Fish and Chips

 For the past few weeks I've been drooling over these photos posted on Facebook of lovely looking real British fish and chips that are being served in cafes in Tokyo.  Also one British guy has set up a food truck in Okinawa selling fish and chips.  Until a few weeks ago I hadn't seen good white fish that could be used. Cod is available but it's too boney and very expensive.  On Sunday I went to the local supermarket where they had white fish, I have no idea what fish it was as all it said was white fish and because it was the weekly sales day it was  a good price.  So I bought some, came home and looked for a good recipe.  Found one on my BBC Good Food app.  Yesterday I managed to real fish and chips for the first time in 30 years!

October

 It's October.  It's autumn but the weather is still like summer!  Todays high is 32C (about 89F).  I'm not happy about this at all. The nights are cool so I don't need to use the air conditioner but the days are still hard to deal with.  I left a lot of jobs undone in the summer because I know I get sick in the heat.  My plan was to get as much done in October, not just the house but the yard and fields that we have.  But there is no way that I can really work in this heat.  Did get a couple of big jobs done but not as much as I would like!  Still keep on keeping on, it will all be done one day!

The kids have settled into their new schedules and jobs.  Of course David has a funny story!  Part of his job is  cleaning the toilets.  The ladies is just for one person, so he knocks on the door, if no answer he goes in to clean.  The other night he knocked on the door, no answer, opened the door and saw somebody standing there, he apologizes and goes on to do something else.  There is a lot to do, because of the pandemic everything has to be wiped down after each customer!  Half an hour later he goes back to the ladies and the same thing happened.  This went on all night.  At about 7am he tries again, things are a bit brighter in the morning, he knocks on the door, no answer, opens it and realizes that there is a mirror opposite the door, it was his reflection he had been seeing!

We are getting ready for Halloween.  Went to the local 100yen shop and bought a few more ornaments for the room we teach in, need to get them up today! Of course the cats got in on the action.

Getting ready for Halloween with Alan!

This year I'm not baking cookies, part of it is the on going pandemic, part is just not having the energy to do over 200 cookies.  I'll bake for us but I need to do so many!

Fluffy has taken to sitting on the window at the top of the stairs, but it is very narrow so David moved a small book shelf so she can sit on that and stick her nose out of the window.  The book shelf became a cat shelf!

Cat shelf.

Changes

 Every ones schedule has changed!

Hannah is back at university after a long summer break!  She is excited about her study this semester, early childhood education and special needs education.  Most of her lessons are still online plus she is still working part time.

Christopher is working for the same company but is being trained as an early morning shift manager.  Early morning means early, 4am start.  Fortunately his work is just down the street at the local supermarket.  Last week he had a health check, he is healthy enough!

David has changed his job, he has worked for about 18 months at a local convenience store.  The new job is at an internet cafe, working nights, midnight to 9am.  Hard but good money!

Mikey has also started a part time job at a local restaurant, 10pm until it closes.  He wants to buy some magic goods so needs some extra cash.

All of these changes have happened in the last couple of weeks and has left my head spinning.  I honestly don't know who is in the house, who is coming or going and what to do about meals.  They all tell me their schedules but it's difficult to remember.  I'm going to put a calendar on the fridge and they can fill out their schedules!

The weather is kind of cooling down.  Nights are cool enough that I don't need the air conditioner on, good!  Sunday I decided to make a roast dinner, even made Yorkshire Puds to go with it!

Nice roast dinner

Also some of the autumn wild flowers are out.  These are growing along side the road.

They are more orange in real life.

Cook Books and Cooking Apps

 I love cooking!  Not in the summer but now the weather is cooling down I want to get back into the kitchen.  My problem is I get bored with the same meals, I figure there are so many different dishes to try and I love to experiment.  I have a book case full of cook books,  most in English some in Japanese.  I also have thousands of cook books on my kindle.  Then I have apps, a couple of Japanese ones and a couple of English ones.  The biggest problem is finding ingredients in Japan for English recipes.  Somethings are okay but many times I have to figure out substitutes for things, so I often wonder how close to the real taste am I getting!

Then there is baking.  I'm fascinated by the fact that the same four ingredients, butter, sugar, eggs and flour can be made into so many different things.  Just changing the ratios one can make cakes or cookies, add some flavor, chocolate or fruits and the result is so different.  I haven't baked for a while, it's been too hot but I'm hoping to start again, I have a craving for scones so I might make some this week.

