One year older

So a busy last few days really. As you may have noticed in a comment from golf-playing-brother (and you might even have guessed anyway) it was the youngster’s birthday last week, on Thursday 27th to precise, when he attained the ripe old age of one (saying it to myself now, the grammar seems wrong if you say ‘he is one year one’ or is you say ‘he is one years old’, but surely one of them must be correct and it doesn’t seem right to say ‘he is a year old’, though of course he is, but I’m rambling now). To celebrate this most auspicious of occasions we dined at Maxim de Paris and then spent the night clubbing at Womb, Yellow and the Liquid room, as these are his favourite haunts. Not really, but he may do one day.

What we did do is have a small party with meself, the Guru and the man of the moment, where we had cakes and presents and things, which is at it should be. What it shouldn’t really be, but was, was two days after the day itself, on Saturday afternoon, mainly as we couldn’t really get ourselves organised for Thursday and, of course, about 30 minutes after I got home from work he went to bed, which would have made any party a curiously short lived affair. Anyway he didn’t seem to mind too much about having his party on Saturday afternoon and seeing as it takes a kid over a year to gain a sense of time (apparently), I don’t think he noticed anyway. But he did like his cake, with a candle in, of course. He doesn’t get to each much cake as these things are strictly rationed by his dietician (the Guru), so when he got to eat most of a fruit muffin thing he was most happy indeed, put a big smile on his face at least, though that could have been wind, who knows (oh, and he had his cake and he ate it, putting that myth to bed, I hope). Anyway, he are a couple of photos of the day.

My first birthday party


Mmm...cake


To the park

Monday was 1st May, if you hadn’t noticed, and that means demonstrations by the Japanese Socialist and/or Communist Worker’s Party in the park where not three weeks ago everyone was getting drunk looking at cherry blossoms. Funny old world, eh? Anyway we walked past this demonstration on the way to a much better park that contained no political rallies of any sort.

(Incidentally one has to ask why they socialists/communists bother in this country. I mean no one trusts them; the standard of living is generally pretty good (though with growing disparity, according to the Yomiuri); their idea of tough negotiating with management is to say ‘it was a bad year so no pay rises for the workers whilst managers get fat bonuses? Er…OK’; and culture has got groupthink sown up already. But then again, that’s me up against a wall when the revolution comes.)

But back to the action. Near Kawaguchi there is a place called the Green Centre – the green centre of what, they don’t tell you, but it is close to Green City which is a shopping centre I wrote about once as it contains our nearest branch of Japanese Mothercare. What the Green Centre is, though, is a park that has all the things you want from a park, such as grass, trees, flowers, ponds, waterfalls and lots and lots of little kids running about. Also on Monday the mercury touched 28oc and so a trip to the park seemed a fine idea indeed.

The park was, well parky, as you can see from a couple of photos below. The long carp streamers are there because we are rapidly approaching Boys Day on May 5th (more of which next week), and these are traditional things to hang outside to say ‘yes, my son is 14 foot trout’, or something. At the park we strolled about in a promenade style fashion, taking in the air and watching what seemed like the entire population of Kawaguchi’s kindergarten system running about enjoying themselves (I’m sure I never went to places like this when I was a kid – I got farming museums, as far as I can remember).

Naturally we took a picnic with us. Well, when I say we took what I mean is that the Guru and I took food to eat whilst the young ‘un decided to pick something up at the park. What he didn’t tell us was that he intended to pick up 4 handfuls of mud, a couple of leaves and a stick. I’m glad to say that he enjoyed these very much, though the same can’t be said for the Guru, who was nonplussed to say the least.

(a bit of) The park


About to eat his first leaf


More photos at Flickr.