Home from holidays....

"Did she go to that mountain in Australia? I climbed that mountain in Australia on my tour. The other tour members didn't go to the top, but I did. I climbed to the top.....did she go to that mountain in Australia? I went there on my tour. I climbed to the top. Did she go there? On my tour I climbed to the top of that mountain in Australia....."


That's the conversation Yujiro's been having for the past 10 days with Okaasan.


No. I didn't climb that mountain - Ayer's Rock by the way - but I did do all of this!

Mud crab chili - first Oz meal!

My apartment complex.

Finally feeling the sand between my toes!

Err.....snorkling....Great Barrier Reef.

Bond Girls look better...this is a sausage stuffer.

And when I'd finished doing that near Cairns/Port Douglas....I flew to Melbourne and did some of THIS!

Melbourne Cricket Ground tour....before the Football Final.

Coundown to the final.

Loretta and me....on the MCG cocktail terrace, but no cocktails ;-(

Roast lamb dinner with Loretta and Brett.

Loretta's pad.

Saori, Gordan and Sola's forest pad.

Heidi checks the heating vents.

Let the Football Final begin!

Geelong Cats win!!!!!!

4 hour stopover in Cairns - lunch and sunshine.

Final top up of sunshine before leaving Oz.

Don't you just hate people who show you hundreds of their holidays snaps?


And then....I flew back to Japan...and took the trains up north of Tokyo to Tochigi where Izumi (one of my original room mates in Japan ) had given birth to baby Takeru 5 days before. Mother and Baby looking very very healthy! And "Takeru" means "Healthy"....
As Izumi is one of the old Japanese friends I call "sister"...I guess this makes Takeru my nephew....

And then home.....to Yujiro and cats...oh...and that old woman who is still living in the rooms off the kitchen. Who is she and what is she doing here? I bought her a flowery shawl from Australia, it can join the pile of other flowery shawls which I'll inherit when she goes off to the great Seicomart coffee bar in the sky.


All is well at home. The cats were overjoyed to see me - noisy and demonstrative. Chichi, a.k.a Hanako brought me a dead sparrow and Popo followed me everywhere. Yujiro has coped - although now of course I face all the housecleaning that he didn't do for 10 days.


And Okaasan? Looks a bit wildhaired in a crazy messy room. She's had tooth pains again and a badly swollen gum. Yujiro's taken her to the dentist again.
Yesterday Okaasan went to the dentist at 9 am for a tooth out...and at 1 pm I went to have Stage II of my cap treatment. Poor Okaasan - the tooth's been giving her pain off and on for a year now and finally she seems locked in enough to going to the dentist to have it treated.


And so...autumn in Hokkaido. Time to connect to my life again after a wonderful trip. :-))


Next? now...let me see....London Olympics!!!