5 September 2009

My Japanese lesson went quite well for once. I didn't feel that I did any worse than the other three students who turned up. I really am going to have to make time to study during the week though, if I want to do more than keep my head above water.

After lunch we all went to Hamarikyu. Entering the gardens, we found dozens of dragonflies flitting around among the blades of the iris plants. They were very striking and I felt moved to compose a haiku about them:

Gauze wings trap the sun

Copper and bronze shards of light
Dragonflies' bright lives

Emily had great fun chasing them with a stick. As usual, there were a lot of stray cats hanging around, and we had to stop her from chasing them too.

It was a glorious afternoon and lovely strolling around the lake, which contains seawater via channels out to the bay.

I made a serious error of judgement in only bringing one spare nappy out for the afternoon. Emily did a small poo, but after I had changed her, she did a much larger one. That meant that we had to curtail our visit before we had had a good look at the huge field of cosmos that had been the main reason for going. The flowers were a bit past their best but still amazing.

In the evening, Nick went out with Jill's husband, Jim, and their friends Yuji and Anna. Yuji runs some football bars, and they met at the one in Ebisu. He also met a couple of other Brits including someone nicknamed 'Sausage John', a master butcher who creates his own saussies. I must try to get hold of some as the Japanese efforts are very poor and the meat content very low.