to the shrine itself.

Writings on the gate

I'm not sure what these writings are, either who made it or who paid for it.

It does say the date that the gate was erected, Showa 11, 1936. So old but not ancient!

Community center

Before we got to the shrine, we found this building. At first we thought it might be a private house but it's a community center. Hannah took some photos of the interior, which looks like it's still being used!

Inside the community center

Around the corner from the building was the shrine.

The shrine

There were even brooms and rakes stored underneath.

Brooms and rakes

So I guess somebody must come to keep the ground clear.

Beautiful old tree

The area was kept nice but not overly taken care of. A nice balance between keeping it safe and letting nature have her way!

I really enjoyed our little walk. Finding something that I didn't know about made it interesting and exciting.

I hope that I can have more of these little walks. If the weather stays like this, I might actually be able to enjoy the summer a bit. I hate that I feel confined to four walls for about half the year.  

Hannah is going back to her apartment tomorrow. I've enjoyed having her here, but she needs to get back to her schedule. 

We are thinking of going for a day trip during her summer holiday, something to look forward to.

But I do need to be able to walk a lot more to enjoy these outings. Back to doing more exercise!!

Wi-fi Woes

 I never realized how much I rely on the wi-fi until it stops working!

The past few days, the wi-fi has been spotty, working great for a while, then just stopping. Everything I watch is through streaming services, yesterday I started to watch something when it suddenly stopped. I waited for a while but it just wouldn't start again. I asked Christopher to see if he could do something but he couldn't. I had to wait until David woke up, but he only had a couple of hours before work, so no real chance to see what was wrong and how to fix it!

Today I begged David to find out what's wrong and fix it. Took him most of the morning but he managed to get things working.

He basically reset everything, with a new password. He set up my TV, but not my other devices. I thought about waiting until he woke up, but Hannah needed to send something to her university, so she needed the password.

I remembered Mikey had the password, but he had gone to teach. I sent him a message and asked him to send the password.

The message I got back was "password"!

Not funny, but he did send the real password after!

Hannah is going back on Sunday. I hope she'll be alright. The cats will miss her!!

Hannah and Fluffy

Thunderstorms

 I thought the storm on Tuesday was scary!

The one we drove through yesterday was terrifying!

Not just the lightning strikes, but the amount of rain that came down. About 26mm of rain in less than an hour. 

The area that we were driving through tends to be lower.  A lot of the roads dip rather dramatically, that's okay when there's no rain, but with the sudden, intense storm we had yesterday, the result is localized flooding!

I took some videos, not very good as I was panicking! I think I got the inside of the car more than the storm! But they'll give you an idea of what it was like.

This was some really incredible driving by Mikey. The road we turned onto was completely flooded; if we had driven through it, the water would have been in the engine. We turned down the side road to go round and back onto the main road, but the side road was a lot worse. Mikey had to reverse back onto the road we had just come off. Fortunately, everyone was driving very slowly! My shouting is when lightning got very close!

We drove along the main road for a while, and I kept telling Mikey to just pull over. The area is industrial, with small factories and warehouses, but they were all lower than the road and flooded.

We finally found a convenience store where we could stop. This was after 4pm, and our first class starts at 5pm. Mikey decided that it would be better to cancel the class. It was really dangerous being outside and most of the kids walk to the class! He called one of the mothers, who offered to relay the message to the other families. 

We got to the community center alright! As we pulled up, the storm stopped. There was no slowing down of the rain; it was heavy, then nothing! 

I really don't like this kind of storm. If we are at home, I can cope, but being out in it was awful!

One thing that is unusual is the low humidity recently.  Even with all the rain we've had over the past few days the humidity is below 50%.  Most years it feels like a sauna when you are away from the sir conditioning! This year, so far, it's been more bearable! I hope it stays like that!

Hospital, Thunderstorm And Cats

 We managed to get Hannah to the hospital yesterday.

I wasn't impressed with the doctor; I think he had some sort of problem. Most of the time, I can understand most of what a person is saying, but with this doctor, I couldn't catch anything. Fortunately, Hannah had done a lot of research into different types of seizures.  She asked if she had functional seizures, the doctor said he couldn't give a definite diagnosis because the 2nd episode happened on Friday, but from what he was seeing, it's a possibility. 

