24th November 2006
Inti and Raymi, our gorgeous two-year-old tabby boys were delivered straight to the door from the airport. What a horrible trip for them, poor things! At least we knew what to expect and why. Raymi is fine, if a little exhausted, but Inti is very twitchy, nervous and just not himself. We feed them treats and make a huge fuss of them and they soon settle down enough to explore their new home.
The top of the empty bookshelves is considered to be the safest place to be for now, so there they perch while Rhiannon practises her skipping - in the house! The cats are eminently sensible.
Then some of our luggage arrived!!
Tim started work today, leaving me to do all the unpacking - quite a good move on his part, I thought.
My meticulous packing plan involved shipping our unimportant goods, such as summer clothes and general knick-knacks (aka 'stuff'), two months before our departure from the UK, with the intention of them arriving a couple of weeks after our arrival in Japan.
Our urgent possessions were flown over so that they would arrive first.
You can guess what actually happened, can’t you?
Summer clothes arrived first and our urgent goods were to be delayed in customs for over a week. We survive by borrowing bedding, crockery and, my greatest necessity, a laptop, from friends. As my mother was due to arrive before Christmas, I threw a good deal of the 'stuff' randomly into cupboards intending to sort it out in the New Year. I look at it and think "why on earth did I bring that?!"
I still haven’t found time to do this and I fear I'm now stuck with my lack of organisation.
Time to explore our environs again!
What a wonderful discovery! A National Garden is right on our doorstep: Shinjuku Gyoen Garden is a large, beautiful, green space with plenty of space for a super-active child to run off some energy chasing fallen leaves. And for a rather stressed and jet-lagged Mum to find some tranquility and fresh air. I think I will be spending a lot of time here.
The Japanese touches are perfect; huge stone lanterns, a magnificent tea-house and massive carp in the many lakes. There was even an enormous greenhouse that we shall investigate another day. At least my mother will have somewhere green to go - she's not a fan of cities, preferring to explore wilder regions hunting for unusual plants to paint.
A Japanese gentleman insisted on taking our photos and, once again, Rhiannon was treated to lots of "kawaii" comments. She really must get used to it!
Jet lag is really kicking in now. I've never really experienced it before as whenever I've been due to have it I've been on an adreneline 'high' due either to work or excitement on holidays. The way it's affecting me this time is a general 'spaced-out' feeling, and waking at 3am absolutely starving yet too tired to get up and eat. Unfortunately, it does not seem to affect Rhiannon at all and she awakes as normal in her 6am-full-speed-ahead mode. Not fun for Mum.
