The long, HOT summer…

Hi all, yes, it’s me again, after another longer than expected sabbatical. This heatwave is turning into the never ending story, or so it seems. Apart from two days which were below 35C (although, above 32C), it has now been four weeks since the heatwave started, with every day (barring those two) being over 35C.

One thing that hot days do bring are colourful sunsets and so I have indulged in a few photos of sunsets. It is quite nice having a balcony that faces west, even though we can’t see the horizon for the buildings near us, I can look out and enjoy a colourful sunset in the ever so slightly cooler evenings. Not quite like a good sunset photo at the beach, just a little bit of fun.

I also took some photos from the balcony of our courtyard area behind the carport – yes, we haven’t been doing much and I am itching to get out and take some more photos…maybe in the next week, or so, when the heat finally does moderate a bit.

Something I hadn’t mentioned in my last post, was that some people here were saying what we needed was a typhoon to come through and push away the intense high that was keeping the weather hot. Well, we did get that typhoon just over a week ago, on Saturday night. The only thing was that it crossed the east coast, and then passed directly over us, still as a strong typhoon. This is quite unusual here, so far inland.

When it hit, the winds were literally howling and the rain was being pushed sideways across the rooftops. While I like storms, I am not a big fan of strong winds, so this was a bit unsettling for me. The good news is that, again, the house took it quite well (better than me!). The not so good news is that, while the heat did reduce for those two days mentioned above, once it was gone, the heat returned as if nothing had happened.

As of today, there is another typhoon heading towards Japan, from the same direction. It appears as though it is again going to cross the coast as a typhoon – whether it continues our way, who knows? Will the intense heat finally move on, who knows? From what we’ve been seeing in the news, heatwaves are impacting large parts of the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe and the UK.

From my perspective we have now had all of the four elements covered: earth (earthquake), air (typhoon), fire (heatwave) and water (flooding rains). What I haven’t had enough of this year is thunderstorms. Perhaps my writing about it will bring some on??!!

In terms of resultant damage from all of this onslaught, Kyoto has got off relatively lightly. We did notice at least one house nearby which had it’s roof covered by a blue tarpaulin (they’re called blue sheets here) following the earthquake, and a cement block wall on an old building down the road is now sitting at an angle (with witches hats in front to keep people some distance away). Following the typhoon, another of the older buildings nearby has had some cement sheets fall off, and looks rather like losing some more (with witches hats below to keep people some distance away).

On the minshuku front, we haven’t had any news either way yet, so we’re hoping no news is good news and that we’ll get our licence in the near future. Meanwhile, we have had some British guests staying with us over the last week – a lovely couple from Wednesday last week and a family of four arrived on Friday. The couple left us yesterday and the family is staying until the end of this week.

On the Friday morning (the day the family arrived), I had a slight mishap. After I feed the kids in the morning, I have been putting Ziggy outside for a while, until the heat really sets in for the day. As I was going out to bring Ziggy back in (at about 7:45), I managed to kick the leg of one the outdoor chairs and unfortunately broke my toe. Timing…when we have six guests staying, the largest group we’ve had here, my duck-footedness brings me undone. Now, you’d think that given I have walked like this for most of my life, I would take into account that my feet don’t point straight ahead. Apparently not enough.

So, I am now hobbling around, serving breakfasts and doing other jobs, with a grey/purple toe. On the positive side, it is the fourth toe, next to the little toe, so I can walk (hobble) without putting pressure on it. Also, because our minshuku is a ‘shoes off’ facility, I am able to walk around barefooted. On the Saturday, we had to go to Aeon Mall to get some supplies for the kids (so they won’t attack us for food!!! 😊) and some other supplies, so I had to put on some shoes. To try to protect my toe, I bound the toes each side to the affected toe and I wore a pair of Japanese style thongs. Nonetheless, it was a rather painful experience, so I am now keeping any outings to an absolute minimum.

On Saturday night there was a fireworks display broadcast live on tv, which provided a pleasant distraction. Again, feeling the need to take photos, I took to the camera and got some shots from the tv. The fireworks displays seem to be somewhat different here, with many short bursts of pyrotechnics and then fairly long gaps between. I’m not sure if there are different groups providing each of the individual bursts, or they just don’t set up all of the fireworks beforehand.

Cheers for now!!!

The sound of summer – with Ziggy slightly perturbed!

I got carried away…

My Purple Prince!

My Hydrangea in flower – again