I'm fighting myself tonight...I have stacks of paperwork to do, student papers to check, and also hosting a student too, who loves to watch me using the internet...hmmm. (But not right now-haha!)
Presently, my English part knows I need space, I like my space, I love it, value it, hold it close and treasure it...but my other blood wants to give up my space and share...this is often the ultimate outcome, but as I get older, I feel that I'll dedicate time to others in a set period, (not regimented, just 'as and when' throughout every day), and during those times I'll give my full attention, in addition to teaching, but after...I think I have a right to 'my time' ...right?
It shouldn't be a problem, I've done this often enough, but I just worry about it tonight.

Well, my dear friend is a little high, little low and seems to increasingly need my attention. I'm alarmed at the level of need she now requires, whereby it's eaten into both our daily routines by hours rather than minutes. The tragic loss of her parents, to seperate illnesses, both this year, has been devastating and has changed her persona quite strikingly. There for the grace of God go all of us.
Recently, she did something rather dangerous, perhaps even the ultimate sacrifice...without going into details, as I'm sure you know where this is coming from...and fortunately, luckily, I was able to keep her talking, online, and keep her mind active enough until a doctor was found, and all was well the following day.
Now my dilema...do I quietly let her live her life, (she is over 30), or do I stand solidly by her, supportingly?
Of course I'll always be there for her, no question...but how far should a dear friend go?
My mind is by her side right now, unwaveringly...I believe this is what all good, real buddies should do.

It is all a sense of timing, like house-hunting, when you can only view and choose what's available at the time.
Liverpool's signing of Peter Crouch is a good one...though not the most obvious, and I'm reminded of previous strikers, Michael Robinson, Dean Saunders, David Speedie, Diouf, etc, who tried valiantly without any lasting greatness.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Crouch, and would love to see him succeed at Anfield, but I cannot help feeling that Liverpool have missed their man - to Newcastle's unbelievable good fortune...though their 'fortune' will be greatly diminished off the pitch.
I'm sure all Reds will have strong opinions on this matter today.
Are we a better team with Morientes, Cisse and Crouch, but without Owen? (We'll never know.)
Michael certainly had, (has) Liverpool at heart...it was his Premiership christening, and could have been his swansong too.
I've heard recently, in opposition, that Rush was never the same when he returned from Juventus...which is true only in terms of goals scored...he had actually become a better team player by then, which is probably true of Owen, who I think, incidentally, will score more goals than any of the Liverpool strikers in season 05/06.
But I am right behind Liverpool, as always.
Souness did wonders for the Reds in 78-84 as a player, not much in the 90's as manager, and now has a master craftsman in front of goal with which to re-build his dream team - from a pennyshy 'pool.
Well done Newcastle, but Liverpool still have the better squad.
For my own feelings, I am sad...LFC have just lost their first Premiership game of the season....

Moments before the first light of Tuesday, I awoke to the news of katrina and took awhile to adjust to my own senses, because I had a dream of climbing a decidedly steep, big (southern?) english hill, filled with yellow and white flowers, left untouched for at least one season, and unfenced... when reaching the very top, a late-middle-aged english gentleman gardener was whistling nice tunes while working, he was to the right of me as I met the soft cumulus just above, (seemingly an arm's length away). He himself was about 30 meters distant and leaving through a rusted and slightly distorted metal gate, which he closed while acknowledging my presence with an expression of graft and honesty so rare in the (RealWorld) workplace, and at the top, I turned round and saw the most splendid view...across a flat and green valley...the hilltop had dense ash, oak and beech trees, favouring the area which the gentleman gardener obviously knew well. I could take many photos from where I first turned round, with no necessity to wander... and in an instant, these photos were accepted for a travel brochure...when I climbed down I saw my mother, who smiled and said something...I did not know what...but it warmed me beyond words.
There is no doubt that the dream leant on the west...west of England...Ireland even...
Later, visions of cream and white walls, country pubs, market towns, street and road signs of hand painted black village names, shining from their fresh coats, whizzed through my mind, like a golden tour, a celebration, with everyone rapturous about...?

I have always preferred radio to television, for one thing, the choice is greater...and I don't mean in terms of stations, but in the content.
Football commentary recently has twice mentioned Shoot! and the free 'league ladders' many of us kept updated throughout the season. Football still felt a 'roots game' at the time when many were dealing with their spectrum's.
Speaking of football, Norwich's season has gone from worrying to disastrous tonight in Stoke.
The Radio Norfolk commentary briefly spoke highly of NCFC's 'Premiership quality' which came crashing down in defeat.
It's sad, but they need to fire themselves up urgently.

