A nice few days

Well, the 23rd July passed again with another birthday. The days surrounding my birthday were very pleasant indeed. On Saturday 21st of July, I went to the nearby Indonesian restaurant called Makashi which my friend Awin owns. Not only did he ply me with booze, but his girlfriend was also kind enough to give me a small birthday cake. Another staff member decorated the plate with a nice birthday message. Thanks guys!

After Makashi, I headed off to Elwood's Bar for a joint birthday celebration with two other customers. The other customers were very kind and supplied me with drinks whilst the owner, Keisuke, provided a birthday cake. I feel very grateful to those who made an effort to celebrate my birthday. I'm lucky to have good friends.

The 23rd of July, my actual birthday, was pretty low key. I did my laundry, went to the gym, and later went to Elwood's Bar to have a pint of Boddingtons Ale. Nothing too heavy. It was also nice to get a card from Scotland in the post from my parents.

Clara is now in Scotland and appears to be having great fun with her grandparents. I'm sure there won't be any dry eyes when the time comes for her to return to Japan. As usual, she has a busy schedule planned and has already visited a number of relations on the Isle of Skye.

So, a very good few days. Many thanks to those who also left messages on my Facebook page.

Footsal

A couple of months ago, whilst drinking in my local bar, I met a guy from Indonesia who owns a nearby Indonesian restaurant called Makashi. As a fan of Indonesian food, a couple of weeks later Yuki, Clara and I all went to the restaurant for a lovely meal. I then went to the upstairs bar called Samasama for a few 'shandies'. It turned out that the owner of the restaurant has organised a Footsal tournament on the 26th April and I was invited to play for the restaurant team.

As I have never played Footsal before, I was a bit worried about the rules. However, the apprehension was unjustified and I was soon to discover that Footsal is essentially 5-a-side football. I was pretty excited to have the chance to play football again after a long hiatus, and was keen to show off my skills. However, things did not go as well as planned, I pulled a muscle after 20 seconds, was exhausted after 1 minute, and the limited footballing skills I thought I had were nowhere to be seen. To add insult to injury (my pulled muscle), all the other Japanese players were fit and displayed some great skills. Despite the fact that the actual football did not go as well as I had hoped, the after match party was a lot of fun and I met a lot of really nice people. Makashi is a great place to eat and drink and I am sure to be a regular visitor there in future. Good fun.