Finally

 It's getting cooler finally.  This morning I woke up shivering, I was so happy!  Day time highs are still too hot, yesterday was up to 30C with a real feel of 33C.  According to my weather app it should rain today and then drop to mid 20's next week, I hope so. When it's hot in the summer I deal with it by looking forward to cooler weather but when the autumn weather is still as hot it gets me down.  Part of this is trying to get use to new schedules, with the kids having new jobs all the schedules are different. Evenings especially are chaotic,  when Hannah and Christopher have work they want to eat at 6pm, the others want to eat later.  My idea is to make a big lunch then evenings are left overs and whatever is in the fridge/freezer.  I would love to make a big pot of stew or soup but when it's so hot nobody wants to eat that and I don't want to make that!  I'm also trying to make meals that are a little bit healthy with everybody working I know how easy it is to pick up whatever is going around, not just covid 19 but at this time of year flu and colds are going around!  I want to use fresh vegetables as much as possible, which brings me to my next moan! Everything is so expensive!  I went shopping the other day, just bought stuff for 3 meals and spent over 50 pounds!  Crazy! And I don't buy the most expensive stuff.

Cats are doing okay!  Hannah downloaded an app that "translates" what the cat says. She has to set up a profile for each cat and when they start meowing she puts the phone near them and sees what comes up.  Of course it's not real but some of the phrases that come up seem to fit the cat.  Yesterday Steve (the white cat) was sleeping, Hannah kept calling him to get him to meow, when he did the translator came out with "I'm sleepy". 

sleeping together

Close up of Mama, you can see Christopher in her eyes!

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.