Homesick…

…for a place that isn’t home. Still, it’s been two and a half years since I last visited Japan, which is possibly the longest that I’ve ever been away from it. I miss the food, the architecture, the gardens, the tatami mats, the language, the juxtaposition of old and new. I miss the mountains, the paddy fields, the rivers full of turtles, fish, herons, and egrets. I miss the smell of incense sticks and green tea, the steam from a bowl of fresh rice, the softness of my futon. I miss the white gloves of taxi drivers, the pink-numbered bus tickets, the hole in the middle of a 50-yen piece. I miss the nonsensical but optimistic Engrish phrases on stationery (‘Lovely day: every time is happy feeling!’), and the way that serious public health and safety warnings are illustrated with kawaii cartoon figures. I miss the shrines, the bamboo forests, the sliding doors, and (of course) I miss my family.

I want to go back.

Just a perfect day (or two).

I see that it’s been over a month since I last posted here, which can only mean one thing: I’m back at university! (The fact that I’m posting this can also mean only one thing: that I’m avoiding work…) My MA has been very enjoyable so far, but it’s a bit of a step up in terms of how much independent research is required, so I’ve found myself being kept pretty busy. As a result, I’m afraid that I don’t have any new photos to show you, but in an effort to avoid neglecting this blog further, I thought that I would share some until-now unposted photos from earlier this year – specifically, from April, when the UK was in the grip of an unexpected heatwave. I spent the holidays (as usual) between Devon and London, with Tom and friends, and a couple of days stand out as being particularly blissful. I think, or hope, that I managed to catch some of that joy on film.

Isle of Wight Part 3: In which we learn that shoelaces are a delicacy for exotic birds.

Thursday: A very rainy day. Explored Ryde, where we  meandered in and out of shops, and dried out in a cafe over a hot chocolate. Back to Newport for a quiet afternoon of reading followed by a pub meal. No photos.

Friday: Off to Amazon World for one last day of animal-viewing.

Many of the ‘habitats’ that you could wander through included free-flying and roaming birds, some of which were quite large, and not shy in coming up to us to see if we had any food. One grey-winged trumpeter was apparently convinced that Tom’s shoelaces must be edible, and tried quite hard to prove this to us.

We got to the ringtailed lemurs just in time to watch them having lunch, and were even allowed to go into the enclosure with them (after a warning that, despite their cute appearance, they can be pretty possessive about their food; luckily no-one was mauled).

We had our own lunch in the cafe a little early, which turned out to be a wise decision; firstly, it meant that we avoided queues for ordering food and were able to sit wherever we wanted, but more importantly it meant that we were able to wander through the zoo on our own whilst all the other visitors were eating, and thereby had prime viewing spots for watching the animals being fed.

The highlight of the day (and maybe even the week) undoubtedly came right at the end, when we watched the ocelots being given their dinner. There was a male ocelot in the enclosure when we arrived, and we thought that he might be the only one. He was such a handsome gent that we didn’t mind in the least, though, and happily watched him curl up and wash his paws while we waited for a keeper to arrive with the food.

When they did, Mr Ocelot was shut into a separate, walled-off enclosure while they laid out two round containers with food stuffed inside, for the cats to find and work out how to extract. After the keeper had left, we expected to see Mr Ocelot make a reappearance, but a different door was opened instead, and out came a female ocelot with a cub! We didn’t know that the zoo had a baby ocelot at the time of our visit, so this was a wonderful surprise. We stood and watched for ages as the cub played with his food, stalked his mother’s tail, jumped on her head, and generally acted like an overexcited kitten (which, essentially, he was). Indescribable cuteness abounded.

Saturday: Home, after a beautiful week, and wishing that we had a baby ocelot.

Isle of Wight Part 2: In which owls go ‘woof’.

Wednesday: A long day, and therefore deserving of a post all to itself. We started by catching a bus to Butterfly World, where you can wander at your leisure around a large greenhouse full of plants, water-features, and plenty of free-flying birds and butterflies. It was a little bit magical.

