April 10, 2026

Friday - Rainy and cloudy most of the day

I woke up with my alarm this morning. F was long gone. I went downstairs then came back up to the room. I sorted my one load of laundry for the day and then went back to bed. I went back to bed.

I never really went right back to sleep, I got caught up in a story on my phone. Finally, I ended up having to go downstairs again, so I dressed, went downstairs and then tried to have a mini nap. It didn’t work. 

I finally just got up, took my laundry downstairs and started it, grabbed my breakfast and came back to the room. I ate my breakfast and then when the laundry was done I hung it up. 

I had a very quiet afternoon today. I watched much too much YouTube and then at my lunch time I went downstairs and made my lunch. I brought it upstairs to eat and then watched the next episode of Departure. It was quite good and I’m enjoying it so far.

Around 6pm I went downstairs to get a start on dinner. F came in a few minutes later and we had a nice reunion. I’d asked him to bring something to eat with dinner or a dessert, he brought 4 renkon with meat things. There are three of us…why would you just bring 4 things? I dunno. 

I got dinner on the table around 7 pm. Tonight we had pasta with a spicy seaweed type sauce, the renkon and meat deep-fried things, lemon and pepper sausages and a salad. Dinner wasn’t amazing, but it was nice. F however, knocked over his just filled glass of ice tea and so we had a mad scramble to clean things up before we ate. 

After dinner I cleared the table and then did the dishes. I listened to my podcasts and then when I finished I said goodnight to F and went upstairs. K had already gone to bed. 

Upstairs, I chilled for a bit and then decided to watch another episode of Scarpetta. It’s okay. I think I like the past version of the story more than the “present day”. There’s a lot of baggage with the present day characters that I’m not really enjoying. I still think Jamie Lee Curtis is too much, but then again, her character is like that!

I went downstairs and made some popcorn for myself. I brought it back upstairs, gave some to F, and then watched the first episode of season 5 of The Boys. It was more of the same for the most part. Lots of things happened. It was funny, but sometimes I hated laughing at the things. 

Since I finished watching TV I’ve been watching a bit of Youtube and catching up with my favourite vloggers. 

I’m not really sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. We have an appointment with K’s Care Manager at 5 pm but apart from that, I’m not sure what we’ll get up to. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 9, 2026

Thursday - Sunny in the early part of day, cloudy later on

Today was a decent day. I woke up at my usual time and F was in bed next to me watching something on his phone. I turned off a lot of my alarms and went back to sleep. I woke up again a couple of hours later, went downstairs and then came back to the room and got dressed. F came in around that time and said that he was getting ready to leave to run his errands. 

I spent a bit of time on my computer, had my breakfast, and half a cup of tea. F got back while I was in the middle of my tea and invited me out for lunch. His idea was intriguing, so I was fine with it.

F suggested a place that I had suggested a couple of months ago. However, when we had tried it, the place was closed. Today, it was open. We went in, got a private dining room near the window and had a lovely lunch. We ordered a bento box type lunch and it was a mix of tempura, sashimi and a few other items. We both enjoyed it.

After lunch, we drove to City Hall and went in. Then we left right away and walked over to the Park. Hanami is at it’s peak and it was such a gorgeous day that it was lovely to see the park. I had asked F not to traipse all over the park today but of course, he tried to! He will never buy anything at the kiosks so in my opinion there is no point in walking in those areas…he took me through a bunch of them. We did go to the old Shrine that I loved to visit in days gone by and finally did our Hatsumode. Whew. It was long past the time. We walked over to the big temple and then back through the kiosk. 

One of the moats in Tsuruoka Park

Close up of blossoms

Inside the old shrine looking back at the park. 

We went back to the car finally and then decided to go for a drink somewhere. We were going to go to one place, but ended up at another. We went to Standard, the coffee and Jazz place and both had cocoa. Mine was cold, his was hot.  It was a nice break.

I had thought about staying downtown, but decided I’d probably better go back to the house as I was tired. We drove back to the house and relaxed for an hour. F had a meeting at 4 pm so he had it downstairs and I watched the US news and relaxed for a bit.

