When we first moved to Japan, although people had email they did not have blogs. It was some months before I discovered what one was – and longer before I got going myself – during which time I kept an old-fashioned diary on paper and wrote people individual emails and real letters on stationery. I’ve been meaning to dig it out and share it ever since, and as this week has seen me feeling quite nostalgic for Tokyo, I have finally tracked it down (to the drawer of my old desk, which now lives in the shed; not any of the sensible places I looked first).

So this is the first in a finite series of posts, the prequel, if you like, to turquoise and its archives.

Weds, 3rd April 2002

Well we’re here! All out of synch and dazed and confused – it’s 6am but as I’ve been wide awake since 4, I got up. C is still trying hard – but wide awake also.
Did little yesterday. Flights were fine but sleepless then some hassle at the airport about our baggage. Girl sent to meet us very keen. Eventually arrived at the (v big, very posh – huge chandeliers) hotel* and slept all afternoon. Managed a quick walk last night then ate in the hotel and asleep by 9. No wonder we’re awake now! C off to work today…

Thursday 4th

Slept better – had to be woken by the alarm! Which unfortunately went off at 6 as C is off to Atsugi today. I had a good day yesterday – swam and sauna’ed first thing then went out exploring. Went to a convenience store to try to get shaving foam, which I did get after about half an hour of mindless wandering! Took my breakfast to the park and ate it surrounded by the neatest, cleanest, quietest homeless people I have ever seen. Read a bit until disturbed by seven or eight big black coaches blaring out military music. V odd.
Walked all the way up past Shinjuku station to buy a power cable for my laptop (the one I bought doesn’t work. Bugger.) Pottered about, then back to the hotel to meet C – we had fried banana bread stuff for lunch then were collected and spent a couple of hours at the TGA** offices before going house-hunting. Saw three – the first was lovely though enormous (they are concerned it might be too big for us!). Would be perfect for the cats. The second was an odd layout with an odd atmosphere and the the third was ok but purple outside.
Back to the hotel for a quick sleep then away to Odakyu department store to buy C some trunks (loss of face when he went into the changing room with his shoes on; loss of pride when he realised that he is LL here, ie huge! Ha ha ha. My turn soon though I expect) and to eat.

*The Century Hyatt, Shinjuku.
**Relocation agency

Very fuzzy because of little fingers on the lens (and my mobile isn’t the best camera ever) but here is Tamsin having her first ever babyccino. Shortly after buying both girls new sandals: they are costing me a fortune!

I am completely thrilled. I don’t think I have ever won anything in my entire life, ever, yet a great big pile of gardening tools is now standing in my hall, free. I filled in a coupon for a prize draw (not even a proper competition!) in Gardens Monthly magazine and they have very kindly sent me – and 2 other lucky winners – a spade, fork, border spade, border fork, rake, sprung rake, half-moon edgy thing and hoe. Spear and Jackson E series, very shiny, very posh of handle. Quite heavy, maybe, though I will report back properly when I’ve had a go with them (at the moment they are all still wrapped), but sure to be better than the tools I have had for the past 10 years, which were a job lot from Argos. (And have suited very well: I’m not knocking Argos. Apart from the trowel, which is bent and a bit knackered, but I don’t have a replacement for that.)

*(I’m the one who is the winner.)

That’s one-and-a-half. Properly a toddler and definitely not a baby any more. She’s less verbal than Maggie was at this age – look – whether through second-child syndrome, ie being ignored a lot, or necessity, as I’ve become a better mind-reader, we don’t know. But she understands everything you say to her and can communicate everything she needs to so who needs words. Marcel Marceau eat your heart out. (For the record: duck (any bird), cat (any 4-legged creature), mummy, dada, ma-ma (Maggie or more, depending on context), up, baba (bunny – I think – or baby hannah her doll), hiya, shhh (fish), beebee (cbeebies)*, whee!, plus rororo (your boat).)

She loves music and songs and is never happier than when pointing to the ceiling with gusto during wind the bobbin up, or clapping her hands because she is happy and she knows it. She is practising very hard just now to jump with both feet, and loves to do spider-monkey jumps across the sofa or whizz round the house on her wheelybug. She is most independent and strong-minded and Will Not hold my hand on request (so gets carried rather more than she would like: must try again with reins). She gives big sloppy kisses – again, entirely on her own terms and not on request – and is a giggler. Also a squealer, which I hope very much is a short-lived phase. She’s fantastically helpful when unloading the dishwasher, putting all the baby items in the drawer…but cannot be persuaded to load the washing machine, which Maggie was great at.

Happy one and a half, baby Tamsin!

*Last week when I was laid out on the sofa being poorly, she climbed onto me, settled herself down, pointed most insistantly at the television and demanded beebee. She bounces along with Carrie and David most amusingly.

 VP tagged me and it would be rude not to play. I think I might have done it before but if I can’t remember then I am sure you won’t either.

1. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. The player tags 5 people and leaves a comment telling them they’ve been tagged & asking them to read their Blog.

Q. What were you doing 10 years ago?
A. We were in the throes of buying our first house – we moved in in July – and caught up in wedding preparations (married in September). I was writing up the first year of my PhD.

Q. Name 5 snacks you enjoy
A. Chocolate, magnums, ryvitas with peanut butter, veggy dips with hummous, cake.

Q. Things I would do if I were a billionaire
A. I don’t really aspire, does that make me weird? I suppose I’d treat all my family – pay their mortgages and give them a nice holiday. Pay our mortgage (oh and I suppose we might move to another house, so I’d pay for that) and have a daily cleaner.

Q. Five jobs that I have had
A. I don’t know if I’ve had five! My first job, aged 13 or 14, was in a French bakery-cum-cafe on Saturdays; I stayed there until I left to go to university. Second job (first uni summer) was running a cafe in St Ives, Cornwall, 3 or 4 days a week. Single handed. Second and third summers I waitressed in the restaurant at Wisley RHS gardens. I spent a year at Shell from my degree, and went back there the following summer to do a study into diesel trucking. When I finished my PhD I got a job as a medical editor and although I am not still employed by that company, that is what I am still mostly doing.

Q. Three bad habits
A. Failing to put things away when I have finished with them – or leaving them lying about half-done for days on end. Wandering off in the middle of doing something sensible (unloading the dishwasher, doing a jigsaw with the children, ironing, potting on seedlings…) and inadvertantly spending half an hour online before remembering. Brackets.

Q. Places I have lived (I’ve changed this as naming 5 seemed odd)
A. Addlestone, Edinburgh, Chester, Manchester, Warrington, Tokyo

Q. Five people I want to know more about
A. Um. I am shamefully lacking in curiosity because I can’t think of a single one.

I’m not tagging anyone because most of my friends won’t do memes (you know who you are!). If you’d like to do it please consider yourself tagged, and please leave a comment so I can come and read your answers.

What we did (last weekend) was head down to mum and dad’s. Friday we went to Legoland, Maggie’s slightly belated birthday treat. It took her a little while to get into it – for the idea of “going on things” to sink in – but once it did, she loved it. She was much braver than we expected and loved the jetski ride with Cameron. The lego troll in the fairyland brook was a bit scary, though – and it was a bit of a shame it wasn’t warmer as there is a fantastic water-play area for littlies. We only had to shelter from one rainstorm, which is pretty good going, and unfortunately ran out of steam before getting to the Viking water ride thing I fancied going on – but that just means we will have to go again. Nice and quiet on a Friday, too.
Cameron spotted in the paper that there was a Banksy “thing” happening at Waterloo, and as luck would have it we were planning a day in London on Saturday anyway. We had tickets for the Lord of the Rings musical and my parents primed for a day of childcare. Cameron’s city knowledge far surpasses mine these days (the shame) and he led us straight to the appropriate tunnel – a short queue and we were in. Lots of great stencilling but my absolute favourite was the small children with spray-cans and crayola stencils merrily putting up small dolphins and palm trees!

After lunch we walked over to the theatre, past huge crowds out enjoying the sunshine on the south bank. The musical was fine: what a treat to go to the theatre in the afternoon and beautifully, spectacularly staged. The incidental music was nice but the songs forgettable and the trouble with the LOTR story – well actually there are a couple of troubles with it. One, there is just too much of it so it had to be cut hugely (of course, who wants to sit in a theatre for 4 days), and two, there is a lot of “travelling” or “being chased” which in effect means watching people run in circles round the stage. Still it was 3 hours and I didn’t feel bored, so that says something. And I loved the bit where the orcs came along the aisles and leered at the audience. I was scared and the little girl in front of us was utterly terrified.

Dinner in Chinatown and home to a sleeping baby (!) and an in-bed child. Fantastic.

Spring seems (shh! don’t jinx it!) to have arrived at last. My cucumbers have finally germinated; the second row of potatoes has been planted; the apple tree is going to burst into pink any day now; and the weeds are making up for lost time. But hoorah for being able to go out without layers.

Yesterday we went without layers to the park, for the first time since…gosh I don’t know but we certainly haven’t been this year. Maggie had taken to saying mournfully every time we drove past that it had been aaaaaggggeeeees: she was right. It was really fun, I had forgotten – and lovely now T is big enough to go on things and enjoy it as well. Here she is enjoying the slide at the zoo on Monday, too. While we were on our way to the park I spotted a poster for a new dance class in the village: perfect! M has been mithering to go to ballet for months now – I hadn’t done anything about it, partly through sloth, partly through a general feeling of being quite scheduled enough already thank you, and partly because I was just not sure whether she really wanted to do it or just thought it was what girls did. Anyway, we went for a trial today – big success. Huge. Holly, who had been her bessy mate at preschool before she started school last September, was there and she (Holly) had a pink ballet outfit and pink shoes. It just doesn’t get much better than that when you are 4. Tamsin and I spent a pleasant three quarters of an hour in the church graveyard (I like graveyards and she likes climbing and jumping, so we were both happy), peeping in occasionally to see what they were up to. M was right in the thick of it pointing her toes (in trainers, unfortunately, as I hadn’t provided ballet shoes), skipping, waving her hands and being a starfish on demand. She’s gone to bed a very happy little girl.

