Osaka, Hiroshima, and Hakone.

 Staying at at a traditional Ryokan is a great way to end a Japanese holiday.  Osaka, a modern port and business district, was a good way to start.   

Once acclimatized to the heat, the humidity and the legendary toilets, I was able to move onto Hiroshima, one of the most powerful places I have ever visited. 

 Two years ago in Thailand I saw how the terrible the conditions were on the Burma railway and the brutal conditions the Japanese imposed.  In Hiroshima I saw our terrible retribution.     It is hard to reconcile the version of Japan I saw with the version of Japan I experienced in the country today.   It is good to experience both sides of the story and to have a more nuanced understanding of the country. 

Hiroshima Peace Park

CND rose Hiroshima

Japan, initial thoughts

 Sitting in a bar in Kamakura, I told my host, that I had always wanted to visit the country, to which she replied what took you so long.  A good question,  how is that I have got so old before fulfilling this dream. With more time and more money, I would go back,  but sadly this really is probably a once in a lifetime's dream fulfilled.  And at my age I was happy to cheat rather than the fantasies of my youth staying all over the place and staying long,  I just had a fortnight's organised visit.  But I am feeling more than blessed that I finally got there and I think I saw a really good range of places: Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kanakawa ,Tokyo, Hakone and, on a day trip from the capital Kamakura.  I have been on I hate to think how many fast trains, how many local trains, I have even been on a pretend pirate ship and what the Japanese call a ropeway.  Travel does not fully ease the demons, but every day Japan put a smile on my face. 

Japanese entertainment - a rainy Sunday in Kanagawa

It turned out to be a very easy to visit, though that might be because the company I went with made travelling there very easy.  They booked the flights, they organised my JR pass, gave me the card which I could use on buses and tubes, already loaded up with credit, and they booked my hotels.  Each new town I got to someone met me, showed me around, and then let me lose on the town.  I enjoyed everything from the adventures, trying to work out the fancy loos, to the use of the lifts, to using an onsen. When I paused to try and work out what I was doing, someone would often come forward to ask if I was okay, when I actually really was lost and feeling a bit frazzled, I was instructed how to unpick the situation.  When I did not want to go up really high towers on my official tour, I was accomodated.   And when I got too tired to walk another step, I was happy to sit on a bench in a warm street and watch the mothers on bicycles cycle by me. 

Ice and heat.

 I feel like I am ice, except it is my memory that slides away from under me, rather than, my feet. 

If I just do, I am fine, I can get on a train, or I can go and have fun at a craft fair for a day, I can even produce a jolly tea towel, but all the years leading up to this point are a jumble of whispers. I try to catch what they are saying, I try and search the memory banks, but they are like tapes wiped clear.  There is just this faint echo, that something once happened. Of course it could be dementia, or does the body protect the living being within, from all that has happened to it.  Just focus on today, it says. Or at least I hope it does,  cos otherwise it is dementia and I am stuffed

Living Craft Hatfield.

Meanwhile the election has come and gone, despite the long sustained period here without rain, but of flood elsewhere, Reform has captured the hearts and minds of people ready to dance whilst the earth burns.    Us vaguely woke people though are almost always clobbered by our own desires and made hypocrites by the way we live our lives.   I am trying to sort out pictures from years back, but nothing seems to work, the technology just as intransigent as my mind, and still I take more pictures.  All these attempts to hold the memory,  and for a moment it works, but what about all the pictures I did not take.   More whispers. 

Anyway, one day it will all be gone and hopefully N will find this record if nothing else, and that might help him remember if not what I was like but some of the things I did. 

I went to a Buddhist meeting recently, with a friend from the Harmony Gardens, it disturbed me oddly, avoiding the truth or a recognition, that truth had not been in the room. Anyway it had nice consquences as I have messaged J and C in Bhutan to discuss their thoughts.  Sometimes I chant with the friend, it helps us both, but to her is embedded in the Buddism she practices, whereas I am now having to read up on things to understand what I have been chanting. 

Very importantly, N has taken this huge leap in being.  I will do some publicity for his new tattoo and mediation place tomorrow, through him life has taken on yet another adventure.   I am going to go on a workshop there, so will experience it for myself.   