When we came back, we talked for a while about what she should do. These seizures have more to do with the mind, the emotions we are feeling, and less to do with the physical brain. In my understanding, epilepsy happens when the brain's electrical system misfires. With functional seizures, it is more to do with the mind shutting down because it can't cope with the environment. In Hannah's case, it happens when she is overwhelmed with stress, exhaustion, and the heat. Both times she's had these seizures were because she had too much on her plate!

So she is going to see if she can get counseling at the university. Also, she is going to find a local hospital that she can go to if this happens again. I've offered to go and stay with her during times of high stress, like tests or when she is doing her teacher training. She will make a note with her name and address on it, and what to do if she has another episode. She said the scary part was sitting in the dark, not knowing who she was, where she was, and what she had done that day!

I hope that by having that plan in place, she can be confident to go back next week!

We spent the morning at the hospital. Came back, had lunch, picked up materials for our lessons, and headed back to the other city! 

Just before we left, it started to rain. Not a gentle summer rain but a real heavy downpour accompanied by thunder.

I took a little video of the rain, usually you can see the mountains, but the rain was so heavy and the clouds so low that visibility was very poor!

Rather intense driving!

The poor cats weren't happy with the thunder.  They all found hiding places.

Difficult to see, but that is Fluffy hiding. 

Also, I managed to take a photo of the Tanabata decorations at the community center where we teach.

Tanabata decorations in the entrance of the community center

Tanabata

 July 7th is the Tanabata festival. 

In kindergartens, schools, libraries, community centers, and other buildings, you will see bamboo decorated with colorful strips of paper called tanzaku. People write their wishes, hopes, and dreams on them. 

Tanabata decoration

The festival celebrates the story of two celestial lovers, which is originally from China and came to Japan in the Heian Period (794-1185).

Orihime-Weaving Princess, the daughter of Tentei (Sky King), was a gifted weaver, creating beautiful clothes by the banks of the Amanogawa, the Milky Way.  

Hikoboshi -Cow Herder Star- was a diligent and handsome cow herder who lived on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

One day, they met and fell deeply in love; their love consumed them so much that they neglected their duties.

This angered the Sky King, so he separated them and put them on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

Orihime was so brokenhearted that she pleaded with her father to allow her to meet her husband. Moved by her tears, the Sky King allowed them to meet once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month.

This magical reunion depended on a bridge being formed across the Milky Way. It is said that magpies would form a bridge with their wings. If it rains, however, magpies can't fly and the lovers would have to wait another year.

Today's festival is a joyful occasion to make wishes and celebrate the star-crossed lovers.

I always feel that the real summer has started with this festival. 

I remember teaching in kindergartens, the kids would be so excited to "write" their wishes and put them on the bamboo. 

I don't think the UK has this kind of festival. I'm wondering if other countries do!

Recent Adventures

 I was thinking the other day about how boring my life gets in the summer. I'm basically stuck in my room, as this is the only place that has a working air conditioner; the one in the kitchen/dining room stopped working after two days!

Then Friday happened.

Friday morning, David went out the back door to the storage place to see if there were any other fans. As he came back in, Mama cat made a dash for freedom. 

In the old house, she would escape every now and then, but she would always come back. I felt that she knew that area, as she had been a stray before we took her in!  But here she had never been outside!

Panic ensued. David, Christopher, and I went outside to see if we could find her. Yes, even I went out!

We looked around, but the land is so overgrown that it's impossible to see anything, plus there is so much stuff in the outside storage area that she could be hiding anywhere. I managed to fall over and jar my back! I came back in, but David and Christopher stayed out for almost an hour! Finally, we decided to put some food out to see if that would coax her back.

After about an hour, we saw her, David tried to catch her then but she ran into the storage area. It took another 30 minutes, but David managed to get her. He had to climb over all the stuff in there.

I'm glad we got her back. There are too many wild animals out here which makes it more dangerous for domestic cats to survive.

That was enough adventure for one day, but life hadn't finished throwing me a curveball!