My cook books

with a cat on top

Typhoon and Cats

 Typhoon 14 roared through here yesterday.  This typhoon had been dancing around the ocean just west of Kyushu for about a week.  The first forecasts had it going through South Korea but it dropped south came through northern Kyushu. The central pressure was 990hpa, so kind of strong.  My house has large metal shutters on the big windows which stops the windows being shattered by flying debris. They also cut the noise from outside, I actually opened the front door to see if the typhoon had passed, it hadn't but in the living room it was so quiet I thought it had finished.  All of my students called and canceled, which I'm fine with, it would of been dangerous to drive. I had a free evening so turned to Youtube for entertainment, I found an interesting documentary on tornadoes.  David couldn't figure out why I wanted to watch about tornadoes while in a typhoon.  What can I say?  I find these things interesting!

And cats!  They are driving me crazy.  Yes they are cute and very entertaining but the constant fighting is too  much.  It's worse than kids, at least they understand that fighting is not on and they grow out of it!  I'm not sure why they fight so much, there is enough food and water for all of them.  I have 10 litter boxes for nine cats so that shouldn't be a problem!  The worse ones are the oldest cats, 3 brothers (all the cats are fixed) they fight almost all the time.  One of the younger cats is trying to dominate the others but he gets put in his place.  We have to separate them at night otherwise we wouldn't be able to sleep!

lined up being quiet for a change

Alfie and Fred looking for lizards 

Alfie took Mamas place, she wasn't having it!

Looking cute!

A Murder In My City

 Japan has a very low crime rate. The city we live is safe enough for Hannah to walk back from her part time job at 10 o'clock at night.  In the 13 years we have lived here I've only heard of a few crimes near here, one was when a woman was attacked, another was some guy flashing girls near the library.  But murder, not unheard off but very rare.  It seems to me that murder in Japan seems to be very extreme, either a massacre such as the fire at the anime study that killed 33 people or very brutal, the beheading of a 11 year old, the head was then placed on the school gate are two incidents that come to mind.  But a cold blooded murder in my small city has really shocked me.  Apparently a university student traveled 120kms (about 74 miles) and killed an elderly woman who was in her garden weeding.  He had a steel hammer with him and hit her repeatedly around the head.  He then traveled 130kms (about 80 miles) and to another prefecture where he walked into a police station and confessed his crime.  He had no relation with this woman, never met her, she was just a random victim.  As much as I feel sorry for the ladies family I also feel sorry for this young man.  According to one article he had tried to set fire to his house before.  I think he has some serious mental health problem but that is not talked about in Japan.  Mental health is brushed under the carpet, people are expected to just get on regardless of how depressed they feel or how strong their stress is.  I know that in public schools the counselor has at least five schools to deal with, they don't have the chance to really see what the kids school life is like.  One of our students spent weeks talking to Mikey about her fears when her classmate tried to commit suicide, she had nobody else to talk to.  I'm sure over the next week or so this murder will be talked about on news programs with all the hand wringing and wishing it wasn't so but I doubt anything will change.  

On A Lighter Note

 Yesterdays post was a bit heavy.  I wasn't going to write about 9/11 but it is a significant thing that I felt I had to address it!

Todays post is just a run down of the daftness that is my life!  Four adult kids and nine cats make my interesting to put it mildly.

Mikey's latest thing is memorizing these awful jokes!  He then waits until we are in car to tell them.  Captive audience!  They are really awful groan out loud jokes!  I beg him to stop but he says just one more and as he goes on they seem to get worse and worse! He is hoping that he can get some magic shows this winter.  I feel very sorry for him as he planned to make his professional debut last summer.  But of covid put paid to that!

David is still as crazy as ever.  He put the cat tunnel on his head the other day and scared Toast, the small black cat.

Toast is freaked out!

Christopher and Hannah are doing okay.  Christopher is hoping to get another job. His manager has said he could change to the early shift and become a manager.  Early shift starts at 4am.  He's thinking about it!  The company he is working is seems to be good.  He will get 2 hours salary for getting his vaccine. 

Hannah is still on holiday from university but working her part time job 3 or 4 evenings a week.  She is saving to take driving lessons next year.  

And of course the cats are up to their usual antics.  I know cats are more nocturnal but why is 3am the favorite time to zoom around?  I get mad at them but then they just look at me with such innocent faces that I can't really yell!

In a bow tie

Rabbit Cat?

Steve was crying because he didn't have a box

.

Look the tunnel grew a tail!