Kyoto, Osaka, Hanami

Sorry for not posting for a few days. I've been rather busy and rather stressed.

Should have time to give you a catch up - and lots of new pictures - on Monday.

P.S. - Happy wedding anniversary Ben and Gabs!

Chotto Ittai

Last night drinking a bottle and a half of red wine to myself didn't seem a bad idea. Of course, what I'd forgotten was that EVERY time I get drunk on red wine (not so often, thankfully) I suffer the next day.

Of course, cycling home from my friends house and getting slightly lost and colliding with a barrier, a bush, and finally stopping to ask for directions outside a conbeni - and managing to then fall over, with my bike on top of me, didn't really help.

Woke up this morning with a pounding head, an aching thigh, and a dental appointment to go to.

FUCK ME was it painful. The dentist declared I had great teeth (I know) and then let his sadistic dental hygienist loose on me to give me a good clean. Right. The. Way. Down. My. Teeth. To. The. Nerves.

Oh my god. I was almost jumping out of the chair in pain while the dentist, the receptionist, the other staff all kept walking over and laughing, while reminding me 'chotto ittai' (it hurts a little). Bastards.

I then got an x-ray and had a gum-shield made as, apparantly, I grind my teeth at night. (Job stress).

All of this was free, and whilst I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth (pun intended), just bloody ouch. As the day wore on, the pain in my mouth accelerated.

And they want me to go back for FIVE more (free) appointments to have the nerves dug about in my other teeth. Great.

Anyway, I recommend that if you have a hangover, you should avoid the dentist. The light shining into your mouth will hurt your eyes. The noise of the equipment will drive you nuts. And that's to say nothing of the pain.

And then the fun really started. Imagine your normal class of four 3-year olds suddenly becoming 8 for the day. (No, I wasn't seeing double). And imagine entertaining 8 lively sproglets for an hour. With a hangover and painful mouth. Not so much fun.

And as for the lady in a conbeni who, when I asked her to swap the fork she was trying to give me for my noodle salad for chopsticks, actually segoi'd me for being a foreigner AND being able to actually use chopsticks. GAH! is all I can say to YOU lady.

Hazard Warning

Can someone please produce a

'DO NOT APPROACH,

TELEPHONE,

EMAIL OR TALK TO -

HAS PMS, WILL BITE'

- t-shirt for me?

My usually exemplary behaviour could have, possibly, got me arrested, fined, fired, ignored for the rest of my natural days by everyone who tried to speak to me this week as I went on a rampage to collect enemies and destroy property (well, I ripped off the plastic sealing up my mail box in a fit of anger, does that count?)

It also meant that my normal super-lovable, friendly, helpful, empathetic teachery self sat in a classroom with students wanting to pull a Marjorie Dawes on them:

"Eh? What's that you say, Meera? Can't understand a bloody word."
[Little Britain - Fat Fighters, bla bla bla]

And when a three-year old was pissing around and scraped her finger and then whinged I wanted to tell her to stop being such a pathetic wuss. (Okay, I eventually went and got her a plaster to shut her up and to put on her microscopic scrape).

You see my point? I've been a nightmare, and I won't even go into the other conversations I shouldn't have had these past two days.

My standard response to 'how are you, Jo', became a grunt and a shrug.

I've wanted to scream at the inconsiderate fuckers who've woken me up, stepped on my heal, shoved past me, made me wait, breathed too loudly, spoken too slowly, thought too long...

Now, I could say this is karma for not having gone to church on Sunday (maybe I should open a 'Church of Jo' - we could have a font with sake in it, what do you think?) or maybe I'm tired, rundown, have a chest infection AND PMS - but still, eh...

... it's shit being a female sometimes, but as of this evening, PMS has gone....

On a brighter note, one of my oldest mates from London is coming to see me for two weeks end of next week and I'm rather bloody excited about it :D

Do you want to come to church with me?

Big people carrier outside apartment with American woman, man and a whole bundle of smartly dressed sprogs. [An almost unseen sight. The apartment owner, builders, taxis and garbage men are pretty much ALL that pass by and stop with vehicles near us].

Loud American: 'Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.''
Me: 'Er, hi!
Loud American: 'I've not seen you before'
Me: [yes, that's highly likely, why do you think you should have seen me, oh my god, weird foreigner alert, weird foreigner alert]
Me: 'Er, no. What are you doing here? [Are you lost? This conversation is FAR too chirpy for me]
Loud American: 'I'm waiting for Vicky. Do you know Vicky?'
Me: 'No, I don't know 'Vicky'

['Vicky' appears]

Vicky: 'Hiiiiii'
Me: 'Oh, yes, we've said 'hi' a few times!'

Loud American: 'We're going to church. Do you want to come?'
Me: [OMG. What kind of church? Normal church? Mormon church? Cult church? Run Jo, run]
Me: 'I'm sorry, I can't. Byee'.

If you never hear from me again I've been abducted by church-goers in a black people carrier.

Today I..

- got woken up by the windows being noisily cleaned
- had a RAGINGLY sore throat
- had my DVD player refuse to play my DVDs or my CDs
- had my computer crash several times
- had to discover my bike front tyre was as flat as a pancake
- knocked over a box of goods in a shop
- dropped my phone in the supermarket
- dropped my change everywhere in a bakery
- dropped tapes at work

but -

- finished work at 5.30 instead of 9pm
- got lent Little Britain 2 (I've seen Seasons 1 and 3)

came home from work and slept for two hours.

What a day! Please may tomorrow be better!