It's 10pm now and I haven't eaten yet, so...
ぺこぺこ

You are beautiful within,
You are beautiful without
-Matt Darey

An ocean of clouds and a sky full of emotion, Sunday appeared, and here it is.
Every time I look up, I see your kind everywhere, everyday, but it is never you.

My family links with France have loosened with fearful speed...the loss of my Grandfather last year, and present hospitalisation of Grandmother mean their dear old house is no more. She even had to let her beloved alsatian go to another home.
I 'feel' my late Grandfather so much lately.
My other, late Grandmother always said to me, 'time marches on' and so it does, increasingly so with each advance.
It's human nature to always look forward, but by so doing, we can forever look back too, if we so wish...by stepping forward we are hand-in-hand with the past, and shoulder-to-shoulder with the living...eyeing the future.
I love my French connection, but I am more English than ever.

Soft music under stars
Fila Brazillia

Yesterday, I went with my family to the countryside south of Norwich, to watch them horse riding. Such a pleasant way to spend mid morning on a Saturday...watching the 'dapper chap' standing aside from the crowd, and the buxom lady who is always in complete control of her horse, who in turn is at complete ease with the rider.
The soft din, (yes, in Norfolk there is such a thing), of traffic on the southern bypass filters through the small row of leylandi, and the sun strikes between dense beech foliage, as the horses perform dutifully for 45 minutes. My family have been doing this for 11 months now, and have got the hang of it. Someday I will try it too.

This weekend I also revisited a couple of galleries in Norwich...the same that I entered last weekend with my special friend, ...not sure what I wanted or why I went there, just felt like being there.
I'm sure we can all relate to this feeling?
Also, the antique shops offered the distant chatter of Norwich City FC's woes...which bizarrely warmed me!!!
Delia will soon be out on the pitch yelling at...not the fans, but the players...where are you???

Sunday, 11am...listening to,
Papua New Guinea
FSOL

Sore eyes witnessed extra-time of Liverpool's eventual 3-1 European Super Cup victory - the result of which did please me more than the game or the performance themselves.
Shouldn't CSKA's Dudu have been wearing 'number 2'??
And another anonymous performance from Morientes...why?
Let him join Norwich City on a season's loan, and allow Owen back through the Shankly gates, for the best year at Anfield since 1990, (perhaps 2001).
And Norwich haven't even won a game yet...

I read today that Norwich has become a very popular city with "Essex Man", which brought about a long pause in my daily work routine...can anyone from Essex confirm Norwich's new found title?

cherry blossom girl
-Air

Autumn air has given rise to thoughts afar, and hot spring baths. I've been invited to one this autumn, and I immediately accepted, remembering my last visit to one, in November '04 near Kyoto. A good 55 minutes beneath the open sky, waist-deep in extremely hot spa water made a heady impression, but the after-affect was fabulous...sapporo beer and a stop-off in a ramen-ya noodle bar were amongst my best memories...my friends knocked back piping hot noodles at such speed that tapiocca-like sweat droplets were visible!!
Oh, I yearn for that again...fresh, hot and not always healthy noodles I mean!

Thursday...carrying us into Friday, and genmaicha carrying me through this afternoon's work, my newly fitted tiles pleasing to the eye after the shocking flood of July which submerged my blogging room. The sun shone on the new textures for it's usual glancing moment until it seemingly turned over, sluggishly, on it's side, pulling with it this dastardly and everlasting cloud blanket.
Clouds, as with humans, are beautiful individually, but lock them together into one unlovable and long-lived lump and we turn away from it's unappealing form.
But, but...at 11am not a cloud could be SEEN, when the rain poured down. Are we winners or losers?
I think both.
Everyone wants a catagoric and resounding yes, or no...when we ourseleves are seldom at 100% either way.
You see there should always be enough to go around for the varying winners and losers...

Let me lead you to where two roads meet
[The Ground Beneath Her Feet, U2]

I've been mulling over...my physio's advice to me, "Don't plan ahead" and seeking solace in music and picnics, (as you can notice!)
I know I'll make it through, but not 100%, which is surely healthy enough isn't it?
I wasn't perfect before, so how can I want to be perfect now?
My spine (disc) slipped ever-so-slightly down again, so the pain now 'feels' like it's around the pelvis, though it is not.
I cannot believe I've not played football since January this year. My last game, I scored ...but the next goal will be the sweetest ever. I can picture it now, and I'm 99% sure it'll be with my left foot.

For the dream I have,
-I'll find a way,
I'll find a WAY

...anyway, with the one pound 50 minimum parking fee required for attending physiotherapy, I actually returned early and gave my remaining hour to a highly delighted lady, and that was 50%/50% with two winners, furthermore it'll be on CCTV too, wow!
Spine-case-hospital-parking-ticket-share-scam!
For once in my life, I can say, 'yup, that was me!'

