August 22, 2026

 Saturday - Hot and Sunny

Today was an interesting day! I woke up at 7:30 this morning. F was still asleep. I got up and went downstairs, then came back to the room. I made a bit of noise coming back upstairs to try to wake F up. I wasn’t sure when he had to get up to get his mother ready to go to her day service. 

He did wake up and he got up to go downstairs. I went back to bed and slept for another couple of hours. When I got up later, I took a shower and then got dressed. F had an idea for our lunch and it was fine. 

We drove over to Tai, the ramen/curry place and both of us had curry. It was a tad expensive but I liked my curry. Over lunch we discussed what we’d like to do and decided that we’d try and go off to get some nashi again. We started off towards Sakata and the area that the fruit is grown and sold. We got there and….it was all sold out! We were just a few minutes too late! Oh dear.

I asked F if we could go into Sakata and go to the Foreign import store. Dear that he is, he said yet. We arrived there and parked. We went in and I looked for my favourite tea. I found it and….it was on sale! Yay! I had planned to buy two boxes, but I got three instead. We also picked up some more gnocchi sauce (they have a cheese one that is nice) and F tried to buy something but I wouldn’t let him. He’d bought it a couple of years ago and never used it! He can try the old bottle to see if he’ll use it.

We also bought a few things at the Muji store. I mostly bought nuts, F got some things for adding to rice to make it taste good, and we also got some cakes for later on tonight. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka and did a quick stop at a bank machine for F, then headed to the house. We worked on the living room for a few minutes. I washed one of the glasses for later and one of my litre jugs for tea. Then, I went upstairs to relax and cool down for a bit. 

K’s Care Manager was supposed to come at 5pm but for some reason she came at 4:45. Not sure why!  I served us some iced Assam Tea and some of the cake we bought earlier. We chatted for a few minutes but there haven’t been any changes so she left after planning next month’s visit. Honestly, it annoys me a lot! She keeps trying to come on Sunday. We already have to waste our Saturdays being back in time for K to get back from Day Service, why not come on Saturdays? But she can’t. Or won’t. She can come on a weekday but F is at work and I’m not having a meeting with her by myself. She’s nice enough, but we don’t speak the same language. 

Anyway, I cleaned up most of the glasses and then went upstairs again to have some tea and cool down more. F came up a bit later and took a nap. He was out!

I actually woke F up after 7 pm and suggested that he make his mother some dinner. She usually eats before or around 7 pm so it was already late for her. He went downstairs and made her something.

He came upstairs to the room after 8 pm and I asked about our dinner. F wanted ideas of where to go, so I suggested China House. F liked that idea. We drove off and for some reason F picked the long way to get there. When we arrived at the restaurant, the guy was bringing in the flags and they’d already turned the sign over. However, F said the guy signalled to him that it was okay for us to go in. Yay.

We went in and ordered. I had the mapo-dofu set meal again and F had chahan or fried rice. Mine was excellent.

When we finished our meal we paid and left. We didn’t dawdle as they had done us a favour by letting us in. We drove to MaxValu and did a bit of shopping. I got some bready stuff and F picked up some fish for K’s breakfast. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to go out tomorrow as the new Air Conditioner will be installed tomorrow. They’ve given us a window between 1pm and 3pm so we don’t know if we’ll have time for lunch before or not!

We came back to the house and put way the groceries then came upstairs. I watched some YouTube and then FBI at 11pm. After it finished I’ve been working on my end of day things again. 

I’ll be back tomorrow night if all goes well, and it should! Come back later if you like and hear all about my Sunday. Until tomorrow….

August 21, 2026

Friday - Hot and sunny, muggy

I woke up when F was getting ready for work this morning but I closed my eyes and pretended I was still asleep…and then I was! I woke up for real when my alarm went off. I went downstairs and then came back up to the room. 

