Late night craving

Not really late night I suppose,as its only 10.30 pm but I am off to bed in a minute so it feels late.I was happily brushing my teeth and realised that I really fancy some fish fingers.Damn.No chance of getting them until I next go over to the UK.Very frustating when these cravings happen.Usually it is for fish and chips.Don't know why fish fingers are on my mind.And no,I am not pregnant again.Ho hum.Off I go to join Kenichi(already snoring) and Annie(smiling in her sleep).And I shall dream of Captain Birds Eye,no doubt.

Good news comes in threes

What a great day!I had 3 pieces of really fantastic news.In the order that I heard them they are ;

1. A little boy called Nils was born 5 weeks ago to my wonderful friend Stefan and his beautiful wife,Marika.See you all soon on Skype!

2. A friend (who I have never actually met but hope to soon!)is expecting her first baby in February.Weeeeee!!!

3. My friend Naoko who lives about 30 minutes away will be moving back to Reihoku in the near future with her husband and son.Her son,Yuichiro, is the same age as Annie and they love each other.They go to the same kindergarten and will now go to the same primary school.PTA will be a blast!

Today has been a good day,a really good day.I will be going to sleep with a a MASSIVE smile on my face.

Cor blimey.

Annie's language skills are really picking up now.She seems to understand most of what is said to her in English and Japanese and mixes both languages with ease.I speak only English with her and if she says something in Japanese,will repeat it back in English.Kenichi uses what English he can with her and the rest is,of course,Japanese.Most of her words are English although she has come out with both,for example saying "apple....ringo".It is fascinating to listen to her.

And my favourite "Annie words" are those English words begining with "h".She doesn't pronounce the "h" sound .So,here we are in the middle of the Japanese countryside,and our baby is telling is that she is " 'ot ",looking at the " 'ouses " and pointing out " 'orses " in her picture books. It's like living with our own little cockney.How freaky is that,I ask you.

Cool.......

I love it.My baby is a total Beach Bum.With an attitude.Go girl,Go.

Does this make me an Official Tokita??

Let me explain.Kenichi's family has had some bad luck with fingers and hands.My FIL,Yuji,lost 2 fingers on his left hand a couple of years ago in a horrible way(they got caught in a machine and had to be amputated) and soon after that he tripped over,got a piece of bamboo stuck in the thumb of his right hand.Despite a hospital trip,a few bits of the bamboo reminded in his thumb,got infected and then the whole hand blew up.He had bits of the gangrened(spelling??!) thumb removed and at one point we heard that his entire hand was in jeopardy.Nasty incident.And he was in hospital for ages.

Then,my BIL,Shinji,got his hand caught in a fish packing machine.That is all I shall say about the matter .He left that job and his hand recovered but still has the scars.

Kenichi managed to slash his hand open(no stiches needed which still stuns me) when he was cutting a rope here at home.

And hey,now I am a fully fledged member.Woo Hoo!Last night,I was slicing up spring onions in earnest and ...well......don't want to go into details but let us just say that SHIT,I lost a bit of my left digit finger plus nail and will be "deformed" for life in the finger department.It was horrible.The blood flow stopped sometime during the night and I am ,at last,24 hours later,out of pain.Isn't that great??!!

But my god,I am so in awe of those Yakuza boys who chop off their little fingers for the gang.And actually think I know what type of knife they must use....................

Spell Check,or however you spell it

The bloody thing is still not working.I get an error sign every time I use it.Maybe my spelling is so bad that it refuses to do its job.Just my luck.Now I feel linguistically naked.Enjoy.

The house key

So,I lost my house key yesterday afternoon sometime.And I forgot that I had lost it until I was just about to drive Annie to day-care this morning and asked Kenichi not to lock the front door so that I could get back in when I got back from work.Got home just after 3pm and decided to have a half-hearted look around in my car.And,of course,found the thing on the floor under a seat with a load of 100 yen coins(lucky!) and petrol receipts.And that was that.

But then I had a little revelation.Can you imagine being so blase about losing your FRONT DOOR KEY back in the UK??My god,we would have changed the locks the very same day,if not hour.Ho hum.One thing I do love about living in the middle of nowhere in Japan is that hey,it really doesn't matter about locks and things!We never lock our cars and in fact Kenichi often leaves his keys in the ignition.And on most days,although the front door is locked,most of the windows are open.I don't know how long this will last but I love it!And don't even start me on my purse and the places it has been found......

A new start

Now,that feels better.The old Blog was just too damn dark and I didn't update for so long that I didn't quite know where to begin.So,I decided that the best thing would be to start over.

I was also getting a little tired of only posting about The Baby as my life was sounding totally Annie-centered.Apologies to my parents for ending the old Blog but it will always be there.

And now the begining of a new chapter.My fingers and toes are firmly crossed that spellcheck will like this Blog better(or else I am paddling up shit creek) and that my dear family and relatives excuse the bad language that will be appearing here from now onwards ;-)