Heavens...!!
...open before us, with windows now soaked to 'sprite'-like effect, picnic's seem far-off, as I down a small cup of Shizuoka sencha, and one-going-on-five galettes campinoises listening to the side gate almost coming off it's hinges in the autumnal wind, time will constantly cleanse all that threatens to become permanent

Oh God, I need your help tonight

And so the only Norfolk I see today, is the one inside my head, through the eyes of my most special friend, who has just sent me one sms, and I realise I don't have to let go, but I can cling onto more than just memories and words, -a real person is alive and well, and two make a certain song that can be played in a hundred different ways, and I can always think of 'picnic 3'!

And I miss you when you're not around

I had the strangest feeling saying goodbye at the station, a building so familiar, became a drama unseen, I was watching, I was acting, I was working out the scene when it was all over...the long hug, the station whistle, sudden sunshine, three other's offering last second emotions into the air, my head tilted, my special friend dared not look through the carriage window, until the last moment, when our eyes never parted...in the shrinking perspective the train was lost, but in mind, the moment will carry on travelling forever.
I never thought about being sad...only of preparation, picnic, travel and making someone genuinly happy...but the parting was never on my mind, so I was unprepared...platform 4 seemed twice as long that evening, 6pm and after was a distance too great for the focus of my attention to be allowed to return to my now aching spine. Thankfully such thoughts could be trodden over with far more enjoyable times, but now...now? Oh...a return to hospital-physiotherapy and two more new exercises to be done, every day, until my MRI.

* Liverpool FC matching my mood for today.

From the throbbing pain-of-a-migraine yesterday, a regular pattern has emerged this week, after every lesson of my work, comes increasing pain in neck, and head...which seems an affect of having a slipped disc.

Oh well, the picnic is definitely, (not maybe!), ON and I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a special person who awakens my senses, makes me spill my words effortlessly and endlessly, and shares the love of picnics and Norwich. I'd like to think we are both lucky.
Sunday will be 'picnic 2' so it is surely high summer living for this moment, if for nothing more, but every moment can be treasured, as every word shared, care and attention will not be spared, the deep and innocent joy of the Norfolk countryside in summer is in view, and the antiquities of Norwich city make up the weekend plan...this city is not bad!
My life and family are made up of many foreign parts, but I live and love this here place!!!

Is this the best day of the summer, or is it just my imagination running away with me??

So, finally gifted a sunny morning, and seizing the chance to do my cycle therapy for the spine I make good progress from Norwich, passing more bales of straw than people as the wheat harvest gathers momentum, I follow suit.
Passing my favourite railway bridge, climbing the hill, wondering if 'executive' cars will let me use my right of way today, and running over those hundred something discarded Advertiser's where the blackbirds used to play, I realise something is buzzing, and then itchy, and rapidly, throbbing pain alarms me...then the same again, on my left shoulder...and then yet again, ...I feel my back and quickly guess that somehow three bees made their way under my t-shirt, (brave souls), and in panic they stung me as best they could before falling to the floor...a sad event by all accounts.
From that moment I headed back home, my distance cut short, but at least I still had my life, unlike the bees, I recalled that one week previous I cycled with my German friend up a short 1-in-3 hill, (Freienohl), to reach an Italian ice cream shop...selecting the walnut variety, it was the largest I'd tried for years.
(It was so good in fact, that I promised the owner a mention here! Freienohl is a small town about 45 minutes south-east of Dortmund, between the bigger Arnsberg and Meschede...and has just the one, excellent ice-cream parlour! See yesterday's photo.)

Well, after a stinging, or sickness, or something, especially from natural causes, we have a feeling of heightened energy, which is exactly what I feel right now. I could never recommend bee stings, and certainly not on behalf of our beloved bees, but if this misfortune strikes, it's not all bad.
Bees and ice cream? Romantic??

And now I will spend some time with someone who needs my ears!

My desperately unhappy friend was down beyond words, all I could say was, the greatest rewards come to those who suffer terribly.
Nothing is enough when you have nothing.

Again and again the cloud palls over the days, and the summer's end is not far off now.

I'm enjoying my new cd's and the surprising freedom that I have this weekend, and recalling the same feelings that Homer Simpson had in this same situation, but no 'Duff' and no TV for me, just GnT and a trip or three.