A slight mishap while Maggie was, ahem, enthusiastically sweeping my kitchen floor (children have their uses!) has seen the demise of my favourite mug. Curvy in profile; thin white bone china; comfy handle and a tasteful picture of camomile and borage, it was perfect for herbal tea – and, in fact, I never drank anything else out of it (and rarely drank any truly herby tea from anything else). Cameron’s aunty kindly gave me some very nice, thin, new mugs for my birthday – indeed, I have a cupboard-full of mugs of various shape and size – but I can see I will have to hunt for the perfect replacement. I feel more sad than is reasonable (I’ve had it a long time) and this has made me wonder about favourite mugs and hot-drink rituals. I have a few – see below – and would be (really!) very interested to hear about other people’s. I’m not on my own with this am I?

Coffee is best, if I’m on my own, from a large, heavy, slightly chipped yellow and blue mug. If there is two of us I have a matched pair of tall, straight, red and white mugs, which are rather elegant (and, unusually, suit both tea and coffee). If these are unavailable, a conic blue-and-white striped pair. Any more than two requires the wedding denby or the six blue and grey toning-not-matching mugs I bought in Japan.

Lady Grey tea, which is only drunk mid-afternoon, comes in a hello kitty mug: not a cheap and nasty pink one but a quality white one with line drawings, which was issued to mark her 30th birthday. Or a asymmetric one with a duck.

Normal (Earl Grey) tea is drunk from whatever comes to hand, but usually the denby again. Unless it is first thing, in which case it warrants a squeeze of lemon and a glass mug or a tall thin one with Robert the Bruce on (don’t ask: I hadn’t realised until I started typing this how set in my ways I am), or (a new addition to the list of favourites) a black and white “Beatles” mug, presumably Cameron’s, that has thin walls but a chunky shape. If we are doing jobs,a chunkier, more square sort of a mug, possibly from a museum or similar, is required. And if we are gardening or doing DIY (ha ha as if) then it has to be a very thick small grey one with blue flowers, which I got 3-for-a-pound when I was a student.

Hot chocolate comes in the Denby – but the green vase-like Denby not the blue curved ones. And If Maggie is having a warm drink, she has a small two-handled bone china cup with cats on. Fab. Reassure me.

Some days, allotmenteering with children in tow is a real joy: you feel all earth-mothery and fab. Some days it is hell on earth and you spend the entire time screeching like a harridan as they fight over the tools/throw the lovely compost out of your raised bed/climb on other people’s cold frames (a fantastic combination of breakable glass, poisonous slug pellets and other people’s property)/roll about on other people’s lovely even potato furrows/screech/whinge/climb into the car and turn the radio up really loud then cry in fright. The whinge some more for good measure.

I have come home feeling rather more harrassed than I did before* but secure in the knowledge I have at long last got in my first row of first early potatoes (“epicure”) thanks in no small part to Peter, one of the old boys, who brought up spade and rake and worked for me for over an hour – how kind. I’ve brought home the last 5 white tulips and a bag of purple-sprouting broccoli for tea as well: hooray!

*Which was already quite harrassed, thank you: C is somewhere fabulous near Milan with mountain-and-lake views from his suite; I have a largish deadline tonight; my cleaner has apparently quit, or at least not shown her face since before Easter.

So far since we moved to this house I have blogged about rats in the compost, giant arachnids, slugs (and children ha ha ha). At Christmas, our suspicions were raised when the chocolate coins I had hidden in the small bedroom had been nibbled – I went and bought a mouse trap that has sat unopened on top of the microwave ever since. Sunday, I went into the room again (we don’t use it much) to check on the progress of my chitting potatoes*, only to find a small pile of droppings next to a neatly nibbled spud. Unwrapped and set trap.

Last night, quietly watching telly**, I noticed Cameron gesticulating at me from his sofa (we have one each. His is larger and has better sound quality, and I sit there when he is away). A mouse had run around my sofa then popped underneath – it spent the rest of the evening peeping out at us in a cute and cheeky manner. We need a cat – although I brought the trap downstairs and it had efficiently caught said mouse by the morning (I put him out the front door: I do hope they don’t have a homing instinct and that he will just have gone off somewhere else not come straight back in again).

Am hoping we just had one (but am about to rebait the trap and put it back upstairs again just in case) not a family.

*They are fine yet still not in the ground. Arg.

**Gavin and Stacey, I think, so we were pretty quiet. It’s not laugh-out-loud-funny, season 2, is it.