Halloween Parties

 It's that time of year again, where ghost stories and games rule our English classes. In Japan the second term of school is very long, September to the end of December without any breaks.  By this time the kids are already flagging and finding it hard to concentrate and there are still two months to go.  To give the kids a break, especially after working hard for an English test, we have Halloween Parties the last week of October.  The kids look forward to it, the younger ones dress up and invite their friends to come.  I use to do cookies but this year I realized that I don't have the energy to bake over 200 cookies in my small kitchen!  So we bought a load of candy, cookies and chocolate and made up small gift bags for the kids to take home.  I was hoping to hire the local community center and do two big parties but parents are still worried about Covid 19 so we stuck to doing parties for each class.  Two more days to go then need to think about Christmas!

Girls looking cute in their costumes

Christopher!!!!

Halloween table. 

I put the Halloween table out the beginning of October, it makes a good conversation piece for the kids, they ask questions or make comments on the different things.  Makes for for more natural learning than just from a book!  

Happy

 It's so cool!  It's about 18C at the moment, should go up 20C this afternoon. I'm so happy.  I can't believe how exhausting living in a hot humid country can be.  Just cooking a meal makes me sweat so much, I never have energy to do anything else.  I know that the past couple of years people have been experiencing lockdowns because of covid 19, I have to do a similar thing every summer.  If I go out I get really sick so I stay with my air conditioner, which helps but never feels that good.  This past summer was the worst because of wearing masks in the shops.  I would shop as quickly as possible but still most of the time I would be throwing up after with the most incredible headaches and fever of about 37.5C.  Cool weather means I can get all the jobs I've put off done plus I can cook without sweat dripping into my eyes.  Yesterday I made shepherds pie, nice!

shepherds pie, peas and cabbage

The cats also have a lot more energy and they have found that getting on laps is one way of staying warm!

Hannah buried under cats!

I hope this nice cool weather lasts a bit before it gets really cold!

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