19 August 2009

Another visit to Appi jidokan in the morning. Emily was playing very nicely with the other children and even sharing once or twice. There was a baby lying on a mat there, and she took it a few toys over to play with.

Afterwards we carried on to meet Nick for our weekly lunch date, where Emily stuffed her face with bread and quite a bit of smoked salmon.

As it was my turn to be coordinator for a TMG meeting, I had picked nearby Nandemo, but we wouldn't have time to go home for Emily's nap so I had to walk her around in the heat to get her off to sleep. Once she was away I went straight there and parked her in the air-conditioned foyer, where there happens to be a little cafe. I had barely drunk my iced tea when she woke up again, having napped for all of 25 minutes. Not surprisingly, she was upset at first, but in the end she had two hours of quality playtime with quite a few other toddlers who turned up. Not a bad turn out at all, considering so many are out of town for the summer. There were two new English mums who were both very nice, but neither of them is here for more than a few months so it does make you feel like it's not worth the effort to get to know them.

We seem to be spending all of Nick's salary lately, so I am going to start monitoring our expenditure again, though I already know that it is the cost of familiar foods from home that is driving our budget sky-high. I bought two apples for 600 yen (about three pounds), after Emily spotted them on the shelves and kept asking for them. I am very careful to stick to my list where possible, so we don't throw much away at all, though the fruit and veg here seems to go off more quickly than at home.