At 10:30 at night, Hannah called me on Messenger, which was unusual; we usually use the Line app to talk!

She looked awful, very pale and almost crying. She was panicking. She said she woke up about half an hour before with no memory of who she was, where she was, what day it was, or what she had done that day. I asked if she remembered about Mama getting out, and she said no if she remembered what she had for dinner, again, no. She said that her jaw was hurting. She asked if I could come and stay with her.

I had to ask Mikey to drive David to work and then take me to Hannah's. I felt so sorry for Mikey as he is now working delivering newspapers from 2am to 4am, and this was already 11pm. I think he got back here after 1am!!

I got to Hannah's at midnight, we sat talking until about 2am!

She has a lot going on with her course. One of her teachers is a nasty piece of work, very narcissistic!  She spends most of the lesson putting the students down! All of the students are stressed by this teacher. I've suggested to Hannah to ask if she can change class. Also, last week Hannah had to do two presentations, plus two for this coming week. 

It was nice to spend the night, not that I got much sleep! I think I spent time watching Hannah, making sure she was okay.

In the morning, we had a late, unhealthy breakfast! One good thing is that Hannah can use Uber Eats to order food! We ordered from McDonald's! I haven't had anything from there for a couple of years, so it was a nice change!

Breakfast

Hannah decided to come home for a few days!

She sent a message to her year tutor. He said that it was no problem, but suggested she go to the hospital to get a proper diagnosis.

So she's at home! I think she is enjoying being with the cats!

She'll have to call the hospital tomorrow and hopefully get an appointment for Tuesday!

My weekend was not boring at all!!  I need to recover from the weekend, so I'm hoping things don't get too crazy!!

Air Conditioners

(This post has affiliate links.)

 We need air conditioners, they aren't a luxury!

Today's high was 36C, with humidity at 65%.  Without an air conditioner, it's difficult to do anything!

I would love to buy new ones, but of course, we don't have the money.

So I decided to be brave and open up the air conditioners that are here. They were installed when the house was built 33 years ago. The big problem is that they have never been cleaned.

One of the old air conditioners

To work efficiently, air conditioners should be cleaned at least once a year. In the old house, I would clean out the air conditioners before using them.

The one in the tatami room was rather clean, I think it was only used once a year, when we would gather for Obon in August.

The one that I was worried about was the one in the kitchen/dining area. I really didn't want to use it, but without it, cooking is difficult. Even with it, cooking is difficult; the machine is the wrong size for the room. But at least I can go and sit near it while I'm waiting for something to cook! Gives me a bit of a break! Also, this is the place where the cats hang out, and for the past couple of days, David has been sleeping on the sofa there!

I got Christopher to open it up. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think my mother-in-law didn't really use it!

Christopher took the front filters out and washed them, wiped down what surfaces he could get to. But I know that the deeper part of the machine needs to be cleaned. So I bought some spray that cleans out the deep part of the machine. It helps to kill off any mold that has grown in there.

This is what I use

This really helps to clean out the deep part of the air conditioner

This is the link to it on Amazon.

https://amzn.to/4eC9nkq

I don't know how long these old air conditioners will last or how expensive they are to run. Newer models have an eco mode on them. The old one in the kitchen/dining area doesn't have a remote control. I'm not looking for to the electric bill.

But it's better than nothing. This heat is going to continue to climb; next week is forecast to be up to 38C. Help!

My Health

 I think I have to make my health a priority over the next few months!

I've let things slide, I'm eating too much junk (just had a couple of small donuts!), not exercising, and not sleeping properly. I'm stressed and frustrated about our money situation. I want to do a lot in this house, but there is no money at all. I know it doesn't help, but stress makes me eat, I find comfort in food!

At the beginning of June, I had my yearly check-up. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my A1c number was good, which is the test for diabetes. I was told that the number should be between 4.5 and 6.00. When I was diagnosed, my number was 7.2; the last test I was at 6.00. Which is good, but I need to get it lower. I know what to do, but doing it seems so hard.

