When I moved to Japan I put a lot of my clothes into vacuum packed bags.  Today I decided to go through the ones that aren’t open yet as I need to find some storage space.  My bedroom is full of clothes that I like, but don’t fit.  And since I managed to put on the wrong jeans today, and they nearly slid off as I was taking a parcel from the postman, I need to sort this out.

I’ve also decided that if I can store something in a plastic bag for nearly four years that maybe I don’t need it, or won’t want to wear it again.

I had three large bags of clothes to go through and it took me a few hours as it’s just too hot.  It’s too hot to carry arm loads of clothes and much too hot to actually try the clothes on.  But in the end I got through them.  I have some things that I will keep that don’t get worn often, like evening dresses, and I also have my wedding dress and some clothes that have sentimental value.  The rest of it appears to be mainly winter clothes that do actually fit, but I’m not sure how many I should keep.  I threw out a whole bag of ugly as really I don’t need to keep ugly clothes in my closet.  I had a suit that appeared to be in RUC green.  It’s a truly horrible muddy green colour and the suit is now in the bin. (For those people who didn’t grow up in Northern Ireland, RUC stands for Royal Ulster Constabulary, and used to be the name for the police force.)

I also had some clothes that I have never worn.  I had two pairs of three quarter length trousers that looked ridiculous.  I think it’s because they are actually too long, and end up looking like trousers that are a bit too short.  They make my legs look huge as they accentuate the large muscle at the back of my calf.  I could alter them but I don’t like short trousers and they would have made ugly wide shorts.    I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought these, but I was probably trying to find something that could be described as summer clothing.

Actually after spending the afternoon in my closet I think I hate clothes.

I bought a copy of Mary Berry’s Baking Bible at the weekend and today I made the almond and chocolate chip cake.  It was incredibly easy to make, as all the ingredients are put in one bowl and mixed together, and it’s lovely.  Maybe a bit too lovely as I’m craving a second slice.

Learning to make new desserts is one of the objectives on my 101 list, but I can’t make too many cakes as that would be a disaster for my diet.  I also want my cakes to have less fat than the one I just made so the next time I make it I’m going to replace the butter with mashed bananas.

It’s been a while since I was at the gym.  Maybe longer than I thought as they have managed to remodel the reception area since I was last there.  Marty was with me so we spent most of the time working with weights.  He managed to talk me into doing some bench presses but I really don’t enjoy those.  I feel silly lying on my back and worried that I’ll drop the bar on my chest.  Now I’ve got aches in places that I didn’t know had muscles.

Now that I’m back home I’ve started baking again.  I wanted to make an apple sponge pudding but this is Japanese pear season and apples are hard to find.  I actually prefer pears to apples but I’m not really sure how to cook them.  I still struggle with the fact that fruit and vegetables in Tokyo are seasonal.  I know that this a good thing and that seasonal fruit has more nutrients but it causes problems when I want to bake.

I used Jamie Oliver’s Apple Sponge Pudding recipe only with pears.  I wasn’t overly pleased with the pudding.  The pears were fine, though they take longer to stew than apples.  But the sponge wasn’t spongy.  It reminded me of a pancake more than a sponge.  So, it was certainly good enough to eat but not what I wanted.  What I really wanted was the sponge that my friend made for me when I was in Holland (so maybe I should have taken down the recipe whilst he was baking.) Looks like I’m going to have to find some other recipes and try this again.

Tonight Marty made flapjacks.  They aren’t bad but they are too sweet.  Japanese desserts are never that sweet and we have become accustomed to eating things with less sugar in them.  The flapjacks do have potential.  I’m going to make them again but I’m going to replace the butter with a fruit puree, and remove nearly all the sugar.  I may add some honey for sweetness, but I’ll know better about that when I can actually taste the mixture.

I felt cold quite often while in Holland last week.  Even when I was outside walking in the sun.  But then it was around 20 degrees C (68 F) which is cooler than I keep my air conditioner at home during the summer.  I’m not exactly used to Japanese weather, but I am better able to cope with hot weather.  Today, in Tokyo, the heat index is 42 C (107 F).  The actual temperature is 35 C (95 F) but the heat index explains why attempting to hang out the laundry makes me feel as if I’ve been exercising for an hour.

I’m not sure what temperature I prefer but I think that somewhere around 25 C (77 F) feels good.

