This is a famous pipe retreat. I remember someone telling me a story about Sandy Townsley, of the well-known tinker family in Kintyre, who made some money by playing the pipes at fairs. Having drink taken, he struggled through a tune and was asked, “Tell me Sandy, was that “When the Battle’s O’er?” “Oh no” says he “That was chust a skirmish.”

03 When The Battle’s O’er played by Sir Jimmy Shand RIP

Jeremy arrives on Saturday and on Sunday we cycle over to Ishikawa to watch bulls fighting. This is always fun as the bulls are not really very aggressive and frequently don’t want to fight. No problem – they are just led out again and some more appear.

After the contest we wander behind the stadium to pay respects to the combatants. They are a soppy bunch who love to be tickled.

Hiromichi with Lulu

Fifi

Flopsy

Whitey

Mimi

It is hot, humid and the crowd very Okinawan. I love this stuff.

Spectator

Go Lulu!

Flopsy wins!

Fifi gets cross

Whitey: “Hoo are yoo lookin’ at?”

Good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Woman like long neck bottles
And a big head on her beer
I don’t like to talk about my women
But I hold that woman dear.

Likewise I do not like talking about my work but er here goes. These last few days have been astonishing in their intensity. For a new graduate school on an island in the East China Sea we certainly shake our tail feathers.

Work

Two days of meetings of Board of Governors. 5 Nobels, strong government people, much organization. A lecture, Einstein’s Universe http://www.einsteinsuniverse.com/Einsteins_Universe/Welcome.html to inaugurate our mega 500 seat auditorium.

slash

Einstein loved to fiddle

We are visited by lots of first ladies.

Da first lady of Japan

We put on a mega classical concert

Sold out 6 hours after we opened the registration

Folks waiting to get in 2 hours before we opened the doors

Packed

Jonathan with striking backdrop

We had the Four Seasons played by an orchestra of students from the Prefectural University of Arts.

They were wonderful

Solo violinist for Four Seasons

Jack Liebeck, whom I have got to know by serendipity, is an astounding violinist. He gives an astonishing recital. Buy all his recordings now.

Jack

Vicky Sayles, Jack’s wife, is also an incredible player. They play the Prokofiev Sonata for 2 Fiddles.

Wheee, grunt, shnurt

Vicky

So a glimpse at the other side of my life.

10 gallon jar of Awamori! Notice rebirth costume

So I recently turned 60. This heap big deal in Japan.  5 x 12 year cycle = 60. This is year of dragon which is also strong juju. You dress in red cos you are like reborn and thus besmirched with blood and natal slime. Anyway I benefit from much attention and kindness for which much thanks to all. Big party!

People lunge towards food

Kids room with a father drinking beer

These are cork toasters that James sent

Shintake san eats meat

“Golden slumbers fill your eyes”

 

We drink too much

Sleepy Manami Sophia

Great party

Little blog activity due to much other activity. Is there an inverse relationship between business and bloginess? Do more – blog less?

So let’s try to catch up.

Alan, my much beloved eldest brother came on a flying visit.  I was ,unfortunately chained to the treadmill most of the time but we did manage to do some cool stuff – like diving.

But give me half a chance and I be taking off me
Clothes and living in the jungle.
But the only time that I feel at ease is
Swinging up and down in a coconut tree.
Oh
what a life of luxury to be like an frogman

It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share
And the load
Doesn’t weigh me down at all
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

Anyway my brother Alan is a saint and it was great having him here.

I can’t remember if I have gone on about this before but I increasingly think that just visiting a country in fact  tends to  reinforce pre-established judgements. You see what you expect to see and go home with stronger conviction.

To have any real understanding of the country you have to live and more importantly work there for at least 2 years. Learning the language is also key to any real knowledge.

I have lived and worked in Algeria, Switzerland, France, the USA and now Japan. In the first four countries my leaving concept of the country was very different to that I held after say 6 months. This was especially the case in the US. Everyone is an expert on the US especially if they have never been there.

As for Japan I have been here for 16 months and have no idea what is going on but I am trying.

Today I go to hospital.

My colonoscopy adventures revealed 2 largish polyps that have to be removed. I go to the Chubu Hospital to have preliminary check and fix date for the operation. Chubu is a bog standard Okinawan public hospital. I have no interest in going to a fancy private place.

Chubu!

I wait for a bit and then see my doctor

I wait here for a while 

He speaks quite good English and explains what he is going to do to my tubes. We fix the date.  I have a blood test in Japanese and am then told to go off to get my medicine and food. Food – yep the day before the operation I have to eat special stuff. I buy it at the hospital shop.

