Sunday, September 10, 2006

Bloody rain!


One of the advantages of raising your children to be bi-lingual in the countryside of Japan is that you can control a lot of the language that they learn. My children think the only way to ask for a drink of milk is to say "Please Mum/Dad may I have a drink of milk" - there is no "drink please" here! They also don' t know any really "bad" words - unless there have been some recent slips in the Sesame St videos that I haven't seen yet! But one word I am thinking of teaching them very soon is "bloody" because right now that is the only way I can think to describe the rain that has been falling for the last week or so and which is forecast to fall for the following week or so too!
Now for anyone reading this who is not so familiar with the English language here is a short lesson. When I say "bloody rain" - I don't mean that rain the colour of blood is falling from the sky. It is an adjective to describe the rain that I have become to hate so much this year - rain that is overflowing the swimming pool, rain that is flooding the lawn and rain that is turning the garden into a mud puddle making it impossible to pull out any weeds let alone plant the autumn seeds! "Bloody" is not a "good" word, but there are worse that I could teach my children and that I would like to use to describe the rain that is still falling here right now!
The insects seem to be enjoying it though - here are a few more that have been appearing all over the garden (and in the house... the lizard seems to like our bedroom!). I hope you are having a drier day wherever you are in the world!

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous3:01 pm

    I heard a word "Bloody yummy" when I went to Australia.
    I was so surprised.
    (Andy explained to me about "Bloody" meaning.)

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