The Lighthouse, sponsorship. 

Talking to potential customers.

Sentimental journey

 Around the time I knew my step dad really was passing I booked a cruise, I thought it was going last year, and would be a time to reflect on his life but I got it all wrong and instead I went this year and in many ways the trip became a route for me from work to retirement! It was also fun.  

Tulips of Amsterdam

If you were to look at the pictures of the trip you would say it was all about the flowers, flowers in The Netherlands, flowers on Scillly Isles and flowers in Monet's Garden and all of that would be true, it was partly the range of outings that sold the cruise to me (apart from the connection to my step dad/dad)  However, in reality the thing that also makes a cruise is ship board life and whilst I couldn't do what some people do, go from cruise to cruise, I really enjoy that process of dashing around the ship, trying to work out where one is,  looking out of the window and seeing the sea stretch away in the distance or land ahoy,  chatting to people fleetingly in the lifts or at lunch and then there are the opportunties for excerise and luxury. I did not finish my book, but I did watch 4 movies, go to four shows, join in with about 5 quizzes and even won one on musicals.  I swam a few times, did three art classes,  did three exercise classes, joined in with the line dancing and even on the last day was one of about a dozen people up dancing to New York, New York with some of the cast.    So it was pretty full on, and then there was the fun of dinning each night with the other solo travellers and the joy of eating by the pool or in a fancy restaurant.  Out of 8 days,  4 were at sea, I was in the spa this time when we passed by Guernsey,  last time we were going up a fjord.  So there is something about the process of cruising that appeals to me, there is a silliness to it, a kitchness and a joy to it.  Though I have not had experience of bad weather so that might shift my perspective. Also having no wifi it is wonderful to be away from the world, though news of the Pope's death was of course on the TV. 

Wildflowers on St. Mary's Scilly Isles.

But I was also lucky because the trips were glorious. I was in heaven up to my eyes in tulips after tulips at the Kuenkenhof, then on St. Mary's I sat on a wonderful beach, my back against a huge granite boulder and spent some time with dad, before walking through flower covered fields to the grave of Harold Wilson and back.  And then Monet's garden, a stupid distance from the ship, just shimmered in the sun, just like one of his paintings, except that there were no water lilies! About 30 years ago my sister and I had peered over the walls, because we had gone on the day it was shut!,  but now I have been. Entry is very reasonable, but not if you go from a cruise ship and have to have a meal en route, and everything there is much more touristy than when I last tried to get there, and I have learned of course how much is a recreation rather than exactly how he left it, but it was still worth it as it was spectacually beautiful. 

Giverny

So having hesitated and felt silly to cruise to such nearby places instead I am very very grateful for a lovely time in the sun, seeing great places and meeting lovely people   And as a bonus, before hand I got to the Roman Wall near what was Sycamore Gap,  climbing the hill ,was hard work especially in the cold and the rain and then I visited the roman fort of Vinlanda.  

                                              

Hadrian'sWall, near The Sill, Northumberland.

Tomorrow it is polling day, online everyone is saying Reform, but let's hope the people of Hertfordshire turn out to be better than that and keep the Green Party councillors in power.  

Not yet out on my ear.

 I am so anxious, I have written yet again to my employers to know what is going on. Everyone else has already had all their classes, cut some have even handed back their equipment but I am still getting students. Which should be wonderful but I feel too depleted to want to do it.  I have struggled for over 11 years doing this as I always struggle with work, I feel anxious before every class, I do not want to do it.  I always worry I won't have the magic, the thing that makes the class work and most of the time, once in class it is wonderful.  I have met some amazing people. For example at present I have a lovely student in Mexico from whom I am learning a lot about the history of the country.  During the pandemic, I tracked the condition around the world. I had been planning to give up work before then, but once we were locked indoors it seemed to make sense to just keep on working. I am pleased I have as really these students have been a lifeblood, tuning into what is happening around the world. At present we suddenly have a flurry of students from India, all with excellent English it is ridiculous that they are in class, but worldwide a lot of students and a lot of Brits struggle with that accent, though today, other accents in class could be considered as challenging, but that is the joy of the job. Meeting people for example who have probably travelled to another country for work, as a student or refugee, and then having mastered that language are now adding English to their skills e.g. the Swedish nurse formerly from Somalia who attended today.  From my room, I talk to the world that has been a privilege so you would think I would want to make the most of the fact that the company is for some reason still giving me work before my avatar takes over, but no I just want to join my fellow workers, who I have now had a massive amount of contact with via What's app and be out on my ear. 

