Up the Creek

 We live in a rented house with a no pets contract.  But we have 9 cats.  I had hoped to keep this from the real estate company that we deal with and for the past 3 years we have managed to do that.  Last week we got a letter from them saying that they have to check the smoke detectors that were installed when we moved here.  I have no idea why they suddenly need to check them, they were installed 12 years ago and have never gone off.  I'm so worried about this, I can't focus on anything else, I can't plan anything or think about Christmas, just this real estate person coming.  We could put the cats at mother in laws house but that would take a lot of planning with work shifts for Mikey and David and getting the power turned on at the house.  I really don't want to loose this house, I like it here.  Also Christopher's work is just a few minutes walk from here, he has a chance to do really well there.  What a lousy situation to be in!  

Some photos of the trouble makers!  I never wanted cats, but I'm not kicking them out or having them put down, it would break my heart and the kids too.

An abundance of cuteness!

More Halloween Pictures

 Mikey has a class in the next town.  The parents there asked for a big party, putting all the kids together.  Because it would be over 2 hours long Mikey did a magic show for them!  From what I've heard he did very well.  He is hoping to turn professional soon, it should of happened last year but covid stopped that!

Mikey getting wrapped up as a Mummy

Floating table trick

Halloween mask!

Mom

 Today would of been Mom's 82nd birthday.  I have a hard time trying to imagine what she would be like now.

Some of my fondest memories of Mom are around Christmas time.  She always made it special for us, not just the holiday but the led up to it.  I remember writing letters to Father Christmas and leaving them on the mantle place, in the morning they would be gone.  Mom would then tell us to look round carefully, hidden somewhere would be a small chocolate.  Mom said that the elves had been and taken our letters leaving the chocolate, which meant that the elves were now watching us and we had to be good!

I remember the food shopping for Christmas, she always bought enough to feed an army but we managed to eat the lot. Lining up the milk bottles outside, it was cold enough.  Getting up at some ungodly hour to see if Father Christmas had been, Mom coming down with us and getting the turkey in the oven.  I never realized how much hard work went into Christmas until I had my kids.  For me it was even harder as Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas so finding things like wrapping paper was so hard!  Now Christmas is big, the store know how to get people to spend more money!

Mom was big on manners, always remember please and thank you.  She also had "the look" down to perfection.  When we were visiting friends, if I misbehaved Mom would just give me the look and I knew that I was in trouble.  

So Happy Birthday Mom.  I miss you so much!

In the kitchen

with Dad

She thought there was no film left

with Hannah

First meeting with Mikey

Very young Dad and Mom

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!