I sorted my laundry and then went back to bed for a couple of hours. I watched some videos and fell asleep on them too. I did drag myself out of bed quite a bit before I headed downstairs again. I took my laundry and started the first load. After that I went into the kitchen and grabbed my yogurt for breakfast too. I brought it upstairs to eat.

I did two loads of laundry today and they are hanging up in our room to benefit from the air conditioner! I watched a few videos on Facebook and then read a little more of my book. I’m enjoying it. 

I went downstairs before 3pm to make my lunch. I did my usual open face sandwiches and salad. I brought everything upstairs and decided to watch Matlock today. It was fine. I’m still not a fan of the crossing and double-crossing that seems to be going on. 

F called me after 5:30 to say he was on his way. I got dressed to go downstairs and then closer to 6pm I went downstairs.

Today I did the dishes and to be honest, I didn’t boost the water temperature quite as high as I usually do. It helped me a bit, but it was still so hot in the kitchen. I’m hoping that this will be the last time for me to be so hot in the kitchen.

Tonight I made gnocchi with a bought cheese sauce. I fried half of the gnocchi after I cooked it for a different taste. Last time F liked it better, today he didn’t notice much difference! So, we had gnocchi with cheese sauce, salad and bacon that I had sautéd. It was all very nice I thought.

Today F and I made dessert. We had kaki-gori at the house and it was very nice! I had a Blue Hawaii one, F had lemon and K also had Blue Hawaii. 

I had to do the dishes after dinner. I was soaked by the time I finished. I came upstairs and changed almost all of my clothes. I watched a few videos and then I decided that I’d watch a movie for my column.

Tonight I decided to watch Fighting with My Family. It’s another Florence Pugh film and she plays a wrestler from England who goes to the US and becomes a champion in the WWE. It was quite a good movie and as usual, Pugh is great in it!

F came upstairs at the very end of the film and basically went to bed soon afterwards. I watched a few videos and got started on my end of day stuff. I’ll be able to get myself to bed soon.

This is going to be an interesting weekend. Tomorrow K is off to her Day Service place and then at 5 pm we are supposed to have a meeting with her Care Manager. Then, on Sunday, we are supposed to be getting a new air conditioner for the living room. Of course we have no idea what time they will come for our installation so it is hard to make plans for the day. I hope it is sometime when F is around!

Anyway, that’s about it for me. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

August 20, 2026

Thursday - Muggy, hot and then rainy at night

I woke up this morning a few minutes before my alarm went off. I got up a little later and then went downstairs. I came back to the room and then did my usual snooze and video watch thing. I did get up a little earlier than usual, but I didn’t go downstairs for a while. 

When I was downstairs I got my yogurt out of the fridge, grabbed the scales and made for the stairs. However, K was suddenly in the kitchen. She garbled something at me that I didn’t understand. She was pointing at the carton of yogurt. Later I assumed that she thought I was being greedy and taking a whole carton of yogurt with me. The carton holds 400 grammes of yogurt and I had 100 grammes every day this week so far. Today, was the last bit of the yogurt and I eat it and the cereal out of the carton. I mean, why not?

I went upstairs to eat and watch some YouTube. I did actually find time to go back and fill in some info in the part of the column I wrote yesterday. I corrected spellings and put in dates and such. 

I went downstairs later, around 2:45 to get my lunch. When I got back to the room I decided to watch the last episode of Evil. However, later on I discovered that there is one more season of Evil, but my channel doesn’t have it. Oh dear. I hope the channel will stream it sometime. 

After lunch I watched the news and then changed my clothes fairly early. F called but I wasn’t able to talk to him for some reason. I might have hit the hang up button by mistake?  

I went downstairs a little early today and started on dinner. As usual it was hot in the kitchen so I started sweating and basically didn’t stop. Today I made chicken drumsticks, cucumber pickle, steamed okra, and served them with a salad and some macaroni salad. It turned out well. I forgot to give K and F their mini tomatoes until after the meal. Dinner was good!

