Back to Japan

Here’s an odd thing. One of the baristas at Starbucks asked to have this weekend off. The request was refused. Then, come the weekend, the barista was suddenly struck down with an illness which kept her off for the weekend. Amazing. And remarkably convenient…and it didn’t look suspicious at all.

On the subject of baristas at Starbucks, I failed to report the newest recruit here in Farnham. Her name is Emily and she’s a bubble of joy. She had some lovely things to say about Sue and the rest of the staff. With her attitude and natural sunshine, she’ll fit right in.

Not that I had a lot of time to hang around at Starbucks this morning. We were expecting Sophie and Tom for lunch and I had a few things to finish off.

I had decided to risk the wrath of the culinary gods by preparing my first Japanese feast with them as guinea pigs. Many bowls and dishes later, it was proclaimed a success. Well, except for the matcha tea which Sophie did NOT enjoy one little bit. Sophie wasn’t that keen on the plum wine either, which I found surprising.

Laid out for lunch

Of course Tom had his own mini-feast of smoked salmon and Chicken yakitori. Past experience has taught me to only serve him meat. Though I did discover he actually likes seaweed. I found out by accident. I had laid his yakitori on a bed of seaweed just to pretty up the plate a bit. He almost ate the lot and Sophie informed us that he will often eat a bag of crispy seaweed rather than crisps.

Actually, both Mirinda and I noticed that Tom is approaching the sullen teenager years. We wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped coming to visit with his mum quite soon. Which is only natural.

Obviously the day was lovely and while Mirinda and Sophie took the girls to Frensham, Tom and I watched Captain America: The First Avenger which was tremendous fun and filled in a lot of gaps in my Marvel Universe knowledge.

They were off to the Isle of Wight so we drove them over to Haslemere with the inevitable stacks of chattels and an unexpected half litre of milk.

Japanese feasting

And everyone used chopsticks. Obviously we used our anniversary set.