Today I heard that the UK stuff I collected should arrive around May 10th. This is actually great timing because there are thousands of volunteers heading up north over Golden Week, and a consistent comment I am hearing is that the survivors and organizations up there are worried about being forgotten. If we head up [...]

Lots of people will have heard or read me go on about my dear friend and fabulous photographer, David Stetson. Well I am so sad to say that he will be leaving Japan in the coming months. We had lunch today and decided that, as he will be closing his studio gallery in Yoyogi-koen, I [...]

I’m really not going to go on and on about my husband and I separating or anything but I just HAVE to say something about the lovely messages I’ve been receiving both publicly and privately now it’s all out there. I am amazed at how many people consider separating a brave thing to do and [...]

Ideas are forming in my mind for another “Japan mission” to the UK already, based on conversations with people here in Japan who have been regularly going up north and are forming relationships with various government agencies. As I listen to people tell me what they are in need of, I find myself thinking outside [...]

I’ve been back in Tokyo for a week now and everything seems pretty normal. Aside from the dimly lit train stations and convenience stores (which begs the question WHY did we need to light them so brightly in the first place?) Tokyo looks the same as usual — absolutely beautiful, as it always has looked [...]

Today started with me accidentally running my first 13K — honestly I only meant to do 8K but got lost so ended up doing an extra 5K without even realizing it until I got back and checked Google to see where I’d been. It has been the cause of much giggling on my part all [...]

Waiting, waiting, waiting! I am impatient to get back to Japan but can’t until the Plymouth deliveries have reached Heathrow. I feel guilty for any time spent sitting around or not doing something to keep things moving along, when I really ought to use the opportunity to rest before getting back to what is a [...]

I think I am beginning to smell like a mechanic. You know that funny smell that English workmen have? Well I have discovered that it comes from driving a van all day. Nice. I dropped off another vanload of boxes to Heathrow this morning, and spent much of the rest of the day scanning some [...]

I managed another 7K this morning! It was nowhere near as much of a struggle as Sunday’s. There was other “running around” today as I got my heparin prescription, and drove to Hungerford to pick up the Japan van! It turns out that it WASN’T my neglect that cause the water to evaporate, but in [...]

I drove between Newbury, Leighton Buzzard, and Heathrow today for a total of five hours, and can now happily say that there are exactly 50 boxes of donated items at Heathrow ready for Japan, and still more to come! And I’ve worked out the total of money I’ve collected on this trip — £2,055. Thank [...]