I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. I was soaking wet when I finished. I let F know that I was going to go upstairs to change and then he came upstairs too. I waited until he went back downstairs and then I changed everything!

We drove to the Mina shopping area and went in. Yes, F came in again. I shopped for practical things, more or less, F got a bunch of snack things. I did pick up a cylinder of salt & vinegar Chip Star chips. I haven’t tried them yet, I hope they are good. Japan does try to do sour flavours, but usually their vinegar isn’t strong enough. 

We came back to the house and put away the groceries. We came upstairs after that. I opened the parcel I received today and even started one of the books. Another foreign wife in my group was rehoming some books and I asked for a few. One was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which is a book I loved as a kid. I’ve already read a couple of chapters tonight. 

I watched tonight’s episode of The Rookie. It felt like one that was the end of a season, but it is on next week so I was wrong. 

F went to bed and appears to be sleeping. I’m glad as lately he hasn’t slept well. He didn’t wake up when I came to bed last night, which I’m happy about. He often wakes up and then can’t get back to sleep. 

Anyway, that’s about it for my day. Tomorrow I have an exciting day of laundry and cooking planned. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

August 19, 2026

Wednesday - Hot and Sunny

I had a quiet, usual morning today. I woke up, went downstairs and then went back to bed for a snooze. I got messages from F and I noticed that my videos were repeating so I woke up a little earlier than usual and got up. I went downstairs after I got dressed. K had gone out with her daughter. 

I came back to the room and tried to go online. I discovered that there was no wifi. Sigh. I went back downstairs to check that it wasn’t just a location problem. It wasn’t. I sent F a text to let him know and to check if he had paid the last bill. He hadn’t. 

He said he’d try and take some time off work and call the company. I decided that since I couldn’t watch YouTube and I couldn’t watch anything on streaming, I’d work on my column. I did get quite a bit written, but I wasn’t able to fact/detail check as I wrote so I’ll have to spend some time doing that. However, I’m quite happy with myself that I did do some writing. 

F showed up around 1:30 I think. He called the internet company, found out how to pay, and then we had to go and actually pay the bill. We went to a conbini and he took care of that. Then, we went for a late for him/early for me lunch. 

We went over to Gusto and checked out their lunch menu. We both ended up having the same thing. We had their 3 mushroom pasta with salad, drink bar and the daily soup. It was nice. We were in the restaurant for a while, enjoying the air conditioner and the drink bar. 

When we left the restaurant we were on our way home, but F wanted to check out a bakery we like. We went, but there was a customer ahead of us. It’s so small that we have to wait until the other people leave! We only got one thing, a spinach and cheese scone type thing. (It was great, we ate it around 11pm.) Then, I suggested going to a drug store as I needed to pick up something. We got a few things there, including ice cream for dessert tonight.

We got back to the house, F reset the wifi and in a few minutes it worked! Yay. I got about an hour to relax before I had to go downstairs to cook dinner. I chilled and watched the news that I recorded earlier. 

I headed downstairs to the kitchen. As we had dessert and it was so hot, I decided that I was going to take things easy in the kitchen tonight. We had some macaroni salad, salad, cucumber pickle, mini-tomatoes, and sautéd pork. We also had the ice cream from earlier too. It was very nice. 

After dinner I did the dishes and put things away. I was soaked when I finished. It was so hot in the kitchen tonight and honestly, I was miserable. When I finished the dishes I had to do up the garbage to get it ready to go out tomorrow morning. Happily, F gave me a hand with the stuff in K’s room and some of her garbage in the living room. 

Afterwards I headed upstairs, turned on the AC and just relaxed. Around 10:30 I took a shower and then came upstairs to watch Grey’s Anatomy. It was its usual wacky self, some doctor stuff, some patient stuff. 

And that’s about it for my day. It was a strange day but a good one for the most part. Tomorrow I think F should be back to work, hopefully for the whole day and I’ll be working on my column and doing dinner as well. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my Thursday. Until tomorrow….