Quit holding out-and draw another breath

I foolishly made an error when my Shizuoka friend would visit me, how stupid I was to read the wrong dates. But I can better prepare for the glory days, and the weather will make ammends I know it...right? A little tingle comes over me now, thinking of it.
As I type, I'm eating true English chips, (how I defend and promote them these days!!), with Thai chilli sauce, (simply 'hot' and delicious), German sausage, (rostbratwurst mit spinat), French vinager and rosemary from my garden, washed down with Xiantaiyunwucha. All accompanied with the beautiful sound of Dream Child: Horizons...ahh, this moment I will cherish!

But when we were talking-i saw you nodding out

So the discovery of an old cassette has rekindled many memories, and some surprising new angles on old perspectives. But also I realise that my bad memories of childhood, are not so bad actually, and some have started to feel positively 'ok'...but maybe it's because I yearn for my wild streak to show me more courage, and the shouldn't-do-that-drumbeats to fade-out, and let the me that is happier than I feel, appear on the outside. I know I can do it, because we all can.

An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!

This evening a postponed cycle ride, long phone call to France, feed my mother's huge dog, and think of those that are not near me at this moment.
The spine is on hold for now, awaiting the MRI hospital appointment, so my planned autumn trip to Japan is also on hold.
心配～～～
I've been given 6 different means of self-physiotherapy, 5 of which help me. I must do 10 sessions a day for any positive effects to ease the spine, build up some muscles and help my movement. One that is awkward is the 'all four's' performance, whereby the spine should be level...when it hurts, I have no idea whether it is 'lazy', or in the polevault position.

And after all this, won't you give me a smile?

Another sunny evening has followed another cloudy day, ...so frustrating.
A morning which started before sunrise, seeing off my mother from here in Norwich, as she headed down to Dover, and across to France to care for my ailing grandmother, over the ensuing 5 days. A very hard time, especially over a distance, to see the decline of a close relative.
By chance, I chatted with my dear friend today, face-to-face this time, and was initially relieved to see her face bearing up quite well, but as our conversation passed from trying to find the English names of Thai fruits on show before us, to the loss of her relatives, I could see how the emotional strain had struck, noticing her eyes filled with loneliness and the obvious sadness. I recalled her poignant words just three days ago; "my sister and I are like little birds in a big tree, but now our big tree has gone, we are lost."
There is no answer to the truth...but time is something that can alter everything.

It seems so long since I wrote anything about anything here, because actually, ironically, so much has happened.
Setting off down the A11 on July 22nd marked the beginning of a journey, for reflection, recovery, ambition and discovery.
Camping near a lovely old Kentish mill, close to Dover, I met up with dear friends, (friends who have become marker-stones in my life), though my still-slipped-disc begged me for rest. But before the dreamlands called, I greeted my friends guinea pigs who were eating apples and cucumber, and we all shared barbecued chicken, Philippine rice and Tesco beer, (very good!). This proved the last sunshine that I would see for 3 days...as I walked through dear old Dover of my deep memory, below the mesmeric castle and sea views, and thinking, was it really 3 years ago that someone whispered to my ear, 'our Dover'. That memory hangs in me as an ornament, chained like a great weight to warm walls of my internal happiness and sadness.
Then ferry, cloud, drizzle and Calais.
Thereafter, the beautifully smooth clear drive through the north of France and the wet Flanders plain, halting at Europe's largest roadworks 'system' this summer, (for once not the M25!), in Antwerp...I don't think I even reached the Kennedy Tunnel, but some backstreet that leads to Eeklo, filled with kebab shops. I was tempted to eat one, but had to get out of the unknown and onto Eindhoven for lunch.
After a few days of meeting friends, I got to central Germany where I was to rest for two weeks...at this point, I had not seen the sun, in over 318 miles of this years northern European summer!
Sauerland, and the heavenly pine forests proved a great place for healing and dreaming, as my spine had taken a lot of freedom from me this year.
Luckily I was able to walk a local dog, Nikki, every day, and his good looks led to many chance meetings, and happy-chatting. Two dogs meeting often sow human friendships, but why do we only meet the people we want to 'bump into again' so infrequently...however hard we seek them?
One pleasant surprise, slightly surreal though, was staying in my German lodging, and watching German teenagers watching BBC's 'Saddlebottom' from a decade or more ago...but, it was great!
What a mix...ring tone ad's of 'gasolina' followed by Saddlebottom, washed down with GnT.
When the landscape looms it certainly concentrates the mind like nothing else. This I think is very good for us all sometimes. Like a gentle and deep-rooted reminder.

ただいま！！
And Sunday, August 7th is here, and I am back home, in suburban Norwich.
Today, I drove 450 miles...so using my PC should wait another day...and I have nearly three weeks of European travelling, people, faces, views, fetes and fairs, glances and dances to reflect on.
Three weeks of rain, cloud, fog and winds...was it really summer???