Around 6 pm, F made his mother’s dinner. I’m not sure what he made, it doesn’t matter really!

At a bit past 7 pm F and I went out to have dinner. We went over to Gusto and had a fairly decent dinner. I had the chicken with a mushroom sauce, salad and a bun, F had the mixed grill with a Japanese set. We shared some fries and both had drink bar. Dinner was good and I enjoyed it.

After dinner, we went over to the Mina Shopping Area and did some grocery shopping. I got stuff for dinner tomorrow night and F picked up a few things for Saturday morning.

We came back to the house and after putting away the groceries went upstairs. I watched another episode of Scarpetta and then tonight’s episode of The Rainmaker. Both were good, although Scarpetta went a bit out there with astronauts being murdered!

F went to bed a bit after midnight, I’m still up, but will go to bed fairly soon. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, but it’ll probably start with a bit of laundry! Yay me!

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

PS…remember with my pictures you can click on them to see them bigger!

April 8, 2026

Wednesday - Sunny and gorgeous

I woke up about half an hour before my alarm went off this morning. I went downstairs, and then came back to the room and sorted out my clothes for later. I went back to bed and snoozed for a bit, but I’m not sure I really slept. I dragged myself out of bed an hour or so later and got dressed. I ate my breakfast and then I was off to the bus stop. The bus times have changed recently, but Google Maps hasn’t caught up with them yet.

The bus was a couple of minutes late for its new time. I was a bit panicky in case I wouldn’t make my connection. I got out at Tsuruoka station and as I was getting off my local bus, the bus I needed to catch was coming into the bus area. I had to run/fast walk to the stop and I was the last person who got on the bus. That was close! Sad to say, that connection isn’t very good anymore. If my local “C” bus had been a minute later I wouldn’t have made it at all. However, I had an uneventful bus ride over to Mikawa and got off at the mall. 

At the mall I did a few things. I used an ATM and went to the post office. I deposited some one-yen coins and bought a few stamps. Then, I went upstairs and tried out the new restaurant in the food court. It’s a pasta place and happily for me, they had one type of pasta that I could eat. It was a spinach and garlic something, some kind of pepperoncino. It came with a big cup of soup and a bit of coleslaw and veggies for 1200 yen. It was quite good, but I did think it was a bit expensive. However, it was so nice not to need to have rice for lunch! I ate quickly and then went to the cinema.

I discovered that they have changed the set up for the concession stand. We have to order and pay on computers in the lobby. It wasn’t too bad, but as they’ve been doing recently, no English. Luckily, I can read the menu fairly well anyway. 

I got my popcorn and drink and went off to see Project Hail Mary again. And, it was still great. In fact, I probably enjoyed it better this time as I heard more and didn’t have to worry/wonder if F was enjoying it!

After the movie I left and did a little bit of shopping. I didn’t buy much. I toured the hundred yen shop and didn’t buy anything. I looked at the large ladies’s clothing section and didn’t get tempted to try on anything at all. I did get a few things at the grocery store and then decided to go and have a drink at the McDonalds. I had some iced tea and a McFlurry. It was good and I enjoyed my break. F phoned me while I was relaxing and said he’d finished work. I arranged to meet him and binned my garbage. 

A few minutes later he arrived and I went over to the car to meet him. He wanted to do a little grocery shopping so I followed him through the store. I did pick up some sliced chicken for my lunches next week. I really like that brand of chicken. 

We had a bit of a problem at the checkout machine. I think F doesn’t bother to read the signs. I put it in English when I do it and it’s fine, but he doesn’t seem to understand the Japanese. He had to call a clerk over to help as he’d just muffed it up so badly! Still, we got it done finally and then came back to the car. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka, stopping at the conbini so I could recharge my Suica card. It was getting quite low. 

Back at the house, F put away his shopping and I went upstairs and changed my clothes. I came back downstairs and started to get dinner ready. Tonight I cooked the two pizzas that we bought last night. We had them with some salad and some potato salad. I also washed some mini tomatoes for K and F, and took some shumei out of the freezer and heated them up. I managed to trip the breaker too as I had the toaster oven, the microwave and the heater on at the same time. Sigh.

