This is the garden, colors come and go...

It is June, it is summer, and remarkably, it is not raining. At all. This time last year I was complaining about the record breaking 16 successive days of rain. By the end of this month I may well be posting about the driest June I (and perhaps Hokkaido) have ever experienced. I know we are not having the best of summers back home so I don't want to gloat, but, heck, I do want to gloat. We are having a cracking summer; lots of warm sunshine, not too humid, not too hot, but consistently pleasant.
And it shows.

The garden, our thin L-shaped strip of greenery bordering two sides of the house, is thriving. Our strawberries are red and ripe; the juniper berries are coming along nicely, and it looks like we will enjoy a bumper crop of black and red currents this year. My hope is that the good weather continues which might help the blueberries ripen early this year, late July perhaps. Usually it is August and we are in Ireland so the local birds get to feast themselves on the crop, but if the sunshine continues we may just get to enjoy them ourselves. Hell, we might just bring some over with us.

Yes, I know what you are thinking; it is kind of oriental version of Chelsea flower show. But all is not what it seems in the Garden of Eden...
Last Thursday, Cian and myself arrived home to find this handwritten note of terror stuck to the front door.

 
We ran screaming into the house. No, we didn't. Cian remarked on Mammy's lack of cursive script whilst pointing out the omission of a definite article and issues with her word order. Then we ran screaming into the house.
The good weather has also brought with it an infestation of 毒蛾 (dokuga), literally 'poisonous moth', (though apparently it hides behind the more unassuming name of 'Oriental Tussock Moth').

 Along the south east coast of Hokkaido there has been an explosion of these venom tipped monsters and the tussocky feckers are everywhere. Beaches and parks have been closed because of them and poor Mammy got, well not exactly stung but more like 'grazed' by one of them. The caterpillar's poison is contained in the hairy bristles (or urticating hairs for all you Lepidoptera fans out there) covering their brown and orange bodies. These hairs are shed by the caterpillar when it senses danger and lets face it, there's nothing much more dangerous than an enraged Mammy finding insects munching on her strawberries. So, she got covered in these hairs, broke out in a terrible, itchy rash, and is now using the sort of steroid-based analgesic cream beloved of 1980's bearded, deep-voiced, female Bulgarian weightlifters.
Apparently we can expect another couple of weeks or so of caterpillar horror before they metamorphosize into winged moths and bring poisonous terror from the night skies!

A Red Team Whitewash

For the past two years in the undokai Cian has been a stalwart member of the White team, and for the past two years White team have been beaten by the Red team.
So, after intense negotiations and an undisclosed sum (but let us just say, it was a big sum; a big three figure sum. Oh yeah), Cian was transferred to the Red team for this year's competition. And yesterday the Red team were then utterly annihilated by the White team. It was in many ways reminiscent of the Dublin v. Galway match down in Tullamore. After the first three events of the morning White team had succumbed to the undokai equivalent of shipping three quick goals: they were beaten in the 50m, 80m, and 100m sprints. And that was before the horror show that was the tug of war. And don't get Cian started on the relay race...
The day had started so full of promise. Well, actually, it had started what sounded like a sustained salvo from the 16 inch guns on the battleship USS Iowa as the fireworks went off at 5:30 announcing that the undokai was 'good to go'. Which in turn meant a very bleary eyed Daddy had to hustle his still bed-warmed ass up to the school ground in order to secure a prime patch of sand from which to view the games. Given how things turned out I should really have stayed in bed. Somehow, ahem, I managed to miss the opening speeches but did get there for the "You will know us by our righteous fury" orations from the team leaders. Or rather blood curling whistles. As the video shows it was a bit like the trailer for the new Star Wars but without an old aged pensioner masquerading as Han Solo.

The events are divided up according to class grades which in turn are cleverly scattered over the course of the day so that people don't get up and leave once their kid's events are over. As I was only interested in 3rd class this meant I tuned out of much of the rest of the proceedings, though the human pyramid always has that 'will they fall and break bones?!' aspect to hold the viewer's interest.

For Cian first up was the 80m dash. The boy is a bit like the great Maurice Fitzgerald: you can't train nor tell him what to do; you just let him be and he'll perform for you on the day. And so it proved.

And yes, he was easing up with about 20 metres to go.
The tug of war followed. From the Red Team's point of view it should really have been called the 'tug of shame'. The event was staged twice and they lost both of them.

 We then had a musical interlude. A dancing musical interlude. It seems to be one of the prerequisites of Japanese primary school education that students learn how to move to the groove, even if the groove isn't particularly groovy. Looking back over Cian's school history to date it is striking how many instances there are of tripping the light fantastic. I mean, you'd never see that sort of behaviour in a scoil náisiúnta.
You can watch it, sorry, get your groove on here.

Onto the 'Hurricane'.
Initially, I thought this would be a revelatory tribute to the great Rubin Carter with perhaps a hair-raising acapella vocal rendition of Dylan's scintillating song (with a knowing look thrown towards the school principal when Cian snarls out the words "All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance, the relay trial was a pig circus he never had a chance"). But no. It was in fact a competition involving a long pole, running, jumping, and no, it wasn't a miniature version of the pole vault. It was something very ... Japanese, though its connection to a meteorological phenomenon and/or a terrible miscarriage of racial injustice remains unknown me. Suggestions, dear readers?

 
Then we had lunch.

Which induced a soporific stupor in pretty much everyone present. Matters weren't helped by the scheduling of a series of bizarre 'It's a Knockout!' (remember that?) style events in the afternoon. Note the distinct lack of enthusiasm amongst competitors and spectators both in the clip below.

And that marked the end of Cian's participation in the undokai. There were some other events but Daddy had brought a copy of the Economist with him and to be honest, the article on India's public-sector banks proved more enthralling.
At least the weather was good. Unlike the forecast for this weekend when Sanae's school is due to hold their undokai.

The countdown begins

Well, if it's June it must be undokai (sports day) season. First up this Saturday is Cian's followed a week later by Mammy's extravaganza. However, overshadowing both events (and the inane goings on at FIFA) is the shock news of the omission of Cian 'The Tenjin-cho Bolt' from the third class relay team. For the previous two years he has been the go to guy when things get speedy but this year he didn't even make the reserve team. And this despite winning his heat.
The fix, ladies and gentlemen, is very much 'in'.
I don't know what kind of bribes, kickbacks, or payoffs were made, but they were made. And the world of sport is a lesser place for it. I am not pointing any fingers but that is a suspiciously shiny new Nissan Fuga the headmaster is driving. With the leather seats. And the touch screen navigation system.
Cian has taken it all in his stride (a stride which is among the quickest in all of third class, but that doesn't matter in the relay selection as, apparently, other things rather than speed are more important. Like having a father who owns the local Nissan car dealership). Instead, he is concentrating on all his energy and athleticism on the yosokai soran dance, a 'modern interpretation' of a traditional Japanese summer dance.
I know, I know, still your beating hearts. But you will just have to wait until Saturday evening when I put a clip up on youtube.
Unlike last year (and our record breaking 16 consecutive days of rain), the weather forecast is looking good for this Saturday, so it will be up with the fireworks at 5:30 and off to fight for the prime patch of dirt around the running track.
And guess who has to do that?
As a sort of postscript, if we are talking on skype this weekend to any of you good readers, the 'relay' word is not to be mentioned. At all. If I even here the phoneme 're', the connection will be immediately dropped and not resumed. Ever.