MY COMPLETELY FABULOUS NEW BOOK

Happy Birthday Dad - officially a pensioner 65 years young.

Today is my Dad's birthday. So here is a collection of memories and facts (as I see them) about my Dad:

• When my Mum tried to get him to tell me and my brother off, if we started grinning, he would crack up too and before long we'd all be crying laughing.
• When he got cross, you knew you'd crossed the line.
• He listened and seemed genuinely interested in me, who I was, what I thought and liked it.
• He told me it was lovely watching us growing up.
• When I was going to a disco once and worried about what I looked like he told me it didn't matter what you looked like, I could go in a sack cloth and it would be OK. I never went to a disco in a sack cloth.
• He loves walking. He walks all over Britain.
• He has always done a bit of exercise. He does keep fit in the home. In the 70s he had one of those stretchy springs that you pull across your chest. He also used to run up and down the stairs. I don't think he has ever been to a gym.
• He is a very very slow driver.
• Our car went on fire in France once and he opened the bonnet and shouted as loud as I can remember "Get out of the car run run"
• He looks like Bob Hollness off Blockbusters.
• I'll have an E please Dad hehe
• He used to teach chemistry
• He cries at football. He loves football. He talks about football a lot.
• He regularly goes to see our local team Tranmere Rovers play
• He supports Liverpool.
• My husband likes Man United.
• This is a problem.
• He does the Time Warp
• His speech at our wedding was 22 minutes long - a bit bloody long, a friend remarked, but he brought it home in the end with a real tear jerker. Not a dry eye in the house.
• He loves taking photos and enters competitions
• He loves music and has hundreds of CDs. He sends me music sometimes.
• He's tall and skinny
• His hair is snowy white
• He has worn thick bottle-bottom glasses since he was 2
• He traces the family history and in recent years has been visiting long lost old and distant relatives, collecting their photograph collections and their stories and recording it all.
• He used to have the neighbourhood kids in the back garden all looking in the fish pond. He had trained his own set of Pavlov's fish. He would knock the side of the pond and the fish would come for the food. When the kids started popping round the side of the house themselves, we had to get a big gate installed so they wouldn't get in and drown.
• He and my Mum have been married for 40 years as of July 20th this year. That's huge, big, mammouth.
• I really like him can't wait to see he and my Mum in August
• Love you dudes!

Keeda Oikawa

Last night Kei and I went to the Pink Cow with his friend-and-business associate. I had dinner we had a few drinks and there was the most amazing exhibition on there by artist Keeda Oikawa.



Not only that but Kei's pal is friends with her so she came in to meet up and spent time telling us about her trips to Cambodia and Austria and how now she is raising money to build a school in Cambodia through sales of goods related to the exhibition.

The exhibition is a mystical collaboration with photographer Toshi Ota. I was very moved by the pictures and inspired by the warmth and energy of the pieces.


Keeda herself has an amazing energy and an incredible look. Fascinating. Genuine. An artist. Kei's friend told of his and his wife's graduation when Keeda sketched all the class members during the day. She laughed and mimed sketching us.

So Now I Can Clearly See Where it All went Wrong. Very Wrong. And Wrong.

Photos taken by Ms Martine Cotton

"She's really rather good you know."

GOING...

GOING...

GONE.

NEVER AGAIN NEVER AGAIN NEVER AGAIN

Had a great day yesterday. Chilling in the morning, went to a networking event in the evening then headed over to Araku to see Tracey, who was in charge for the night. We met some perfectly lovely people, reconnected with a number of faces from the past and had a thoroughly good day. So what's the problem?

Well, the event started at 4pm and so did the wine drinking. And it continued until we left Araku at about, I have no idea.

Kei puked out of the taxi door every time we stopped at traffic lights. I looked after him. Apparently.

Today I feel worse that I ever remember feeling. I am nauseous and hot, throbbing head, hot feet and hands and just thoroughly toxic. How did that happen? Had not intention of drinking litres of wine. So it is a sign to me that something has to change.

Having not done any formal exercise in a few months, I am not strong, am very soft and am not firing on all cylinders. Motivation has been very low and this week I am keen to reboot and give myself some recovery time to get back up to potential.
So I am setting some SMART goals for this week (specific, measurable, achievable, results oriented and timebound)
As such I have commitments for the week and while I prefer not to share these things and to do them myself, I am so off colour today that I want it here, ready to action and to be accountable to my 5 readers. Here goes:



NO DRINKING - not even a glass of wine or a cool beer for a week. Lots of juice and water but no booze. Not a drop. Clean up.