Boiled beef and carrots

The medicine I get at a dispensary place in the hospital. I am very proud of myself as I negotiate all of this in Japanese and mime. Try miming colonoscopy.

You then go to the checkout and pay.  3,000 yen approx $36 for the consultation blood test and the dope.

It is doing this sort of thing that gives insight into a country. A shrine in Kyoto, beautiful as it may be, does not give much knowledge. Grimy hospital in Uruma city does.

Yesterday I got my annual car tax bill.  This is what it looks like.

Cute n’est ce pas?

It is Sunday. The weather is perfect. I get up early and go diving with the neighbors. It is perfect.

Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan

I go to buy bread at the amazing bakery next to my flat.

This is the bag they put my croissants in.

I go for a walk down a pathway that I have seen many times but not had the opportunity to follow. Today is the day. It winds along a a stream in a hidden valley. There are butterflies everywhere. Some are large and yes, some are small. Some are like  pure white pieces of tissue paper that float in the wind bereft of any will. The sun shines through their wings. Others are jet black and swoop with the purpose of stealth bombers. What unites them is there reluctance to be photographed.

Spring

A little one

It is a beautiful walk

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

That last caption is so true. As with most things concerned with nature there is a correlation between how fast you are moving and how much you see. In a car you see little, on a bike more, walking even more. If you stop and like chill, you are in the middle of it and so I repose by an ancient tomb.

What would Wordsworth have said?

Huge grasshopper

The last of the Mohicans

They also serve who only sit and wait

What kind of wierdo, jurassic park frogs will these become?

This one is big

Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one. It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake – as almost all hats are.

I then set off for a social gathering on a beach but alas Big Red is sick. The rear wheel is buckled. How? Maybe this.

Big Red thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Crimson Joy

The famous legend of the King Robert the Bruce of Scotland depicts a spider as a symbol for hope. Historians are unsure of the legend’s truth and agree that it is probably apocryphal, but in the legend Bruce, when fighting the English, took refuge in a cave after a series of military failures. Whilst hiding in the cave he saw a spider, which continued to fail to climb up its silken thread to its web. After repeatedly failing to climb upwards, the spider eventually succeeded due to perseverance. Taking this as a symbol for hope and perseverance, much like the saying “try, try and try again”, Bruce came out of hiding. Bruce eventually won Scotland’s independence and many cite Rathlin Island as the cave in which this legend took place.^[14]

Scots! wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots! wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour:
See approach proud Edward’s power –
Chains and slavery!
Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!
What for Scotland’s king and law
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw?
Freeman stand, or freeman fa’?
Let him on wi’ me!
By oppression’s woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow! –
Let us do or die!

Which brings me to my garden.

It has essentially been a disaster. Typhoons have lashed it, the sun has scorched it and the brick clay nature of the soil have combined to produce almost no produce. I have tried and failed. I decided to give it up. Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.”

I did get a few onions

About a year ago

I went to have a look to see if I could salvage something.  To my astonishment I have a gardening friend whom during my absence in Europe, has been hard at work.

A year later

We have a vegetable grower’s conversation, he in Japanese, me in English. He is clearly the real thing, understanding the cycles of Okinawan horticulture. I come away understanding that now is the time to plant goya and tomatoes.

He is my spider. He catalyzes me to persevere, er, like Bruce.

My first goya

On to Bannockburn

So after 2 weeks of pretty intensive traveling, tight schedules, house selling, tax negotiations, Web stuff, conference committees, receptions with, you know, important people, visits to first division journalistic players, seeing my mummy who is 89, seeing my brother and sister to indulge in many colonoscopy related conversations, I am at last back to what is now home.

Oh the joy of a day doing nothing. I love to potter.  No hurry, no deadline, no flight to catch but the pleasure of polishing silver spoons.

Sit on the terrace, watch the warm rain and indulge in Silvo

Put a Japanese plug on my camera battery charger.

No more fiddly adaptors

Repair the beading on my desk.

Have been meaning to do this for ages

Build the  Heartful Bird for the bathroom.

I love these things

Listen to music, learn a new tune on the flute, Dublin Porter, 05 Navvy on the Shore, Glen of Aherlow, Dublin Porter, Pinch of Snuff, and lots of other small tasks that have been left undone. 

I think the Italians say, “il dolce far niente“.  I say potter.

potter verb

/ˈpɒt.ər//ˈpɑː.t ̬ɚ/ [I usually + adverb or preposition] mainly UK (USusually putter)

Bonnie was a very brave and faithful little dog who had a tragic end to her life.

Adventure dog

She is buried in a beautiful place, which I visited on my recent trip to France.

Just behind the Mont St Victoire