I always feel a bit strange on my first day back home.  But this morning I was more confused than usual.  My days had all been planned out since the middle of June until now.  I still have loads of things I need to do but I have no flights planned, and no conferences and visitors until October.  And flights, conferences, visitors, and travel, have filled my days for months.

I thought about the books I could read, or the cooking I could do until I took a look around the apartment.  It’s a mess.  Just before I left for Europe I had two teenage girls staying with me.  Their room looks like they just rolled out of bed, left all their mess scattered around, and scarily like they are planning on arriving back at any minute.  Why else would I still have some of their clothes, underwear, shoes, and toiletries?  To say nothing of the rubbish they managed to gather over a five week period.

The bathroom looks like someone tried to coat it in either foundation or mascara.  There are fake nails and make-up wipes liberally scattered around the room.  Marty’s laundry basket is overflowing in the corner surrounded by dirty towels.  So far this morning I have counted at least 7 loads of laundry that need done.

The kitchen hasn’t been cleaned since I left and the living area is so messy that it’s hard to walk across the room without tripping on something.  It’s difficult to believe what a couple of weeks of neglect will do to the floors. But even I, who has seen this before when I left Marty here on his own, wasn’t expecting the remains of the dead flowers underfoot.

Marty nicknamed the girls “Weapons of Mess Destruction” whilst they were here as nothing had quite prepared us for the amount of mess that can be made by two teenage girls and a large make-up kit.  They were here for five weeks and I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to take me at least that to get this place looking as I would like.

On Friday evening we took my two sisters and Ashleigh, our current house guests, out to sing karaoke. Both Christine and Sarah have done this before but it was Ashleigh’s first time.  There is no doubt that karaoke in Japan is all about having fun and we spent a lot of our time laughing.  Sarah and Ashleigh have no idea of the difficulty of any song and I think they were a bit surprised by how difficult it is to sing like Lady Gaga.

Ashleigh and Sarah at Karaoke

My sister Christine has a beautiful voice, but we ended up laughing over her song choices. It’s true that sometimes I pick ridiculous songs for the humour value, but Christine actually likes Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”.  And it appears to sing it correctly you have to stand up and make large sweeping gestures with your arms…  She did manage to sing one song that was released this century, Katie Melua’s “The Closest Thing to Crazy”.

Christine, singing about being crazy...

I’m involved with a couple of Perl organisations and from time to time I am asked to blog about the things that I am doing. The problem though is that a lot of what I do isn’t overly interesting and can simply be incredibly dull administration.   This week I decided to make some notes on what I have been doing, but I don’t plan to do this every week.  At the minute I am trying to fit my volunteer work around doing fun things with my house guests and I’m having to schedule in the time, which means I’ve a much better idea of how long everything is taking.

I’m on the YEF venue committee and at this time of the year we work on choosing the venue for next year’s YAPC::EU.  We have two proposals this year and I spent an hour or so on each, going through them to see if I had any queries about the proposals.

I’m working on a legal matter for TPF that I unfortunately I can’t discuss the details of yet.  I spent about 4 hours on this on Sunday, 1 hour on Monday, 1 hour on Tuesday, 3o minutes on Wednesday, 30 minutes on Thursday, 1 hour on Friday, and 1 hour on Saturday.  It’s exceptional for me to spend quite so much time on one thing but it looks like I will be spending quite a bit of time on this matter throughout the summer.

I’m the TPF grant manager for Dave Mitchell’s grant and I spent around an hour on this.

I spend a lot of time reading and responding to email.  This week I have sent 61 emails either as responses to queries or initiating new conversations.  If I take out the emails that are related to tasks that I already mentioned this took up about 7 hours.  The main categories of emails at the minute seem to be Hague Grants, general administration, volunteers, and YAPC. I have also spent time chatting to people about projects and dealing with blogs.

All in all this week I spent around 20 hours, which is about usual for me.

I just glanced at my blog and noticed that I haven’t written anything at all this month.  July is a really busy month for me as I have house guests.  And as two of them are only 16 years old they need quite a bit of supervision.  I spent a couple of weeks in June travelling and really only found the time to write whilst sitting in airports, so it wasn’t a great month for blogging either.   I’m hoping that things calm down but that may not be a very realistic hope!

I realise that I have been very quiet lately. I have had a head cold for the past few days which has made it difficult for me to concentrate. Even today I’m still not 100%. I know that I have done quite a bit in May but I am having difficulty remembering specific events apart from a trip to Hong Kong at the beginning of the month. Hopefully over the next few days I’ll start to feel more like myself and my memory will improve!

View from Hotel Room