For me, dieting, eating healthy, and being proactive about my health is more about my mind, my thinking! I know that it would be a lot better to have a salad with some low-fat protein for dinner, but I'll have a sandwich or noodles instead. If the bread was a good whole wheat bread, it might be alright, but the bread in Japan is white and has very little nutrition! Another excuse for my bad eating is the price of food, especially anything that is healthy! As summer starts, the price of vegetables goes up. The other day I was shopping and came across a bunch of grapes for 5,000yen, that's about £25!!

Expensive grapes

Fortunately, that isn't normal, but food prices are going up. The things that are cheap are the more unhealthy choices: snack breads (my big weakness), snacks, and cup noodles. They aren't bad as a treat or if you are too busy to cook, but eating those kinds of foods every day will add inches to your waistline and make you unhealthy in the long run. Japan actually has a problem with diabetes, even though obesity is low! I was surprised when the doctor told me that my mother-in-law had diabetes, even though she only weighed 48kg, about 100lbs!  

I also have to start exercising more! I thought that living here, I would be outside in the garden or walking to the other fields. I did it a few times, but not consistently! Now, it's too hot to be outside. I get up early, between 5 and 6am, to get chores done and start lunch. I think I might be able to do a few things outside at that time, I should try!  By 8am, it's already 30C! I should go back to doing the chair exercises; they are gentle and do help. At the moment my lower back hurts if I'm standing for more than 20 minutes, I know it's because my weight has gone up a bit. There's a certain weight that once I go over it, my back is very painful! I've noticed over the past few weeks that it has started to hurt again, so I checked my weight and sure enough, I've put on about a kilo! That doesn't sound like a lot, but I know that one kilo will lead to another and another if I don't make changes now!  Again, I know what to do, but doing it seems difficult! 

Another area that I'm struggling with is my sleep patterns! I sleep too much during the day and then spend most of the night tossing and turning! I have sleeping tablets from the doctor, but the few nights I've taken them, I've had bad dreams! Maybe I should just take them for a couple of weeks to get my sleep pattern in order!

I really need a lot more energy to get things done! I also have to stop thinking that my life is over, that being in my sixties means that there is nothing new for me, nothing to look forward to except old age. I have a friend who is 70, and she is talking about saving money to start a new business!  I need to change my mindset, get my health sorted, and start living, doing things that make me happy and make the people around me happy.

I will try to update on any progress I make! My first goal is to drop about 7kgs before my next appointment in September. Also, I need to be able to walk more by then, as Hannah and I have tickets to see Les Misérables at the end of September!

Wish me luck!!

 

July 5th???

 In 1999, a manga titled 'The Future I Saw' was published.  The manga artist, Ryo Tatsuki, claimed to have dreams that predicted future events. These dreams took place between 1985 and 1999.

She said that her dreams would come true either 15 days after her dreams or 15 years later.

According to different sources, she predicted the deaths of Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana.

There are also claims that she predicted the March 11th Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Since April, I think, I've noticed a lot of articles and videos on social media about July 7th. According to Ryo Tatsuki, there will be a catastrophic tsunami between the Philippines and southern Japan. She says that there will be a massive undersea eruption and the tsunami will be larger than the March 11th one!

This prophecy has caused a mix of fear, fascination, and even a slump in tourism. I've taken it with a pinch of salt.

Is there a possibility of an undersea eruption? Yes, the sea between the Philippines and Japan is very active. At the moment, a string of small islands are experiencing an earthquake swarm; they have experienced almost 500 quakes in 4 days.  

Of course, these earthquakes, the waking of a volcano in Kyushu, and earthquakes in the Philippines have a lot of people really worried.  

Will there be panic buying of necessities, like bottled water and foods that can be easily prepared, especially if there is no power? I hope not, maybe I should buy extra toilet paper because every time there is some kind of disaster, toilet paper seems to sell out!  

For me, just dealing with the heat is enough. Another hot day predicted, up 35C again, this will be ongoing for at least 10 days, then it will cool to 32C!  I don't have the energy to think about earthquakes and tsunamis. As my kids say, if it happens, it happens. We can't change it or stop it!

My big problem is keeping the cats cool! Poor things are really suffering!  It's just too hot for them. In the other house, we had air conditioners, I never realised just how necessary they are until I didn't have them. 

Hot cats

It's just after 7am, and it's already too hot.