I set the table and while I was heating up the last pizza, got F to cut up the other one. He’s so pedantic and tries to get it so even…just cut the damn thing! Then, he complained that the plates I put out were too small (they weren’t). Next up, he complained that the shumei were too small. Good gravy. What was his problem?I think he hasn’t noticed that when he starts complaining about things like that, I never buy/make/serve them again. It was a side dish, not the main dish. 

I did the dishes when we finished and as usual received no help from anyone. My little speaker kept cutting out which was annoying and made it difficult to listen to my podcasts. 

When I finished the dishes, I had to do up the garbage in the kitchen and the bathroom. F did help me with his mother’s stuff, so that was good. I left the bag in the genkan for him to take out later.

I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit and then came downstairs after 10:30 to take my shower. I took one and then went upstairs again and watched The Irrational. It wasn’t as good as usual, but was more of a “family” oriented show. 

And that’s about it. Since midnight I’ve been watching too much YouTube and trying to get my end of day stuff done. 

Tomorrow, F is off work as he has some personal errands to run. He mentioned going out for lunch so that would be nice if it happens. He’s got a packed day for himself so I’ll wait and see what goes on. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 7, 2026

Tuesday - Muggy and rainy all day

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning. I didn’t hear F this morning, which I’m not mad about! I went downstairs, came back to the room and then sorted out my laundry. Then, back to bed went I. I watched videos and then snoozed for a bit. I got myself up a bit later and went downstairs with my laundry. I did two loads today, no big deal. Sadly, the spot I got on my pink sweater didn’t come out. I may have to run it through the machine again.

I got two letters from my friend today. I had started a letter to her yesterday, so I wrote a couple more pages today and have the letter ready to go out tomorrow. Yay me.

I had a quiet afternoon. I had lunch around 3 pm as usual, I watched an episode of Lie To Me. It was cool as Mahershala Ali was a guest star, as was Megan Follows, Canada’s own Anne of Green Gables (and Matt and Jenny, but maybe no one else remembers that show!)

The news was on afterwards and I can’t say I watched it. It’s PBS so it was decent and quite balanced, but I have heard too much from a very stupid person over the last few years that I can’t pay any more attention to him!

F called around 5:30 to say he was on the way back and I went downstairs soon after to get ready to make dinner. Tonight I made hamburgers from scratch, and added on some broccoli, potato salad and salad. Everything was pretty darn good to be honest and I even got things on the table early. Yay me.

I did the dishes afterwards and then F and I drove to the grocery store and we got something for dinner tomorrow night. It was kind of funny. I suggested to F tonight that since I’m out tomorrow we have pizza for dinner tomorrow night. I told him we can buy some at the grocery store. He had no idea where the pizza in the store was and I told him that it was just inside the door that we usually go in. He didn’t believe me, but he does now!

We did our shopping and then came back to the house where we put things away. I came upstairs and made myself some tea, then decided to watch an episode of Scarpetta. It’s starting to grow on me a little, but I’m still not completely convinced it’s good. 

After Scarpetta finished, I watched tonight’s episode of Resident Alien. It was really funny and wrapped up a major plot line. There’s at least one more episode so I’m not sure what they’re going to do with it. 

And that’s about it for my day. I have to leave the house around 10:30 tomorrow morning, so I have to get to bed! Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 6, 2026

Monday - Sunny in the morning, muggy for the rest of the day.

I woke up early this morning. F was up and was getting ready to go to work. I hoped I could just go back to sleep right away but I woke up enough that I had to get up and go downstairs. Sigh. F was still around when I came back upstairs so I waited a bit and then went back to bed. I didn’t fall asleep until after he left. I did end up getting up earlier than I did yesterday or most days so yay.

I brought my breakfast upstairs and then ate. I started a letter to my bestie and also did my usual Monday stuff like backing up my computer and replacing the towels downstairs. 