August 18, 2026

Tuesday - Hot and Sunny

I woke up this morning after my alarm went off. I got up and went downstairs, then came back to the room. I sorted out my laundry and put the basket aside for later. Then, snoozeville!

I got up later and noticed that F had sent me a message, asking if I’d like to go to the electric shop later on. I said sure. We had a long chat about it and he decided that he’d try and take time off later on. 

I started my laundry, and ended up doing two loads today. I hung them up in my room so they could get dry from the air conditioner. I had my breakfast and later on my lunch too. Because F phoned me and said that he was on his way back to the house, I had a hurried lunch and didn’t get to watch anything today. 

When he came back, he was rather grouchy. I’m not sure why. I was finished lunch and was dressed for going out. He said that he thought I would have cooked dinner for his mother. It was barely 4 pm. We had talked about going out after his usual work day and then I would have cooked for his mother.  However he didn’t come up with any plan for our dinner. If he’d said that he’d take me out for dinner (which is what I thought he’d meant originally) I might have cooked for her, but at 3:00 the kitchen was really hot and it was way too early for dinner.

Anyway, we got in the car and drove to the electric shop. F looked at air conditioners and then decided to buy one. He talked to the guy and they set up a delivery and installation for Sunday. Yay.

I bought some ink for my printer as I’ve not been able to get any this year. It’s really needing it. 

We left the shop and came back to the house. I had to immediately go upstairs and change so that I could cook dinner. 

Tonight I did coro-coro steak, steamed broccoli, potato salad, salad and rice. It was quite nice really. 

I did the dishes afterwards and then went upstairs to change. We went to the grocery store and bought groceries of course! We got a few things for dinners and breakfasts…it was expensive as we had to buy rice and F wanted his adult beverages.

At the house I put away the groceries and then came upstairs to relax. At 11pm I watched Law & Order and then some music videos before turning off the TV. 

And that’s about it. I’ve spent the last couple of hours watching YouTube and working on my usual end of day things. I didn’t get any of my column written today, hopefully I can make a bit of a start tomorrow. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

August 17, 2026

Monday - Cloudy and hot, muggy

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. F had another bad night. He woke up when I came to bed, or he wasn’t sleeping…who knows. He got up and went downstairs and then finally came back to bed. I fell asleep after I did my reading. 

This morning I did my usual getting up and going downstairs. Then, I came back upstairs, used my computer for a minute or two and then went back to bed. I snoozed and watched videos until I got up a bit later. I also used the AC for an hour in the first part of the morning, but after it turned itself off, I got hot again quickly. I put it back on. 

I finally got up, dressed and went downstairs for mail and my breakfast. I brought it all back upstairs and then ate. I didn’t do anything that I really planned to do, except I did back up my computer so that is good.

I got my lunch a bit early today and while I ate I watched an episode of Evil. I have one more so I doubt everything will be wrapped up. I’ve really enjoyed the show if I’m honest. 

F called me tonight from inside Tsuruoka, so I had to hurry to get ready. I made it downstairs to the kitchen before he got back. It’s not a big deal if I don’t, but I just like to get some of the kitchen ready. 

Tonight we had chicken pieces which I did in my air fryer, potato salad, cucumber pickles, mini-tomatoes, salad and rice. It turned out nicely and I liked the chicken better in the air fryer than when I do it in the toaster oven. Yay for that. 

After dinner I did the dishes and was finally done before 9pm. I also did up the pink garbage bag with the plastic stuff. It was full! F decided that he’d come upstairs soon too, so I took the ice cream out of the freezer and grabbed some spoons for us. F came up a few minutes later and we ate our ice creams. They were supposed to be dessert on Saturday night, but we ate the doughnuts and then went out instead. K ate her ice cream today before noon, so we needed to eat ours before K got hold of them!

