sakura family: Better late than never

The mood for blogging comes and goes, but with the coming of winter it's seemed to disappear into hibernation. I love browsing what other people are writing, but never seem to pull the energy together to put anything on myself. And the longer I leave it, the more guilty I feel, so the less I want to think about it. Then things happen that I do want to blog about, but I can't because there's other stuff that needs putting up first, so the list gets longer and longer, and the guilt grows exponentially ... ah, the joys of being an inveterate procrastinator.

So here's some pictures from Christmas in England that will at least start to clear the backlog. OK, we've already been back for six weeks, and a lot has happened since, but hopefully I'll get around to that a bit more quickly once these are up.

I took the kids out of school and kindergarten for the final week of term, and flew back with them to spend Christmas and New Year with my parents. The British Christmas experience is un-recreatable in Japan, and it was something I really wanted the boys to have as part of their childhood memories. The last time we were in England for Christmas was when Dan was a small baby and Kei was three, so neither of them really remembered it. This time they were both old enough to appreciate the tree and the turkey, mince pies and Christmas cake, a party in the municipal hall and the pantomime at the theatre. We managed to fit in seeing my brother and his family several times, as well as making a couple of visits to old friends.

Kentaro used his New Year's holiday to join us just for the last four days. The poor guy didn't even have time to get over jetlag before we had to leave again - but at least he did get to see my parents for the first time in a couple of years.