The morning meeting; someone’s bored already!

FATHER AND SON TEAM like so many trades and craftsmen in Japan keep the jobs in ” the family” and I think Mr Nakamura senior is 11th generation, albeit, not all plumbers, but certainly very skillful. He also makes his own  large gauge drill bits in his furnace at the back of his house, AND, wood fired pizza ovens !! He, like Mr Happy Mountain, hail from the same village 45 mins away and is of the same age group and very fit. Puts me to shame.

One time we had a game of “Kill the Gaijin” and we were all shovelling soil with rocks and boulders in amongst all the debris, in 35C heat. I lasted 20 mins and had to pretend I received a phone call or something, to get away!

The first task in hand was to instal a  1100 LTR septic tank in the patch in front of the building, then dig up a trench starting from 60 cm depth to 120cm around the building, connecting all the different waste outlets

All done very methodically and tidy. Durind the summer heat and invasion of the mozzies it is obligatory for the house-owner to supply mosquito coils all around the house and in the working areas for the tradesmen but they also supply their own too. I laughed at first but they WORK!

Finally the ” Don’t touch the soil” period is over on the calendar they are all back again ready to work again.

The final finish to the sceptic tank

The guys inspired yours truly to get stuck in. Looks like “Farmer Ted”!

Anyone for cake?

Did I tell you we had a dog?

We had a lovely visit from our new friends Leanne and Pat who decided to drive down on a whim { about a 3 hour drive ) to meet us and neighbours Stuart, Yukiyo-san and Sadie and look at our projects. They have recently bought an old farmhouse up in Noto Hanto, Ishikawa ken. The Hokuriku style of architecture differs quite a lot from our neck of the woods due to the large amounts of snowfall they receive.

We shared a few stories and a lot of laughs! Great day.

To finish off, some refreshing green tea mochi