I relaxed upstairs with some YouTube and then went downstairs to take a shower after 10pm. I showered and then came back up to the room. I decided to watch an episode of Sugar. Tonight was really good and really moody with great music in the background. 

So, that’s the end of it really. I just watched some YouTube after midnight and got started on a lot of my end of day stuff. Tomorrow I’ll probably do some laundry and of course there will be dinner again. Sigh. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

August 16, 2026

Sunday - Hot and Sunny

I woke up this morning before my alarm. F was downstairs making his mother’s brunch. I went downstairs and then came back up to the room. I spent a couple of minutes on my computer and then went back to bed. I didn’t really get to sleep unfortunately, F came back up to the room and wanted to go for lunch very soon after. It was rather annoying. He’d just eaten I think!

We did go out I think before noon. Today when F asked me where I wanted to go I told him I wanted Indian food. He wasn’t excited, but since that’s how I felt yesterday going to his Japanese place I didn’t care! I wanted, no needed, a no rice day!

We went to the Indian restaurant and ordered. F ordered the special with chicken and cauliflower, I ordered the chicken curry. We ended up swapping because he liked mine better and I liked his better! I love cauliflower.  I liked the meal, I’m not sure if F did. 

Next up we went to the Chido Museum. I have a membership so we didn’t have to pay to go in. Today’s exhibit was mostly about swords and katanas so it was F’s kind of thing, not so much mine. It was fine though. After he was done with the swords, we went to the garden and had a look. It was beautiful as usual, but the pond had a lot of scum on it. 

We left the museum and decided to go for a drink. We ended up at Cafe B-Flat, just up the road from the house. It was nice and cool inside. I had an iced cafe latte, F had an iced Vienna Coffee. Mine was really nice, F said he liked his too. 

We came back to the house after our drinks. F did this thing where he says he wants to go. It’s fine. I decided to go to the washroom first, which I did. When I got back to the table, F wouldn’t leave. He was in the middle of something and it took him about 15 or 20 minutes to get himself sorted. Ack!

Back at the house finally, I went upstairs and relaxed. I spent time on my computer and enjoyed the AC. F came up a bit later and tried to nap I think. 

Around 6:30 we went out to get groceries and bentos. I had suggested going to PAL as they usually have good bentos. Well, not today. They didn’t have very much at all. I did manage to get something for K’s lunch and eventually breakfasts for K and F. I bought a few things, F was disappointed in the sashimi zone and then I discovered they had a party platter available. It had things like roasted potatoes, fried shrimp, grilled chicken, fried chicken, sliced duck breast…it was nice! 

F paid for the groceries and then we drove back to the house. I put the groceries away and then went upstairs to change my clothes. When I came back I started to set the table and groused that K had once again put garbage on my spot at the table. All of a sudden F decided that he wasn’t going to eat. I offered to make him a plate. He hemmed and hawed and then finally deigned to accept that. 

He got his mother up,  and then left. I divvied up the food and we ate. It was quite nice. It wasn’t huge and a salad would have been nice with it all, but I didn’t buy one!

After our meal, I cleared the table and did the few dishes. I made some rooibos tea and then went upstairs again. F went downstairs and did something, ironing I think. I decided to watch a movie. I ended up watching a film called A Good Person with Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. It was a well-acted film, but a little overlong. 

F came back up to the room and relaxed. After the movie I went downstairs and discovered that F had left some laundry in the machine. I texted him and asked if he’d like me to bring it up for him. He said yes. 

It was now too late to watch something lighter as I had planned, so I turned off the TV and turned to YouTube eventually. 

F went to bed but his stomach is bothering him and he isn’t sleeping. I hope he’ll be okay. 

Tomorrow I’m not sure what I’ll get up to. I do have to cook dinner tomorrow night and I’ll try and do a few things here in the room maybe. I’ve finally started research for my column so maybe I’ll even write a few words for that. That would be good! 

That’s it for me for now. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….