February 5, 2026

Thursday - Sunny and warm

I woke up this morning before my alarm. I went downstairs and then came back to bed. F was still in bed when I came back to the room. It was so unusual for that to happen, but he got up a few minutes later. 

I slept for a little longer, but then got up around 9:45 and got dressed. I ate my sausage dog as my breakfast and a few minutes later F and I were out the door and over to Machikine Cinema. When we were nearly there, we were blocked by a snowplough! We had to go the other way, but did get there on time.  We went in, bought our tickets and went to see The Penguin Lessons. 

The movie was quite good, loosely based on a real story and was about a time and place that I didn’t know much about. F liked it a lot more than I thought he would. 

After the movie, we went over to Cocos and had lunch. During the week they have some nice specials at lunchtime. They also have very nice free desserts for people with a birthday in the month. We got a table right away and ordered a few minutes later. I had the chicken salad which came with two tortillas and shared a small order of fries with F. He had a hamburger with shrimp and rice. He liked his, I liked mine. We also had the drink bar and I had the birthday dessert. We enjoyed our meals. 

Cocos Free Dessert

After lunch, we went across the road and went to Daiso. F needed something and I always enjoy visiting Daiso so it was nice.  Then, we went to the grocery store nearby. We picked up a few things that we forgot on Tuesday, plus a bento for K’s dinner. F got her a sushi dinner and then we came back to the house.

We put away the grocery and then came upstairs to relax for a while. I watched the news and then chilled out. 

I decided to change my top and wore a much dressier shirt to go out. F didn’t but that’s okay. We drove out to Mikawa and went to Bistrot des Ponts. We were the only customers tonight, but had a lovely meal. We had fish, lovely buns, bear and wild boar or deer hamburgers and a very nice dessert with rooibos tea. It was a very nice meal. They brought out a sparkler and dimmed the lights before they brought out the dessert, it was sweet. 

Flatfish mariné with salad

Kabocha Soup

lovely crusty buns. The little dish has a dish made out of bear! It was surprisingly good!

We’ve been customers there for a long time, but recently we haven’t been going there much as it is more of a splurge place than an every weekend thing. 

We left the restaurant and drove back to Tsuruoka. We just came back to the house where we relaxed more. We were both quite stuffed. 

After a bit of YouTube I watched another episode of Evil and then one of The Box. That last one I lost the plot a bit, but I’ll probably watch another episode at least. 

I’m just about ready to get myself off to bed. Tomorrow I’m back on kitchen duty and then there’s the weekend. F is off work on Monday too, as we have an important errand to run at city hall. I hope we can have a good time doing something then. 

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