My week will still be full once work ends, Monday yoga, Tuesday free, Wednesday art or the garden, Thursday volunteering, Friday volunteering, Saturday garden or I might even see R at last.  His brother died at the beginning of the year and so he too has been going through a very stressful time.    I helped in the garden last Saturday and knocked myself out.  Very tired at present,  I think it is that is happening. 

Down or out?

 The 17 year old who threw a boardmarker at you and ordered you out of the classroom is 70 now. 

Today she stands at your grave, uncomfortable in black, a woman who wants a colourful funeral, 

Hates the dark crows of death.  But you were 70 even at 26 so today for your farewell

She bows to your wishes, but remembers how once the pink lace tucked underneath surprised and

And delighted. 

Actually in the end, I thought I looked okay in black and although the funeral made me and probably most people there pensive, the black did not scare me in the way it has sometimes.  Instead I suppose perhaps because you were the most traditional  of men, it seems fitting for you . I wish though that you were still here and that I had picked the phone up rather than just messaging you in the last year.  I would have come if I had known you were ill.   I cannot make it up to you, just share my thoughts here.  Ironically though whilst grief has dominated today, there is anger too, friendships are never simple things and we can lose people in more ways than one. 

The friend who yet again complains you failed to tell them when your Dad died, even though you have apologised and explained you were wiped out when it happened. The word cow comes to mind. 

The same friend whose very words have left you reeling after each contact.  My jolly halloos denounced, my simple but heartful "yours" trounced, my lengthy texts bounced.   None of them conveying to you, that they were sent sent with an embrace.  You tell me, none of them good enough. The word cow comes to mind. 

Nevermind she hasn't rung for two years, the fact that your friends shut her out enough to condemn you, That for years you have felt like something about you really annoys her.  The word cow comes to mind.   

She says friendship is about ringing her, communing with her, talking with her, that is friendship.  Not this thing I do, this English thing, keeping in touch.  The word cow comes to mind.  

The word cow comes to mind.     But what if true friendship is valuing the person, accepting them, loving them, regardless, then who is the cow? 

Grief when someone dies goes through stages, but so does the grief of losing a valued friend.  I don't know now whether this person has been a friend,  perhaps I have been getting it wrong all this time, or perhaps we just needed to clear the air, but at this point I just feel angry about it.  However, I will sit with it.   The loss of Michael and my guilt at not being in touch more (though I know why I wasn't) might make me lean one way, on the other hand sometimes it is just good to let a friendship go.  

Pussy footing around with Philip or what the EF. But Abel is more than able.

 Redundancy still looms and it is making me really angry.  Billionaire boss of English school, can't afford to employ UK based staff.  BS. And misselling. Sometimes my students want and need someone based in the UK for their conversations.     I am still not sure when it ends, but by the looks of it, we will just drop off a cliff and our students won't know why we are suddenly not available. 

But BS is not just horrible it is dangerouns. Trump and Musk's destruction of so much that is decent, has sent my American friends into despair, but people are trying to fight back.  The National Parks Services was the surprise wonder of my trip to America, they are under attack from Doge, but they are putting out social media messages that challenge the false narratives of T and M.  

Joy is needed at such times, so it was lovely to see Abel Selaocoe in concert,  up there as one of the best I have ever seen. The atmosphere was electric and when he walked on the audience erupted, but not everyone there knew who he was as they were there to see the Aurora perform.  I had a vague idea he might be good, just from the snippets of him in action I had seen but the Four Spirirts South African piece proceeeded the classic and almost beat Beethoven.   Others did not have a clue what they were about to see and they were bowled over.  I suppose once we get used to Selacoe's lovely fusion style it will just be another positive experience, but coming to it fresh it was brilliant, electric and life affirming.