Sherriffs in Britain 2010 - the video is here

Here it is folks, the video of the holiday. Crank it up and get quick with the pause button.

We all had a lovely time, my only regret was that we didn't have longer. There were many good friends I wanted to meet up with from my Derby and Nottingham days, but just had about two days too few.

Next time.

Guess this constitutes a post for international women's day. Maybe.

Feeling a bit like I'm on the other side of the world tonight. One of my oldest friends back in Britain is celebrating the birth of his first daughter, and I wish I could be with him to share his joy. Ho hum. Here's a shot of my babies instead taken with my newfangled iPhone thingamy.

Katherine's piano show

Sorry to be late posting this, but here is Katherine playing La Ra Du (is that spelt right? - only know it in katakana). Take it away K-chan:

Did I forget to mention...

...it was Katherine's birthday last week? To celebrate, we went to the karaoke, but I promised Yoshie I wouldn't post the compromising video, so instead, here are the girls with the cake. You have been spared the worst.

Sweet dreams

Younger daughter: Mum, my friend has hip hop every Thursday. I want hip hop too.
Mum: Well, we'll see. Are you sure you like hip hop?
Younger daughter: Pleeeeeeeeeeease mum, you know I like any kind of sweetie.

Happy meals

Who says McDonald's is bad for kids (errr....)? Here, the girls demonstrate the play equipment at the Abiko branch. It always strikes me as odd that the packaging on the Coke and Double Quarter Pounders with "Cheese" have pics of Olympians engaged in heroic pursuits. Still, the kids enjoy it and the Happy Meals with free toy must keep thousands of Chinese peasants gainfully employed. Oh, Emma's sweatshirt was a present from Ba-chan, so no nasty comments please.

Rocking and rolling (the dough)

Hey there, betcha thought I'd forgotten about you? Nahhhh, 'course not. Here's a little Sunday bread-making to warm your hearts.

I told you there would be fewer posts and more of the kids...

The week that was

Well, what news to report? It's been a week since the last post, has there really been nothing worth mentioning? Probably, but that never stopped me before. No, I've been helping out Our Man in Abiko at his blog so there's been little of the candle left to burn at either end. Anyway, here's the week in review chez Sherriff:

• Taught loads of lessons.
• Ran round the lake twice (once with shacho)
• Giri-no-shacho has also discovered the joys of walking round the lake and has one of those step counters. She maybe overdid it a tad, coming back after six hours one afternoon - her step counter read 40,000 and something.
• Found a guitar shop in Kashiwa - the nearest big city - and rediscovered the joys of staring at beautiful guitars I can (still) never afford to buy.
• Rehearsed twice for the upcoming gig.
• Watched the final episode on cable of the first series of Life on Mars (was there a second? Yes, yes, we're a couple of years behind over here).
• Had a Valentine's lunch at our local Indian (actually Nepalese) restaurant with 13 of our students (so they could practice their English! No, really! (And it was fun, too - see the pictures here.)
• Went round the lake with the family (see above).

That's it. Hope to get back to you in less than a week...

Once more, with feeling

Just figured out how to upload to Youtube, which means this here video is now global, baby. Wow. Anyway, it shows a bossy but quite good older sister showing the ballet ropes to a younger, but quite forceful sister - all in our living room/classroom. 

Compare with here, from half a year ago.

First day at nursery school

Sorry for not posting much recently, hope this makes up for it.

What we did on our holidays

1. Followed a map. Abiko is the red station with the arrow. Kamakura, our destination, is the last but one station on the bottom left. The journey took two and a half hours. The big circle in the middle is the Yamanote Line which circles Tokyo and is a bugger to get off when you have had a few. 

2. To get to our friend's house, we crossed over a river, and look what we saw. Nice colourful koi (carp). Can you see his black brothers? Can you see the photographer's shadow?

3. Watched the surfers waiting for their wave to come in.

4. So, this is the sea. We've heard so much about you.

5. Can you make out Mount Fuji? (Hint: It's the snow-capped mountain in the distance to the left of my head, between the green cliffs).

A very belated Happy New 'un

Here's the pesky video that refused to upload, anyway, without further ado:

A belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We just got back from Kamakura, a former capital of Japan back in the olden days before foreigners had been invented, so I haven't had a chance to wish you all a Happy New Year, allow me to do the honours:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I did spend the last hour trying to upload a nice video of the beach, but the system is conspiring against me, I will try again another day. As you would have been able to see, it was lovely, sunny, warm and full of middle-aged and elderly surfers. The place had a Bohemian feel to it, and was much like Brighton, apart from being sunny, warm and full of surfers, who incidentally would ride to the beach on bicycles with their boards held on purpose-made panniers. Oh, and Kamakura has a big Buddha. (Remember him?) It's been a full year since we were last there, so it is becoming something of a family tradition, though next year I'd love to be able to come back to the UK before I forget all my English.

Picture that, Mk iv

Picture 4: How old did you say you were?

Picture that, Mk ii

Picture 2: Katherine all made up for her end-of-year ballet show

 

Happy New Year, all.

Picture that

The year is almost up, and we still haven't sent any Christmas cards or the New Year postcards you are supposed to send over here. So, apologies. Been a bit busy, but thanks to those who did send cards and e-mail. Instead, how about some photos I took that haven't made it to any blogs yet?

Photo 1: Emma finds a comfortable spot to cat-nap

Remains of the day

Clearly, Father Christmas (or Santa as he is known in these parts) enjoyed the cookies and wine the girls left for him, and Rudolph ate the carrot. Here are the results of his night's labours, chez Sherriff,  in two acts:

Act I: The bicycle

Act II: The discovery

A belated ho, ho, ho

We've had a hectic Christmas, and while I still haven't got round to uploading a video of Emma jumping for joy at seeing her new bike (and Katherine marvelling at how Santa managed to get a bunk bed in her bedroom while she was asleep in mum and dad's - bloody hard work at 1.30am I can tell you), instead here is a little Christmas musical to keep you all entertained. I do love a good musical, as you know...

Dango etiquette

When eating a dango (an unobjectional ball of rice flour dumpling), you can seek help if you desire:

... make sure you chew well:

... give it a good tug:

... and enjoy!

Pleasant little numbers

I'm chuffed. Last night I was looking at the Tower Tales analytics (that means numbers - you can too, just click on the number of visitors at the top right) and was pleasantly surprised to find my usual Sunday/Monday tally of two relatives and a couple of passers-by looking for low impact aerobics (it's odd what search engines will throw up) was multiplying before my very eyes to more than one hit an hour. Granted, these are not numbers to get Murdoch worried, but for a site that doesn't do sex (as much as it would like, ahem) and has an awful lot of gratuitous chat about my family, what gives?

Well, in a moment of foresight between glasses of cheap Australian plonk from the Seven-11, I registered this blog on the Total Politics site and blow me, political uber-blogger Iain Dale graciously put a link to Tower Tales (see the post below for the link). By the way, get well soon Dad (Grandad). This non-political, non-aerobics-related video shot today is dedicated to you.