Devenish

Sitting it out in Sheffield Yesterday, Ayumi returned to Japan, our willing canary. We're going to wait until next week, in the hope that the reactor problems are finally resolved, or at least until some internationally agreed consensus on the health risks emerges. Because at the moment there is a worrying disconnect between different news reports, even on the same website (BBC). On the one hand, Fergus Walsh reassures us that life in Tokyo is safer than Cornwall, radiation-wise: ...the extra risk from drinking tap water in Tokyo for a year would be far less than that of someone moving, say, from London to Cornwall for a year. And there's this piece too, which seeks to convince us (in spite of the garbled syntax early on " But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to." ) On the other hand, if this is the case, and everything is well, why have two Japanese tourists coming from Tokyo been hospitalized in China ...

Still sitting in Sheffield, return to Japan on hold for a week, it's hard to write anything insightful or coherent in face of the enormity of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear accident. The scenes are quite horrifying: it is difficult to imagine even a fraction of the distress, loss, grief and suffering of so many lives interrupted. We can only be thankful that so far no-one close to us—physically or emotionally—has been caught up in this (Kansai is 450 miles away from Sendai), and pray that this is as bad as it gets. As I've noted so often in recent posts, because I'm made so acutely aware of it so frequently these days, life is phenomenally uncertain and fragile: worrying about how our children may or may not turn out, or cope, as adults is much less important than how we pass the time in between times; it may also turn out to be completely irrelevant. With that in mind, we drove out to Chatsworth and spent a gorgeous Spring day in beautiful surroundings. A happy d...

Justin at Kansai Airport, February 25th Click to play Back to the UK it should be, of course, but there was something vaguely Slavic about this picture of Justin wrapped up at the airport, and "back to Sheffield" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Anyway, we've been in the British Isles (England and Northern Ireland) for about two weeks now; having finally recovered from jetlagged children, it will be time to return to Japan on Monday for another 10 day bout of alternating insomnia and grumpiness. In contrast to the last post , this piece contains little but family pictures—an antidote to turbulence. But it may still be of interest to anyone who doesn't know how beautiful Belfast Lough can be on a still, sunny winter's day in the North of Ireland... (they do happen) Belfast Lough around Helen's Bay (Co. Down) Boats leaving Belfast Lough, looking towards Scotland Evening view towards Belfast, from Crawfordsburn With thanks to my fami...