I went downstairs around 3 to make my lunch and then I brought it upstairs to eat. I started watching a new show during my lunch, one called Departure. It’s new for me. It’s got Christopher Plummer and Archie Punjabi in it. It’s about a plane going down and the people trying to rescue the passengers and after some time doing a recovery mission. The first episode was quite good. 

F called me around 5:30 and said he was on his way. A bit later I went downstairs to get started on dinner. I did dishes as usual and then when F came back we had a nice chat before he went upstairs to relax. Tonight I did toaster oven chicken with a lemon pepper flavouring, anchovy cabbage, sautéd mushrooms, and baby leaf lettuce. It was actually quite a nice meal but no one seemed to be too hungry. There were enough leftovers for me to have some too, so that is nice. 

I did the dishes after dinner and listened to my usual podcasts. I enjoy listening to Kermode and Mayo and learning about all the movies I’m missing because I live in Japan. Some of them will come, but anything that isn’t in English is a bit hard for me to understand unless they have English subtitles. Sometimes they do which is nice. And I always enjoyed non-English films when I went to see them in Canada, so it’s a little sad that I can’t see any here.

I went upstairs around 9 pm and chilled out with some YouTube. F came upstairs too and he was relaxing too. I took a shower after 10:15 and when I came back to the room I decided to watch episode three of Scarpetta tonight. It was okay. I’m liking the past Scarpetta more than the present. I know that Nicole is a good actress, I just don’t like her. Jamie Lee Curtis is a pain still, but wasn’t quite as bad today. 

The TV went off before midnight and since then I’ve been watching some YouTube and getting ready for my end of day stuff. 

Tomorrow I’ll likely do some laundry and finish my letter to my friend. I’m half planning to go out on Wednesday and go to the big mall. I really enjoyed my outing last week so I’d like another one. F is talking about taking Thursday off so I’m not sure if he’ll want to do anything that day or not.

So, come back later if you like and hear all about my Tuesday. Until tomorrow…. 

April 5, 2026

Sunday - Cloudy with a light rain all day

Today was unusual, but was a decent day anyway. I slept in quite late, I woke up when my alarm went off. F wasn’t in bed so he’d gone downstairs. I went downstairs and then came back to the bedroom. I went back to bed for a while and tried to sleep, but didn’t. F came up for a while to snuggle.

F suggested that we go to Sakata to go to the port restaurant. He wanted to have a keisen-don and I thought cool, I’d have fish and chips. A while later, after a cup of coffee each and our pastries from yesterday, we drove off to Sakata and the port. We went to the port, found a parking space and walked over to Sakatatanto. And….the Fish and Chips placed was closed. Permanently. Oh NO! I am sad. It was the one reason why I liked coming to that place…I don’t get British Style fish and chips anywhere else so Boo! F had a tuna donburi and I ended up having a salmon donburi. They were good, but I was really looking forward to the fish and chips. Sigh. 

After our meal we had a little spat and F walked off, but happily he didn’t stay mad for long. He was going to drive back to Tsuruoka, but I asked him if we could go nearby and check out the Immigration office. I have to go there in the next couple of months and I was hoping there was a bus stop nearer to the office. Nope. There was one at the ferry port so I could just walk over there. 

We got on the way back to Tsuruoka but stopped at the big Daiso. I love Daiso and I was looking for a few things. I was taking a quick look at the craft corner and all the yarn when my friend that lives in Sakata bumped into me! She had noticed me and came over to say hi. We had a nice chat with her and her daughter for a while before she had to move on. 

I ended up getting some writing paper, some ear plugs and envelopes. F picked up a daikon grater and got me to buy it for him. 

We drove back towards Tsuruoka. We made another stop at the Mall in Mikawa to have some coffee and a doughnut at Mr. Donut. We had a nice time just relaxing for a bit. We eventually drove back to Tsuruoka.

In Tsuruoka we went to the grocery store and picked up groceries! F needed rice, and I needed to buy food for the next few days. We’re going to have chicken and probably hamburgers in the next couple of days. We got a bento for K’s dinner and also stuff for lunches and breakfasts too.

