Life on Rokko (Part 1)

To follow up on the last post, and also to catch up on other things, here are some more pictures of our situation on the mountain.

First, the Cable car. We live about 1.2 km straight up Rokko-san (Rokko Mountain), to the North East of Central Kobe. There are two ways to get to our house from the city: a 20-minute drive around hairpin turns, or a sedate straight ascent on the Rokko Cable Railway: the latter is much more beautiful, and less stressful. Sean took these pictures a little while ago of the trip down.

Not many people can be so lucky as to use this as their means of commuting to work (I am one of the few foreigners to have a "teki" (monthly pass) for this particular train). On sunny weekends, it's packed with day-hikers and other tourists come to admire the view, but during the week, and especially in the evenings, we often have the whole train to ourselves).

Julian and I especially like the cable, not least because we're both prone to car-sickness and the road is challenging in that respect.

The temperature difference between the top and the bottom of the cable can be quite dramatic: typically 5 degrees, sometimes as much as 10 degrees. (Two weeks ago, just before Justin was born, we were down the hill in Mikage, where it was 18 degrees: by the time we reached the top of the hill, the temperature had dropped to 8. This morning, the thermometer was at freezing, at work a few hours later it's 16).

Next up: Sean's new school, and the music concert...

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[Note: this piece is not about about my family, nor does it involve literary or musical criticism. I’m not anticipating any attractive illustrations or other lures, and no musical accompaniment either. So if that’s what you came for, look away now. There will be more such articles in the future, I hope, but this is not one of them. You have been been warned.] Tokushima Naruto Whirlpool (Shikoku Excursion) Events of the last few days have left me, both literally and figuratively, in a painfully disordered state of mind. In plain English, I’m stressed, and my head aches. Actually, it twinges, rather than aches, but the precise description matters little; at all events, the pain ‘comes and goes’, as they say. (Where pain goes to, when it goes, is a puzzle in itself. I have this anthropomorphised image of Pain, like some peripatetic poison dwarf, doing the rounds of the neighbourhood: “Hi, Nigel didn’t want me this hour, so I’ve decided to drop in on you for a while. Don’t worry thoug

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Click here to play the first track [Youtube] When I was young/My father said Son, I have something to say And what he told me I'll never forget Until my dying day... ( Cliff Richard, Bachelor Boy, 1963) Since just after Justin's birth, I have tried to be positive and optimistic about our future, and particularly about the challenges presented by his condition. Sometimes, as will have been clear from other posts, this positivity is aided by an ostrich-like refusal to contemplate future eventualities, but mostly, it's because I feel we've been really lucky: he had no postnatal medical complications; he's loved and accepted by his brothers, he's growing well; there's even a hint of a smile on his face... There are some days, though, when optimism seems like an overwhelming challenge, days when I almost lose the will to move forward, and when I look around for a large tub of sand (something, like litter bins, that is in desperately short supply in u

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"I" Staircase, Trinity Hall, Cambridge This weekend past, I returned to Cambridge with Ayumi, Julian and Justin for the first time in seven years. The occasion was a college reunion dinner, marking approximately 40 years of life since matriculation (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 entrance years): about half of us (~50) from each annual cohort turned up to compare notes, reminisce, squeeze our sagging frames into formal evening wear, and report biographical highlights. It is worth noting that this was a self-selecting group: those with sufficient time, opportunity, income (it wasn't a cheap weekend break), self-regard and retained affection for their alma mater to trundle up; as bushy tailed and 'Hail fellow, well met', as age and misanthropy might allow. Sic transit gloria iuvenum. I didn't have a great time, nor yet was it a disastrous waste. This is hardly surprising, since the curse of middle age is profound ambivalence about almost every extra-familial event or

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