Oyomesan - the quiet time

Buds are budding...and the last snow is melting.

Spring is my time off duties.
Shopping, cooking, bright dinner chat, arranging day service needs, bath time, nail cutting etc etc

He does it all.

The ski season ended...pretty much, so he is home with a few weeks of no-work before the summer job starts.

Home to take on all the tasks.

So I just float thru life - work and friends - TV and cats - gardening - the gym.

Come home and find dinner cooked. Sit at dinner in the usual silence, or listen to him prattling on about something. But Okaasan usually just focuses on her own plate and hardly notices what is happening across the table. 

Life chugs along. A few toilet accidents last week; green tea poured into the kettle; bags within bags within bags and the set phrases endlessly. But she seems happy enough.

Meanwhile.

In south Japan the earth started shaking last Thursday night/Friday morning and caused terrible destruction. And 72 hours later an even bigger quake struck. More damage, but luckily not so many deaths because by then most people were in evacuation centers, or tents, or their cars.

And the quakes keep happening, which is actually worrying a lot of people. Large quakes on a daily basis. Magnitude 4 and 5. Still.

We are a long way from it and just watch sadly the TV reports. One student this week said his in-laws are camped out in their car near the damaged house, because robberies have started. People want to protect what they have left.

There have been reports of care homes and the mentally and physically handicapped, the elderly - people with already hard lives, who need stability and care. They look confused and the carers shattered. many roads into the area have been damaged and train and air services too.

I can't imagine living in those conditions with Okaasan. Camping out in a hall on blankets on the floor, with cold food, no showers, shared toilets and noise. She would go to pieces. I would too.

So. Here we are in north Japan, far away from all of that - our spring is just arriving. We found plum blossom in the local park. Okaasan's winter day care has finished, and now she can go out walking most afternoons - a happy time.

She came through another winter of life here. It wasn't so bad, maybe because I didn't work so many evenings this winter. I had more energy. But the cat and his injuries was hard - balancing cat/work and Okaasan's needs drove me nuts at some points.

What will the spring and summer bring?