It’s been a pretty eventful last week or so. I spent much of
it trying to finalise the project plan (currently a 36-page dossier) which I
need to present in order to release the second set of funding from the ICC (of
four that is), while also preparing for another visit from a Cricket Australia
representative due to arrive on Monday morning.
The plan is pretty much done, but the dude coming over from Australia is
going to have a bit of a shock when/if he arrives. I say if because it absolutely
dumped down with snow on Saturday, and the bloke is coming over here to
make a load of video tutorials for us – not sure we can do those outside
anymore.
It happened just as I thought this place was warming up. It
reached 17 degrees on Tuesday, and then on Weds we had about a foot of snow fall
in just a couple of hours. By the next day it was all normal again.
On Friday morning Alex and I went into Tokyo for our first “Brits at Lunch” event,
which is exactly what it sounds – a boozy lunch for expats. Randomly I bumped
into someone who I sat next to at a wedding last summer – small world. Not much
to tell about the day other than I got suitably boozed, met a few interesting
folks and had my picture taken with this random dude on my way home.
 |
| Excuse me Sir, may I borrow your hat? |
By the time I woke up on Saturday morning it had snowed
again pretty hard. Because of the boozy lunch I had skipped my Friday run,
meaning I had to run both days on the weekend, which sucked. It was just a short
4-miler on Saturday which gave me a chance to see just how deep the snow was
and if it was even possible to run on. It was, just, and I was amazed at how many
people were out shovelling snow in their driveways. I’m just not used to that. My feet however, got soaked and utterly frozen.
It then snowed throughout the day, so dragging
myself out for a 14-mile run this morning was a serious effort. More on the actual running
in a separate blog, but to give you an idea of just how serious the snow has
been, a reported 7 people have been killed and more than a thousand injured as
a result of it nationwide – according to this news report.
 |
| At least their wipers were OK... |
I took a few pictures while out this morning and needless to say I decided afterwards that the best course of action was to sit in
front of the TV for the remainder of it. Irritatingly I still can’t watch any live sport which
is starting to get on my nerves, despite all the Six Nations games kicking off
at about 2am over here (not that this has stopped people sending me 4am texts
of course – which despite my complaints, I secretly love).
 |
| Taken this morning - those piles of snow were twice my height |
In other news, the proposals for the restructuring of theICC went through on Friday after South Africa , who originally
questioned the legality of the whole thing, decided that their bank balance was
more important and so switched sides. What this means for the smaller nations
is pretty unclear right now – although most on social media have already proclaimed the death of the sport as we know it. What is clear is that every Test playing nation is now guaranteed
more income, so it seems unlikely that the other 93 will get the same as what they previously.
Finally – it was awesome to receive some post the other day.
Simple pleasures here in Sano. Thanks sis!
Mahanimashte.
 |
| A small shrine just down the road from my house. |
No comments:
Post a Comment