TV times

My mother does have a computer and is connected to the Internet, so you’d be right to chastise me for my lack of blogging, but the fact that her computer is so old it doesn’t have a USB port may give you a sense of the technical challenges. 

These, combined with the sense of despair and inertia that grips me every time I set foot in my home town, meant that I spent most of my time watching the kind of TV that could only exist in the UK, such as Springwatch, a wonderful programme devoted to the nesting habits of everything furred and feathered within these shores. 

Viewers write in with news of polecats by the pond and chaffinches in their chimney. It is truly marvelous, and for anyone lucky enough to live in Britain and own a computer purchased within the last 15 years, you can even watch it online. 

This bird has flown

I have left Tokyo and my lovely Beast. I didn’t blub much at the airport. In a few weeks, the swelling around my eyes will have reduced enough to allow me to open them, and you’ll thank me when the paper tissue industry leads the world out of recession. 

Girl on film

Before I set off for my last day of work in Japan, I popped into Timorous Beast’s new neighbourhood park for a spot of quiet reflection under the trees: highs and lows of life in Japan, lessons learned, memories to be cherished and events best forgotten – that kind of thing. Two salarymen smoked and giggled like schoolboys, a solitary OL ate her bento and stared sadly into the pond, no doubt contemplating another afternoon of her higher-paid male colleagues smoking and giggling like schoolboys while she does all the work, and group of grey-haired photographers pointed their lenses at the rhododendrons and nodded sagely. 

One of the photographers approached me and pointed at his camera, indicating that I should follow him. The camera in question was bristling with dials, knobs and extendable bells and whistles.  I’m not technically-minded at the best of times, and have long been afflicted with a curse whereby expensive photographic equipment that functions perfectly satisfactorily is transformed to a useless lump of plastic whose aperture refuses to open as soon as I touch it. So I was relieved when, instead of handing me the camera and gratefully leaping into a pose among the shrubbery, he directed me to sit in the gazebo while the Koishikawa Photography Club took photos of me.

 

They can smell your fear

Every time my mother sets eyes on me, she makes the same two observations. The first is, "Oh, you're looking awful thin!" She forgets, not having seen me for several years, that I have always been scrawny.  

The second observation comes as a result of me being paraded round relatives' houses and invariably ending up having a dribbling baby whose actual familial connection to me is unclear thrust onto my lap, and runs thus: "You're so great with children!"  

For years, I suspected that this was my mother's way of reminding me to have children. Then that moment passed and I wondered if children didn't  simply like me because, in comparison to the rest of my family, I'm less of a patronizing psychopath. However, that seems unkind and as my sister so often points out, I don't have kids so what would I know about it anyway? Besides, the babies of friends who are relatively sane also seem to enjoy scampering up my leg and grinning into my face at point blank range.  

This weekend, Timorous Beast and I visited friends in Saitama. Their baby barreled towards me the instant she clapped eyes on me and insisted on giving me Anpanman, Cheezu the dog and every other soft toy in greater Tokyo to play with at 5 second intervals throughout the afternoon. She pretty much ignored everyone else. 

The thing is, I don't like babies. I never have done. They are damp, pink and disgusting.  I have nothing to say to them and I don't know how to play with Anpanman. The only possible explanation, then, for their persistent attraction to me is that they know this and are trying to torture me.

Beast's boudoir

Here's the bachelor pad before we filled it with crap. Here it is with all our crap in it. And here's the greenery outside: a bit sparse compared to the old place, but not bad for central Tokyo.

Paradise lost

As I'm abandoning my beloved Beast, we're being forced to move out of our lovely apartment, with its trees, hairy neighbours and beautiful living room and into somewhere smaller.  

We'll have no Internet for a week, so please bear with me. Your prize shall be pictures of Beast's new bachelor pad. 

Killer swans

I've long suspected that working in insurance must make people a tad paranoid. As I was leaving the insurance place where I do editing, a Japanese colleague called out, "Watch out for that swan flu!"