Prolonged silence

Apologies for the silence lately. We haven't fallen off the edge of the world lately, I've just been taking a break from blogging... and have been a little too busy to write! To be honest I have been assessing how much time I spend on the computer reading everyone's great blogs and have decided to have weekly catch up sessions, rather than trying to read all the blogs I am interested in every day. Although it is great to have found so many great people writing great blogs I do find it really time consuming to catch up on them all. So, please don't feel obliged to read my blog every day... I will try to post more often, but I really only began this blog as a way to inform my friends and family about what was happening in our lives here and would hate to think that anyone is reading it out of obligation because I commented on their blog at some stage.... of course I love getting comments and if you are actually interested in what I am writing then please come and visit as often as you want! I have found it amazing to discover there are so many people in similar situations to myself here in Japan etc. and enjoy laughing with them about things that are so stupid to us here (and of course all around the world!).

Okay, so having wasted a few more of your precious moments with that blurb above, I will only very briefly outline what has been happening here lately and will try to do proper posts later.
We had to say goodbye to baby Ryu, but the children REALLY loved having him here. My son keeps making comments about "Mum, I think we should get a Ryu" etc. I keep telling him we will borrow Ryu any time he feels the need for a baby cuddle! I think I will love being a grandparent - great to cuddle, but great to give back too!

We had a group of 5 Korean men come to stay... fortunately they came at 8pm and left at 8am. An "interesting" time had by all. Enough said for now.
The weekend was spent rice planting... more on that in a later post. Needless to say that because my mother in law was sick the entire time I fell into bed each night and am still feeling the effects now.
Sorry, a pretty pathetic update, but hopefully during the next week or so will see the return of my blogging enthusiasm and have some extra time to do it!