2024 May things be the same and different

Monkey sent new year messages mid afternoon yesterday, having stayed up for the celebration fireworks and then, as is tradition, for the sunrise on New Year's Day, and then for her first shrine visit of the year. After an hour's sleep she was woken by Japan's emergency earthquake alarm system and waited in her bed, aware only of her lamp wobbling, and not sure if she should risk climbing down the ladder from her bed. 

The shock was centred on the Noto peninsula on the other side of Honshu island from where she lives, several hundred miles away. She translated the instructions on the telly report very loosely as 'run away', as the initial tsunami warning was quite serious. Fortunately the worst of that threat seems not to have materialised. I have not thought too hard about the fact that Japan is quite an earthquakey part of the world, though as a country they are well prepared and take the threat seriously.

I have enjoyed reading lots of 'tiny things to improve your life' lists over the last couple of days, and mostly feel quite like my life does not need much tweaking. My new year's resolution to not beat myself up about stuff continues to be very successful, though this year I plan to return to learning Japanese. I will be visiting Monkey in March next year and it would be nice to at least be able to greet people and say please and thank you. I mastered my Hiragana two years ago and then gave up when I reached the Katakana as my brain was just overloaded. I am hoping that second time around it will all come flooding back to me.

I turn 60 this year and am looking forward to a small amount of pension and enjoying being an even more crochety old lady ... it's a great excuse for doing or not doing whatever the hell you like.

Tish came back from a trip to the Chinese supermarket with a belated Christmas gift for me ... a cumquat tree ...