Some of the butterflies are so large that, as with the birds, you have to duck your head to avoid colliding with them, and you can hear their wings fluttering as they pass by. One of them even came to land on me briefly, although visitors are told not to touch them because they’re so fragile.

We also popped into the adjoining Fountain World, just in time to watch the koi carp being fed. I’m used to seeing koi because they’re so prevalent in Japan, but I didn’t know that they can live to be over seventy years old, nor that they may be worth a small fortune depending on their markings.

When we’d finished looking around, it was time for lunch in the cafe, and then onto another bus to Wootton steam railway station. After falling for the North Yorkshire Moors railway last summer, I decided that there need to be more steam trains in my life, so the plan was to travel in good old-fashioned style from Wootton to Havenstreet, where we would enjoy a one hour falconry session. Wootton station was very small, but included a charming signalman who kindly consented to having his picture taken. This was encouraging, as I need to practise my portraiture, but am normally too shy to approach people about it.

Once we got to Havenstreet, we met the falconers, who whisked us away to a nearby field and introduced us to a varied line-up of birds of prey. First was Buzz the barn owl, who was still quite young and noisy, and then Woof the eagle owl (named after the funny noise he makes), who spent most of the time shuffling around his handler’s feet instead of flying, and looking hopefully up for bits of food.

We also met a different kind of eagle owl, a pair of Harris hawks that demonstrated their hunting skills for us, and two small falcons that I had never seen before and which I unfortunately can’t remember the names of. We got to have a go at flying all of the birds, which was great fun.

Back to Newport for dinner and a film, and finally to bed.

Isle of Wight, Part 1: In which a tiger refuses to move more than is strictly necessary.

Sunday: Tom and I caught a train from London Waterloo down to Portsmouth, where we bought our WightLink tickets and waited to board the catamaran. It was at about this point, looking out at the harbour, that the “Eeeee, we’re going on holiday!” feeling really sank in, and we got quite excited. Also, being a fan of The Beatles, I was endlessly amused by the fact that I had a ticket to Ryde (har-har).

The crossing was surprisingly short, and soon we were walking up the pier towards Ryde bus station. Upon arrival in Newport, we found our bed-and-breakfast, and checked in to the very beautiful Room 12.

After rejoicing over the four-poster bed, en-suite bathroom, and all-important tea and coffee making facilities, we headed out to explore Newport a bit more. Round the shops just as they were closing, into a nearby restaurant for dinner and drinks, and then back to the room where we stayed up late watching old, back-to-back episodes of Red Dwarf. A good day.

Monday: Up early for a full English breakfast, and then off to the Isle of Wight Zoo at Sandown, which I’d been looking forward to for months. They house the largest collection of tigers anywhere in the U.K, and most of the animals there are big cats, which makes it just about the perfect zoo for me.

As you can see, the tigers were pretty chilled out. They spent almost all of their time napping on rocks or in the shade of a leafy tree. In fact, one cat was so lazy that when she decided it was time to change sleeping positions, she did it without actually moving the front half of her body; she just raised her bottom in the air and shuffled her hind legs round until they were in the right place, then laid back down again. None of this unnecessary getting up business. That would be, you know, effort.

However, as much as I love tigers, my heart was unexpectedly stolen by this gorgeous fellow:

His name is Casper, he’s a white lion, and he’s just… perfectly lion-shaped. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that. When I was younger and I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I always imagined Aslan to look how Casper does. Sometimes when you see lions on nature documentaries, they can be a bit scrawny, or strangely proportioned, or they don’t have enough mane. Casper is ideal. He is the Vitruvian Lion. He makes the statues at Trafalgar Square seem disfigured in comparison. And he has the most magnetic gaze, with those unusual pale green eyes.

When we’d finished looking around the zoo and watching the animals being fed, we wandered into Sandown, ordered an enormous pizza from a cheap takeaway place, and shared hot, greasy slices of it whilst huddled under an umbrella on a bench facing out to sea.

Tuesday: A trip to Alum Bay, where we watched a craftsman at the aptly named Alum Bay Glass studio making some vases. Every step of the melting, colouring, blowing, and shaping was performed with deceptive speed and ease.