GO SWIMMING ON TUESDAY NIGHT - after an early finish on Tuesday and choir having finished. I am pacing the bag ready to go tonight so there is no excuse

GET UP A LITTLE EARLIER EACH DAY - my tendency is to get up just in time to walk through the doors of the office without being late. But on the days that I get up and have a chat with Kei and sit and have a cuppa and a think, I feel much better. Not silly early, just a half an hour earlier than usual.

DO A LITTLE SOMETHING EACH DAY - to get the blood pumping. Ten minutes on the hoop, on the ab master machine or just some deep breathing. These activites have been intermittent, neglected and missed.

EAT LOADS OF FRESH FOOD - I have lost a lot of motivation towards cooking recently and have been sticking to the same old same old. It impacts my mood and the way I feel so maybe I'll try one new recipe this week. And buy in lots of fresh fruit and veg to play with.

LEAVE THE OFFICE FOR A SHORT WALK EVERY LUNCHTIME - my tendency is to surf at lunchtime. Why? Don't I get enough Internet time in at every waking moment? In actual fact, every day I make delicious food, usually a big fat salad and a bit of sushi. It's just at night that I hate making food.

That's it. What I need to be doing to make myself happy, healthy and effective.

TFIF

The concert - would you check out the pipes on that organ

The concert - would you check out the pipes on that organ
Originally uploaded by sigsy.

This is the British Embassy Choir in action on Saturday night.
It's over until September.
I miss it already.

Now I am at home thinking that I would love to stay up for hours and hours and hours. I love the evening.

Phew - I'm just this side of Chaos

Well what a whirlwind of a week it has been!

Monday continues to be a marathon as I still maintain one private student in my new life. She's a good laugh, super motivated and knows me well. So when I arrived last week looking dishevelled and exhausted, she just did loads of magic tricks for me then taught me how to do them. Bonus. I am rubbish at magic though.

Tuesday was the first dress rehearsal for the choir in the lovely Meguro Catholic Church, St Anslems. It has magical acoustics and a fantastic organ. Oooh missus.

Wednesday I had what felt like the best night of my life. I finsished work at 6:30, hubby was out, I came home, changed into room wear, put my backside on the sofa and didn't move except to make (I say make, what I really mean is heat up a packet of) curry at about 10:30. I drank water, watched about 6 episodes of Australia's next top model from last season and felt totally blissed out.. I remember what it felt like to feel creative and inspired. It made me think. Long and hard. I have questions.

Thursday was the amazing public debut of the stylist extrordinare, Jeanette as she put on her first image consulting workshop with lots of style starved ladies! It was great, she was great and looked sensational in thrifted blouse and belt. Her site is under construction, but be sure to visit.
http://www.stylesmarttokyo.com/ We ended up in La Boheme for a bottle of wine and some food. Very nice too.

Friday night I met Ms Pixie for a girly night together. It took us 2 hours to decide where to go, even though we have both lived in Tokyo for 6 years we were both equally as exhausted as one another our decision making faculties were existing in another dimension. We ended up in Asia de Cushion, Shinjuku. It had good food, very reasonably priced and I recommend it. we had starter, main, a bottle of wine and a few more glasses and it came to 6,000 each. Not bad! It was a late one, but as there were many cushions, we were able to kick back and relax. Until pretty late.

Saturday was a big day for me. The British Embassy Choir's first concert and my first with the choir. It was lovely. I forgot the words and lost my place a few times but it sounded lovely all in all and a group of my most awesome and delicious friends and colleagues came to support me. It was so special to have them there, I felt like a million dollars and more. The sound of our voices in the church made me well up more than once and more than ever I am in love with singing.

If you are able, come on Saturday night from 6:00 at Otsuma Hall. Even my heavy metal head friends were fully into it.

After that evening, April and I headed out to join a girls night at Las Chicas in Aoyama. It was my first visit there sine they rebuilt it and it is awesome. The building is really fantastic. I would take or leave the food. It was nice, but really small although the desert was pretty good and we had a most wonderful New Zealand red wine, which went down very nicely thank you. So nicely that when last orders was called, we headed over to the Pink Cow, where the mistake started with a round of cosmopolitans then tequila sunrises. At 4am I finally made it through the door. Man, those mothers are hardcore when they get a night off.

Sunday was fab - we (me, Kei and my hangover) headed over to the Sugi's (April, her hangover, husband and kids) new palace. And it really is a palace. They have a 70 m roof terrace and it was a gorgeous day and they have new outdoor furniture. So we BBQd and hing out with the kids playing in the little pool they have and drank as much water and soda as we possible could, nothing could sate our thirsts. But is was an ace day and their roof is just too much. It is too good up there. I am going to arrange parties up there without telling them. Just turn up with friends and food and booze and insist on parties. Here's why: