Category: Everyday Life

A note of the season

It has been dull all this week compared to nice sunny Sunday. May is still chilly, and I put on a sweater that I was thinking to wash before the hot weather. Our house cat Kyoku is maybe feeling chilly, too: he has been sleeping curled up in a ball on the back of my chair. Which means, I can only use half of my own chair because of him.

In our yard, the Naniwa rose passed its peak time, then the jasmine also passed its season, and the Passiflora has started to bloom bit by bit. The hydrangea beside our front gate will also bloom soon. (If I only read that, even I would feel that our yard was big, but it isn’t big at all. Why I can’t make a beautiful yard on such a small patch of land?) The mosquito season that we have to suffer will come soon.

Between showers, we got some plums from the people across from our house. They said a landscaper would come soon to trim and spray, so they offered the plums to us. (Thank you very much!) I usually make plum wine using 35% alcohol white liquor, but this year I’m trying wheat shôchu. We still had crystal sugar left over from last year. Hmm, the wheat shôchu is 25%. I’m such a coward: I searched to see if I could use wheat shôchu for plum wine, just in case. It seems the point is: if I use a dry jar and plums, maybe the result will be all right. It sounds like a lush talking… I think we can drink this year’s plum wine at next year’s cherry viewing party if I can make it all right. (But thinking about the members of the party, I suppose they’ll prefer last year’s stronger batch?)

There are no big events happening these days. However, today is our wedding anniversary.

–YS, 17 May 2006

17 May 2006