Saturday 16th June to Monday 25th June 2007
Certain people (Nickie at http://typecast2000.blogspot.com/ for one!) have impressed upon me the need to get this darn TravelBlog up to date as soon as possible… I'm doing my best! But I do have several projects on the go all the time)
Anyway, I thought I'd just do a quick round-up for this week to clear some general bits and pieces and get a couple of rants out the way.
Saturdays: Rhiannon does her extra Aikido lessons while Tim and I enjoy our Starbucks coffee and a proper grown up chat about life, the universe and everything. Then we do something else in the afternoon - either together or Tim may take Rhiannon off on her own to allow me to work.
On the second Saturday Rhiannon went to a birthday party with a lovely girl whom we met on the bus to school. It was held at a kindergarten some distance away and lots of craft activities were arranged for them. She had a wonderful time while Tim and I wandered around a nearby shopping mall. Tim's pretty good at shopping, unlike many men. I don't ever force him to come shopping with me, but once in a while it's nice to be accompanied. I think it helps him that I don't shop for clothes or shoes - especially not here! It's hard enough for me to find things that fit in the UK (I'm 6' tall) so there is absolutely no point in browsing here. However, Tim copes OK with interior design shops and kitchen departments, so we enjoy that together.
Father's Day: I'm sure we did something nice for this, but I have no recollection of precisely what! Give me some credit - remember, I am writing these posts 3 years on and I can barely remember what I did last week!
Monday: My Ikebana classes have finished for the summer so instead, I treat myself to a pampering session at Boudoir. It's lovely there and it's not sometime I indulge in as often as I should. For the second Monday I get myself to the hairdressers - Sinden - Time for an extremely long - 4 hours - appointment to get my colours redone. This involves copious applications of bleach over my fringe and this time around the back too. Once that's finally taken (my fine hair is remarkably resistant to bleaching) I am then slathered with cerise pink dye. The rest of my hair is dyed black. No, there is no photo, sorry! Later, as I pass some extremely cool Japanese teens, I overheard them say "Excellent hair!" and am ridiculously pleased.
Work: At this point I am doing a heap of work for the independent publishers in the UK. As well as writing the Tokyo Tales articles each month, I do a load of web mastering stuff for them - editing, proof reading, formatting and uploading the various formats onto the server. This takes AGES due to the clunky software. All the uploads arrive within a day or two of having to be on site, so I often work deep into the early hours to ensure they are online by the dreadline. (No, that's not a typo - I prefer dreadline to deadline; it speaks volumes.)
I'm also now writing a monthly travel article for them, so that's another project to add to my monthly work. I've always wanted to be a travel writer, so thought this would be a fabulous opportunity. Unfortunately, it ended up being the least exciting of the articles I wrote. For a start, it's really hard to encompass the essence of a place into 500 words. I've travelled a LOT, so use my experiences in these articles, so for once, there's not a lot of research that needs to be done. However, I am not allowed to have a by-line, which is pretty unfair in my opinion. Apart from getting no recognition for my freelance writing, it doesn't really allow me to add these to my portfolio. Also, it gives the impression the site owner writes them herself…
Playdate: I am firmly of the belief that children should have as many playdates as often as possible. It helps them build friendships and enforces certain socialisation rules that only children often lack. However, when my daughter arrived home from this particular playdate in tears, one has to rethink who they should have playdates with. This one was with a woman I've mentioned before in this blog but I shan't reference back. I've learned from others that she is unstable and should be avoided at all costs. Now I make Tim go and collect Rhiannon from her house as I have had enough of her.
Apparently she turned on Rhiannon saying she was bossy, selfish and spoiled. To say I am outraged is an understatement. I am astounded that any mother would say something as cruel as this to a five year old. Rhiannon will not be going there again. However, I resisted the urge to stoop to her level at the time (and Rhiannon isn't beyond elaborating stories), but wish to note that while her two girls were here they stole items from Rhiannon's room and deliberately broke a number of her precious ornaments… I could rant for quite a while on this person, but I refuse to waste brainspace on her any longer. Besides, she will continue to crop up from time to time in future posts, unfortunately.
And finally: On Sunday 24th June Tim has to fly away on business. Again. This time it's to Singapore for a conference that will take him away from us for the whole of next week. Once again, we have insisted on compensatory presents and he's promised to buy me a new PDA as my old Ipaq has given up the ghost. I do love new gadgets…
So that's that week covered. More singular posts to come in due course…!