We brought the food back to the house. I unpacked the groceries and put them away, then headed upstairs for a while. I relaxed in front of my computer screen. F gave his mother her bento and then we talked about our dinner. F didn’t want to go to Gusto, so we decided to go to a gyudon shop. We went to the new one in town and both ended up having the same thing, chicken curry. We had different side dishes, but both enjoyed the meal. 

We came back to the house afterwards and I ended upstairs again. I decided to watch the next episode of Scarpetta and it was okay. Less of the sister and more of the investigation, or something. It was slightly less annoying than yesterday’s episode. I followed that up with another episode of Evil. It is getting quite spooky!

And that’s about it for my day. We went to Sakata, saw a good friend, had some decent food and did the shopping. Tomorrow, I don’t really know what I’ll get up to so come back and find out!

Until tomorrow….

April 4, 2026

 Saturday - Sunny for the first part of the day, then rainy

I woke up this morning around 9 am. I could hear F and his mother downstairs. They hadn’t left yet! I got up to go downstairs and I saw F’s wallet in the room. Oops. I brought it downstairs with me in case he hadn’t left, but by the time I went downstairs they were gone. 

I went back upstairs and went back to bed. F came in a few minutes later on his way to the Eye Doctor. Good! He decided he would go. I tried to sleep, didn’t sleep too much, but got 40 winks or so.

I got up and took my towel and went downstairs to take my shower. I finished rather quickly and then went upstairs to finish getting dressed. 

I was on my computer for a while when F came back. He was bearing baked goods! He’d gone to our favourite little hidden bakery and had bought some croissants and some olive and potato slices/pies. We had our croissants right away with some coffee, mine was decaf. The croissants were so flaky I am still finding crumbs all over!

F wanted to try a restaurant he likes and I didn’t care that much! We went to a little Japanese restaurant and had their sukiyaki lunch special. It was okay. F liked it more than I did. 

After lunch we did a bit of shopping. We went to a bank, then the drugstore. After that, we checked out Yamaya where I picked up some rooibos tea.

On the way back to the house F suggested going to Cafe B-Flat and I was fine with that. We went in and both of us had coffees. I had a cafe latte and F had a Vienna Coffee. It was really nice. We had no evening plans so I didn’t mind having caffeine. We went back to the house next and there we stayed for a bit.

F was downstairs waiting for his mother, I was upstairs on my computer. I relaxed and watched a few videos, same as usual really.

Around 6pm F came back upstairs and took a nap. Around 7 though, he roused himself and went downstairs to make his mother something to eat. He took a long time so I was surprised. It wasn’t until 8pm that he came back upstairs and we talked about our dinner. I suggested a couple of Chinese places and he picked the one across the park. 

We drove over there and sadly the restaurant was already closed. F decided we’d go to one other restaurant, then he changed his mind and headed for another. However, he went the wrong way so we ended up doing quite the drive around. 

We ended up at the Taiwan restaurant and had a good meal. I had the yurinchi chicken again, and we ordered a plate of fried rice to share. F had the yakisoba plate. He didn’t like his noodles, but we both liked the fried rice. We were both really stuffed when we left the restaurant!

I decided to try watching Scarpetta when we got back to the house. I used to read Patricia Cornwell all the time when I first came to Japan. I really liked her but then she went off a bit and I haven’t really gone back to her novels. I put it on and it was….okayish. I’m going to give it at least another episode. I don’t like Jamie Lee Curtis in this, and I generally do like her in stuff. She’s way over the top here. I’ve read a lot of how terrible the show is and I can see it, but I’ll give it another episode or so before I judge it.

I finished up my TV watching tonight with FBI. It was the first episode of the 7th? 8th? season. It was fine, a bit of a scary episode. I turned off the TV afterwards and then got stuck into my end of day stuff. It was a pretty good day all told.

I’m not sure what I’m going to get up to tomorrow. F wants to go and look at Ume flowers if the weather holds. I’ll have to see how I’m doing. I’m having knee troubles so I’m not sure I want to traipse up a hill after F. He never goes straight where he can take a detour!

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