These Days

How are you doing these days? I know you're very busy with reports, homework etc (I am too), but what else have you been doing/ thinking about etc?

As usual, my little girl has been taking up a lot of my time. She eats a lot (maybe more than my wife), but is always active. She loves to be outside, either walking or being pushed in the stroller. She's really interested in dogs and bicycles. She often stops during walks and tries to touch other people's bicycles. Maybe she will be able to ride one from an early age.

She still doesn't use a lot of words (but of course Japanese will be her main language when she starts speaking properly. Now her favourite words are "maaa", which means "Give me some food!" in her language, and "kuku" (shoes), which means "I want to go outside".

On recent weekends we've had barbecues on the terrace at the front of our house, overlooking the pond. I enjoy starting the fire, and cooking the meat, sausages etc which taste wonderful (even though they're bad for our health), and "having a cold one" or two.

On Saturday I sprayed chemicals in our yard to protect against the hungry little caterpillars that hatch from butterfly eggs and try to eat all our shrubs and trees. After that we rode our bicyles to Takatsuki city (Sophie was on my back) to have lunch at our favourite Indian restaurant. No curry, no life!