After stocking up with fresh fruit and veggies we started driving the 20 or so miles along the west coast of the Oshika peninsula. It soon became clear that, despite not being able to see the ocean, we were driving through a seaside town — wherever you are in the world they always seem to [...]

We pulled up in the combini car park just around the corner from the telepathic obaasans, and within minutes Miho drove up. At first glance at the area around the combini you wouldn’t have known that anything had happened here, and then just to one side of the car park I saw that giant cracks [...]

This is the story of how almost 100 boxes containing over 11,000 items donated by the people of England were distributed to people on the other side of the world, who had lost everything. This is the story of how thousands of pounds hidden in my underwear directly helped people who found themselves with nothing. [...]

I’m writing this from a love hotel — funny how a day can turn out sometimes! After loading up Virgin Atlantic’s Richard’s car with things we wanted to take to Tohoku, we drove to Shin-Koiwa to meet Andy at the truck rental company. After a quick glance at my and Andy’s driving licences we were [...]

We raised ¥324,000 for Tohoku at David Stetson’s studio sale yesterday, half of which I am taking up with me today, and the other half David is distributing to some charities he supports, so I think we did very well, and would like to say a big thanks to everyone that came by and contributed. [...]

Yesterday I saw some pictures that have ….. excuse my language ….. really pissed me off. I haven’t been able to get them out of my head. They were pictures of people living in the evacuation centres, trying to adjust to their new normality, and managing to find things to smile about as volunteers played [...]

Lots of people have been understandably worried about their jobs or businesses during recent weeks but a couple of days ago I heard of two people whose work had actually increased as a result of the earthquake. One is a yoga instructor and another is a children’s entertainer. Both have been hired to work with [...]

Andrew and I got together last night to work out the details of our trip up north next week, to take everything I collected in England. It all arrives on the 11th but I want to wait until the 15th before we go up, so I can also take the money I hope to raise [...]

Yesterday was Day Two of “dividing the contents of the marital home,” which you’d think would be an absolutely awful task but actually it’s not at all. I think most couples would expect there to be some element of bickering over CDs or returning of gifts but we haven’t had any of that. I can’t [...]

A complete stranger stopped me at TAC the other day and said “Are you that girl who writes that blog?” to which I replied that I didn’t know but I might be, and then she said “Yes it is you and I am sorry to hear about you and your husband” so we assumed it [...]