koharu and I

My daughter is now busy with her work and comes home late in the evening. I proposed to my daughter that I should go to day nursery to take koharu, my 6-year-old granddaughter, to her home.

I went to koharu's day nursery before 4 p.m. She was delighted to find me. She was excited to go home with me---earlier than usual.

koharu took my hand and we walked about 20 minutes hand in hand. She was talking and singing all the way home. She often stopped to look up at the sky or watch flowers growing in the grass by the roadside.

She asked me to take a picture of the sky she liked. She said she liked a gray sky with clouds as well as a bright sky. She really loved nature, I thought.

in Kunitachi

Yesterday I got up very early in the morning to watch TV-- women's figure skating at the Torino Winter Olympics.

I was excited to watch Shizuka Arakawa dance beautifully and gracefully on the ice. She won a figure skating gold medal. Thank you so much, Shizuka.

What a lovely day! I enjoyed walking alone down the street in Kunitachi. Everything I saw made me happy today.

These flowers smiled back at me. (in Kunitachi City)
What flowers were they?

spring has come

It was a very warm day. A small yellow crocus in my daughter's garden　came out in this warm weather.

It was still a bud yesterday. The bud opened today! I wished I could have seen the very moment it burst out.

The crocus got smaller than last year. I'm afraid my daughter did not put fertilizer on the soil before winter came.

The flower language of a crocus is---
'joy of youth' and 'an earnest desire'.

Tamagotchi's family

koharu's mother made these Tamagotchi characters for her.

koharu, my granddaughter, was quite delighted with them.

koharu's mother loves needlework.

year of the dog

This is the year of the dog.

I remember the days when I kept two dogs named Pepe and Bull. I wrote about Pepe last year, which lived to be 16 years old. He died 15 years ago.

The dog in the picture is Bull, Pepe's younger brother. Bull died at six. Pepe and Bull were very good brothers. They were my faithful guard dogs.

They were always free to walk around my house and they barked at a stranger. But they liked little children and never barked at them. They liked humming along to the song they heard. Oh, I miss them so much!

Another dog in the picture was sent to me from a friend of my best friends. What a lovely dog! I believe this dog will bring me happiness.

Thank you very much, dear friend!