Katriona's Diary

I was deeply shocked by the video of the huge glacier collapse in Switzerland. I have visited or seen the similar beautiful valleys on my several trips to Switzerland, and can imagine the beauty and the quietude the village Blatten have had, now they are all gone. And I can never imagine how horrible and dreadfully threatening the disaster was. In such tranquil, picturesque place! I just pray for the poor people there...

Saturday. It’s lightly cloudy or mildly sunny. The sky was pale blue and light grey. I did my weekly Saturday routine- vacuumed rooms, wiped the floors. And washed some winter clothes I have worn until just recently. It’s comfortable with occasional cool breeze so I sat down on the bench outside of the entrance door to polish my shoes. From there I could see the white, pink, yellow spring flowers. I thought… though the society was full of terrible news and the world seemed to be losing its sense, and I had no enjoyable plan on this weekend and in near future, still this was a beautiful day and the nature was beautiful. And I felt thankful for my quiet life. I picked some flowers and leaves to put them in the flower vases.







Recently I have seldom met my friends - my best friend is now living in foreign country, other some friends are too busy for their job or taking care of their family, and some have the physical and financial problem - thus they can’t share their free time with me. This condition makes me feel a bit lonely, but I am rather accustomed to this feeling since my childhood, and in my garden I don’t feel like that. Which makes us lonely is always other human beings, human relationship, I think.

About love, friendship or other fellowship. They are not ... mean looking at each other, but mean looking at the same things - same purpose or goal. Aiming for the same goal and working together make two or more people admire each other. So to make good friends, first we should do or look at something seriously, not just looking for the people we would be able to like. Any job, hobby, something we can love or do in earnest.

So, before retiring from the job in near future, now I feel like I want some more good friends, what should I do ???

The 11th March. It's already 14 years, from the fatal day of Tohoku great earthquake and tsunami, and the nuke crisis. The TV news said more than 22 thousand people were killed or missing by them. Surprisingly and tragically, about 2500 people are still missing - their body have not been found. This is, of course, because of the tsunami. Many people, houses and precious things were wasahed away by the massive waves. (The great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 has killed over 6400 people but most of the victims were soon found, just 3 people were still missng.) Thinking about this disaster still brings tears to my eyes.

The earthquake and tsunami are the natural disasters which are essentially unavoidable but the nuke crisis was a man-made disaster, which has been forcing more than 20 thousands people into evacuation life even now.

Just after the disaster I felt, and believed that we had to change many ways of our life and social systems for the sake of the victims. But what has changed better in our society since then? I can't say. We are so stupid, lazy and forgetful. Our life and society are still on the edge of great danger but we behave as if we are totally safe. We really need to reflect our life, society and the nature. Need to think seriously, and act.

This is the gloomy day, and we should be serious and think...


At the entrance of our office.


Some building near our office hoisting flags at half mast.

We have had cold days since the last weekend. Today the lowest tenperature in early morning in Yokohama was 1 degrees below zero, the highest might be 9°C, the weather forecast said. (Poor garden cats! One of them kept miaowing miserably out of the window when I woke up at 6:30.) I have not been in the best physical condition, one of the problems is that I have had slight headache for a few days now. I think this might be because of the change of the atmospheric pressure :(



The garden ground was covered with the frost this morning…

And this cold air has brought much snow in various areas in Japan. Too much snow causes the disasters every winter in snowy districts, I hope nothing would happen. As for our city Yokohama, fortunately we seldom have much snow as well as big typhoon or heavy rain. In summer it's very hot here too but not the worst heat. Generally Yokohama is a safe city with few natural disasters, the only (and the worst) exception might be the big earthquake (in 1923 the Great Kanto earthquake destroyed the whole city of Yokohama) - but this is rare and unavoidable disaster.

Anyway, I often feel I'm quite fortunate to live in Yokohama, and the reason I live here is not my choice at all, just because my grandfather had built his house here before the WW2. He came from Nagano prefecture, the mountain & snowy area but now there is just our family grave there, no relatives living there. Since my chilldhood, I don't know why but I have thought I would live here when I grow up and never thought about moving to other place. And 12 years ago I have torn down the old houses (which my grandfather and my father had built) to build the new house in which I live in now. Thus I know no other place as my home. This is just by chance, and I think I'm really fortunate to live in a city without much severe weather condition.