We also watched some craftsmen at work in the boiled sweet manufactory next door, but unfortunately I don’t have any photos of it. Considering the grim weather that day, we decided not to bother going down onto the beach to look at The Needles, and caught the bus back to Newport after an almost predictable half-hour wait (buses on the Isle of Wight are not very punctual, we found).

Grow your own.

A few days ago, Tom and I got home from a beautiful week spent on the Isle of Wight, which involved lots of zoo trips, ginger biscuits, and waiting around for buses. It was glorious (except the waiting for buses part). However, 99% of my photos from the holiday depict critters of some kind, and I didn’t really want to make yet another animal-heavy post, as it’s occurred to me that maybe not everyone shares my undying love for all things fluffy.

So. Fluffy things can wait. For now, here are some old pictures of something that I’m quite proud of:

Having only ever lived in a flat in London and then a flat in Sheffield, this window box is the closest that I’ve come to having a real garden. We planted half of it with some strawberry seeds from a packet, and the other half with some seeds from a supermarket chilli that went into our dinner one evening. Although the strawberries are much prettier, I’m proudest of the chillies – they’ve grown far bigger than we ever expected, and we ended up with a bountiful crop of about ten, two of which we’ve already used in cooking. Not bad for a few seeds that would otherwise have been thrown away.

In other news, I’ve taken up knitting; will (probably) be going camping soon; and have a new pair of glasses, which I’ve now just about got used to. I have such a rock n roll lifestyle.

You know you’re in the country when…

…you’re standing in a huge, muddy field watching a ferret race, and feeling tempted to buy some ducks.

This was the Honiton Agricultural Show, which Tom and I visited last Thursday. There were all sorts of animals to be seen, from alpacas to otters, and countless different breeds of cows, sheep, poultry, horses and dogs. We also saw a cat, who spent the whole day curled up on the milking parlour display – her owner said that he had to keep waking her up, as otherwise people assumed that, like the fake cow, she was just a model.

In the poultry tent, we met the aforementioned ducks (and had to remind ourselves that they aren’t really a sensible choice of pet for urban flat-dwellers), as well as some chickens that were being sold along with their little fluffy offspring.

Next to the poultry tent was the otter lady and her two charming companions, the youngest of which spent most of its time snuggled inside her jumper. “There’s no creature more loving than an otter,” she declared, “once you get them to stop biting.” Watching them together, it was easy to believe.

As adorable as the otters were, possibly my favourite bit of the show was the falconry stall, which had on display a few different owls and one buzzard. I love barn owls best, but this photogenic eagle owl rather stole the show with its beautiful orange eyes.

Having gone pony trekking in Dartmoor the day before, I had increased respect for the young ladies who we watched jumping their horses over a variety of fences. Despite my best efforts to keep her in check, my horse had made it pretty clear that she was going to do exactly what she wanted to, and I was lucky that (for the most part) she was simply content to follow the better rider in front. I’m not a natural horsewoman, unfortunately.

In addition to all the furred and feathered things on show, there were also tents filled with a variety of locally made food and drink. We went home with some bottles of delicious fruit juice, and a honeycomb (which I’ve discovered is amazing on toast).

Finally, I’ll leave you with some photos that weren’t taken at the show, but are of some local Devon cows. Yes, I went back to find my pointy, bovine friends in the field. They were just such good models.

Have some foxes.

Just because.

(Taken on film, hence the wacky bokeh.)

These handsome chaps live in a large garden that borders the car park behind my parents’ flat in London. If you peer through a hole in the fence at any time of day, you can (and probably will) see a few foxes playing, snoozing, sunning their bellies, and generally lounging around. There are at least two adults and three adolescents (with humorously oversized ears that they haven’t quite grown into yet), and, being urban critters that are used to the presence of humans, they’re wonderfully unfazed by me poking a camera lens through the fence and snapping away at them.

Coming up soon: more animal photos, courtesy of the Honiton Agricultural Show in Devon, from whence I’ve just returned (again).