August 14, 2025

Thursday - Hot and sunny

I got up this morning when my alarm went off. I went downstairs and then came back to the room and went back to bed with a few alarms set on my phone. I watched a couple of videos and then snoozed. 

I woke up about half an hour before I was due to leave! Yikes. I hurriedly got up and dressed. I did a couple of things around the room and then went downstairs. I got to the bus stop about 5 minutes early. It was a little funny because I was wearing a big sunhat and I was looking at my phone while I was waiting. I never looked up so I was surprised when the bus stopped right in front of me!

I was the only person on the bus for quite a while. I rode the bus until the end of the line, S-Mall. I got out, bought a couple of things at the Daiso on the second floor, then went downstairs. I decided to buy lunch at Pizza Hut, but they told me it would take about 30 minutes. Yikes. I didn’t have that much time. Instead, I ended up at the bakery and bought a few things. I ate in the back of the bakery.

I caught the bus back to Sanno-machi and first up went to the post office and made a deposit. Yay! More coins in my account! Then, I toddled over to the drugstore and bought a few things for the house and myself. I walked back to the cinema and went in. 

I bought my ticket and a few minutes later I was in my seat and watching Bridget Jones’s Diary. The Digital Remaster was being shown in my local cinema for a week for the 25th anniversary…or maybe the 24th since it came out in 2001. It was great to see it again on the big screen. It’s been ages since I watched it and I had forgotten just how funny it really is. And…how gorgeous Colin Firth and Hugh Grant were….Oh and tonight when I was trying to explain about the movie to F, he couldn’t remember who Hugh Grant was and kept getting him confused with Hugh Jackman! When I figured out who he was talking about it was very funny!

After the movie, I wrote up a quick movie note for the board at the cinema and then left for my bus stop. I should have waited in the cinema for a few more minutes, but I got to the stop about 10 minutes too early. 

The bus came to the stop, I got on and had a lovely ride until I got to my stop. I got off the bus and walked back to the house. Just outside the yard, I remembered that there were some overhanging branches and weeds that were just waiting for a person on a bicycle to run into them. I opened the house and put my backpack inside, then grabbed a pair of shears from the garage and cut down the offending branches that I could reach. I gathered up the branches carefully as one of them had thorns and disposed of them. 

I went into the house. I saw K and she looked okay. I was a tad worried about her as she’s old and doesn’t always look after herself on hot days. 

I went upstairs and basically stripped. It was 32 degrees in my room. I got it cooled down and I relaxed in front of my computer for a while. F called around 5:30 and I reminded him to get some bentos for us. He was surprised that I wanted bentos for all of us, but with me being out today I thought it was a good thing to spend some time with K. 

He came back to the house around 6 pm. I was in the kitchen and when he arrived I heated up the bentos. He had got two smallish bentos for me and K. They had a tempura shrimp, bamboo shoots and mushroom and bamboo rice. I wasn’t sure that I’d like it, but it was okay. I wouldn’t pick it for myself, but I did eat it. F got himself a big one with fish that he complained about being too thin. The fish, not him!

After we finished eating, I washed the bento boxes and left them to dry. We had to wait a while for K, F’s sister to come over and drop off some food for us, but then we got ready to go out. 

F and I drove to PAL and went to the drugstore there. We bought a couple of drinks for the road and then drove off to Yunohama to see the fireworks. We were supposed to leave Tsuruoka a whole lot earlier so when we arrived in Yunohama, all of the good parking spots were taken. Finally F found one and we walked a bit towards the beach. 

It's hard to get a good picture of fireworks on an iPhone!

The fireworks show was supposed to last for 10 minutes, but was really only six! Still, it was nice. We haven’t planned to go and see the big hanami in Tsuruoka this year, we might watch it from the windows upstairs if we feel like it this year. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka and stopped at a grocery store. We needed something for K’s lunch since I hadn’t cooked tonight (no leftovers) and also, ended up getting a couple of treats as well. 

Then, we went through a gyudon shop’s drive through and got some food. The bentos earlier seemed small to me! I got a cheese gyudon and F just got a regular one. 

We came back to the house and ate. I watched some YouTube and then The Rookie. It’s been on so long that The Rookie isn’t the rookie anymore! I quite like it anyway. 

F fell asleep while I was watching my show and only woke up a little when I went downstairs around midnight to take down K’s breakfast. (I can’t leave it in the kitchen too early or K will find it and eat it and then have nothing for breakfast.)

So that’s about it for my day. It was so good to get out of the house. It was so hot though, it was quite horrible to be out, but I’m glad that I finally did it. I had wanted to go out yesterday, but I think going out today was the right choice. I was tired when I came back and having to cook on top of that would have been too much. 

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