Katriona's Diary

This afternoon there was a smal earthquake. I was in the office, sitting in front of my computer and felt the quake. It was just a slight quake, not threatening at all, and it's after a while we had the earthquake here. These occasional small quke is a good reminder of the fragility of our life. We all live on the earth which is essentially active, and of course we have unstable weather everywhere...



Even a plain leaves display is precious in our life…

It has been raining since last night. And today, the Meteorological Agency declared that today the annual reiny season has begun. This means now we are officially at the beginning of summer - after these rainy days we'll have the long, severe summer heat :( I'm not happy at all!

At the end of the last year I have installed the security cameras outside of our house. They always record the view in front of the entrance door & back door, and when something moves in their sight they send message to my smartphone. Sometimes I checked the video to see if everything's all right. Most of time the moving thing is waving tree or insect, and of course sometimes they record our garden cats walking into or out of the garden X)

Some days ago I checked the video recorded in the middle of the night, and found some animals walking out of our garden - but they are bigger than the cats !





The video is not clear enough but I can see they have the thick, striped tails. So I think they are raccoons!!

Here in Japan originally there were no raccoons, they are the exotic animals. But now they lives everywhere though the number of them is not much big and we seldom see them. I heard many raccoons have hydrophobia or other dangerous diseases, I hope our garden cat would not come across them :(

Today I worked at home. After the recent some days with quite changeable weather, today it’s fine and a bit windy. The sunshine is already strong though the humidity must be low, for it’s quite comfortable in the shade :) The plants are shining in the sun, I like their mild green colors...











A happy cat :)

Today I wear the new shoes I have got on the last weekend. The new shoes or clothes always make us a bit happier than usual :)

At the end of 19th century, there were many - about 2,500 or so - Westerners in Japan as the advisors about Western knowledge or technology, hired by Japanese government. Some of them had collected Japanese craftworks or works of art during their stay and brought them to their home country. One of those foreigners, a certain German doctor had purchaced many traditional craft products and pictures in Japan, after he returned to Europe he donated them to the local museum in his hometown later in his life. But in Germany there were not many scholars or specialists who can understand Japanese art thus those traditional artistic works had been just stored in the museun storage for more than 100 years. Then, on 2000's, one Japanese scholar who happened to be studying in German univercity found those cultural treasures, especially a series of picture scrolls attracted his attention. Unfortunately he did not have enough time to study them so he told his successor, who was the specialist about Japanese art in Edo period, that she should check that picture scrolls. Thus, about 6 years ago this woman scholar opened that old picture rolls maybe for the first time during these 100 years, and found it was a quite precious Emakimono, the illustrated handscrolls created in Edo period, telling the legend about the ancestor of famous Samurai and ogres. She studied the handscrolls, cooperated with other scholars and museums, wrote the thesis on it etc. And this year, that picture scrolls returned to Japan for the exhibition in some art museum in Tokyo, for the first time since when the German doctor had brought them to Europe.

That scholar who studied the handscrolls, is my cousin. I imagine how she would have been excited when she opened it in the museum storage in Germany! Must be the wonderful moment for a scholar.

Today after work I’m going to the art museum to see that picture scrolls. Might be very impressive!

I added the photos of the scrolls my cousin had found in Germany. In the museum, taking the photos of the exhibit was prohibited so I took photos of the exhibition catalog.

Yamaboushi, cornus kousa, is one of my favorite garden trees. Usually it's a just ordinary tree, but in early summer when it's bloom I can pick its branch to display ... like this.





I think it looks very chic :)

Cloudy. The weather forecast says we’d have some rain today, late in the afternoon. So, after the weekly house cleaning, I went out into the garden to pick the Juneberries. More than half of the berries are still not ripe enough, I carefully chose the dark red ones. They are turning red day by day, if it’s not raining tomorrow I’ll pick some more, and make jam with them :)



Most of berries are on high branches, I need to use the ladder.



There still are many berries on branches…

In the recent few days it’ been warm, around 26 or 28℃ - in May! And it’s humid - humidity was over 60%. These are not real summer heat, not at all. But we are not accustomed with the high temperature yet, after the comfortable early summer days this warmth is physically difficult for us! The weather forecast says the temperature would drop again, next week we’d have rather cool days - thankfully. Though it seems now the severe summer is getting longer and longer every year…

Anyway in our garden the trees notice the change of temperature of course, the Juneberries are now turning red. This weekend I’d have to pick them!

Recently it becomes light very early morning. I usually set my alarm clock at 6 am but lately often wake before 5am. It’s too early to get up so I sleep again, but this is a bit risky… sometimes I unconsciously stop the alarm and sleep longer :(. Last week I woke up at 7:30 and it’s the day I had to go to the office!!(usually I left home at 8:00 or 8:10 - and before leaving home I need to feed my rabbit, clean her toilet etc…)

So, this early morning light in this time of an year is something I have to be careful about XD