I took my four-year-old nephew to the cinema this morning, to see Cars 2. He was so excited that he’d actually put on his Dad’s aftershave! The film didn’t have me quite so excited at first — I sat there thinking how dreadfully boring it was, and how stupid to have all these cars acting [...]

What do you do with an engagement ring that is no longer appropriate to wear? I guess you could have it made into another kind of jewellery but I think my engagement ring is so beautiful that I wouldn’t want to turn it into something else. I don’t want to wear it again but don’t [...]

I thought it would be fun to post some of the questions that kids in England ask after my talks on Japan — feel free to use these for any Japan trivia quizzes or anything! (I had to look up the answers for an embarrassing number of them and do correct me if my sources [...]

So I am back in Newbury, where this whole “mission” started on March 20th — home of the fabulous Hitachi Capital office and their lovely staff that organized the Japan van, without which none of this would have been possible. As schools are closed for the holidays I have time to follow up on those [...]

I’m starting to get the feeling that every family I stay with on this trip is healing something. A couple of weeks ago I stayed in the town where I grew up, with friends I’ve known since I was 13 and their two teenage daughters. I found myself observing these lovely sisters, while simultaneously being [...]

My last day in Devon started off with a session at Bideford College, to two geography classes that had been put together for my talk. This was a very last-minute arrangement, booked in just the day before so I don’t think they quite knew what to expect! In fact Clare Anchors, Head of Geography, told [...]

I’m staying in Fremington for a couple of days — this was the place where I had my first stroke at age 19 so it’s a bit funny being here. I had spent my first uni summer working on the army base here, which has since closed down. I was taken from Fremington to Plymouth [...]

Yesterday I visited the Dame Hannah Rogers Trust school in Ivybridge. The school is a residential facility for children with physical disabilities, but at the moment all 23 residents also have learning disabilities. This place amazed me. Each student has their own carer, and some students have two. All the students and adults were in [...]

Yesterday I visited Stoke Damerel and Laira Green primary schools in Plymouth. Stoke Damerel was the school that created their own “tsunami” in the playground a couple of months ago, and the children were very excited to show me the photos of what they had done. They had been looking at liquids and solids, so [...]

I picked up the lovely Japan van from Hitachi yesterday and headed down to Plymouth last night. I’m planning on being in Devon until the end of term and have got some dates set up for North Devon visits already which is great. I was really happy to hear from Seiji this morning. We had [...]