Monday. I started this week’s work at home. In the morning it’s drizzling, dark and cold. But before noon there came the mild sunshine. The ground was still wet but I saw two cat balls under the bush, they seemed to be enjoying the subtle warmth of the sun.



The world is full of disgusting and terrible news. Needless to say about Ukraine and Palestine, in our neighbouring country, South Korea, they seem to have the great political confusion. The new president of USA and his team would surely do the great harm to the world peace and the environment.(I understand the hate against the Establishment by the ordinary people still it’s totally incomprehensible why Americans can choose such man as their national leader. Do they just love the succeeded richman and can overlook any faults if the man is super rich enough? Quite strange.) In such situation I tend to feel blue, especially on gloomy day.

But thankfully this afternoon I have some sunshine, and! I have just got a small parcel which made me feel so happy. Yes from the Czech! :)





It’s a boxfull homemade biscuites from my great friend Vee! Ohhhh thank you very much!!



I put the contents in a can to avoid the damp, and am going to eat them just bit by bit… they are so precious :). Because, not only they are yummy :) , but also they are from my foreign friend and show that we can have the good friends in far away countries in this uncertain, aggressive world.

Today I heard that some acquaintance had got injury last autumn, need some surgery and of course he can’t work at the moment. I also heard from one of my close friends about her old parents, both of them are nearly 90 and recently her father had to get into the hospital. Many people have such physical (or old age) problems, it can happen to us anytime. This 2 news made me feel a bit serious.

And I think, how fortunate I am without serious physical problem. I, my mother, even my rabbi Krurun have some minor physical problems but at the moment not serious, I feel really thankful for that.

Today was the last workday in 2024 for me. In our office we have the end of a year & the new year holiday from 30 Dec to 3 Jan - this is quite common in many Japanese offices. This year, this holiday is just between 2 weekend so we have 9 holidays in all. Very fortunate :) But now I noticed that I have not thought about what I would do during this long New Year holiday at all, I have no plan. Of course there are things I do every year - the end of a year house cleaning, family gathering etc. I know I would not go out for I don't like the crowded places - many people visit the shrines or temples, or just enjoy going out. And ... I feel it's somewhat a pity that I don't have any particular plan for such long holiday :( Now I and friends have got older, most of my friends are busy. I myself have many things to think or do to take care of my house. And I'm afraid that I might have become duller and lazier :(

On my holiday trip to UK I have stayed in a holiday cottage. It was a lovely old building on the nice location, I enjoyed my stay in it. But also, because it's the first time for me to stay in that kind of accommodation, there were some things which seemed new or strange to me.

That cottage has the weekly rental system, so any (or, most of) guest stay there for 1 week - 7 nights. In the correspondence with me before the visit the cottage owner has wrote to me that they provide "everything except food" in the cottage. So I expected there must be some towels in the cottage. It 's a 2 bedroom cottage, so essentially 4 people can stay there. And, I found 4 big towels in the bedrooms - 1 towel for each guest. And there was no washing machine in the cottage.
I traveled alone, also have brougnt some small towels so no problem, but my question was, does the English guest use just 1 towel for a whole week??? It's a holiday cottage so during the daytime guests might do walking or marine activities, and have shower every day. How they can manage without washing the towels? For 2 night or 3 night ... it might be OK, but for 7 night stay! Don't they need the clean towels every day ...or every 2 or 3 days????

This is not a complain but a question. I really feel curious about this. Here in Japan, because of the high humidity, washing a (once used)towel every day is quite common, otherwise the towel would get stink soon :( In ordinary hotels they usually exchange the towels every day unless the guest tell them he doesn't need it.

So my Western friends, how many towels do you use in a week???

There are many things I have to do and I want to do. During the daytime I work so I have to do them in the evening or on weekend. But everyday, after supper I feel so tired and sleepy, find no energy to do those tasks, just spend the precious hours before going to bed with doing nothing, and I hate my idleness, every evening I hate it but can not do anything, just waste my precious free time, waste m life. There must be something wrong with my life, how to use my time. During daytime I think of many things I want to do, there come many ideas. But just, my to- do list is becoming long because I can do nothing in the evening and on weekend I don’t have enough time every time. I don’t like myself in weekday evening. Just waste.