Morning.

You find me on the train to work. It’s a Saturday. About 8am. Not too crowded. I got a seat. It’s 30 minutes to my stop from here, no changes.

It’s been a challenging week. It started with my working on Monday, which I would usually have as a day off – occasionally I’m asked to go out and teach one or two-day intensive English course at client offices. I must admit I find these exhausting – they also serve to remind me that whilst I am perfectly capable of teaching, it’s not my forte. I’m more suited to planning, organsing, arranging for things to happen, then motivating people (through example etc) to carry them out. Still, I don’t mind teaching now and then. It’s good to have a change of scenery.

I do best at work when I’m presented with a problem which needs a radical solution – I’m thinking of multi-stage processes that until now have been carried out piecemeal – lacking a workflow. I like to analyse the stages and see where connections can be made, where waste can be cut, where duplication can be avoided. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be increasingly difficult to devote much time to this kind of thing as the recession sinks its teeth into our industry, resulting in more work for fewer people.

Due to my not having Monday daytime off, I had several very late nights as I attempted to do the misplaced podcast editing. Thus, from Wednesday on I found myself absolutely exhausted, and had a couple of early nights. This meant that I was unable to do anything on those days but my day job (and a Japanese lesson on Wednesday night) – something I always find immensely frustrating, as it feels that I have simply sold a whole day of my life just for the sake of money. I know that this is the way that our economy works, and I know that the sum of money I receive in exchange for my time is infinitely more than so many people on the planet, but it still makes me feel a little sick.

These feelings are exacerbated when I watch incredible films such as Home, which I highly recommend you make 90 minutes to watch. It features some stunning ariel photography shot over a period of many years, telling the story of the development of the Earth, highlighting the challenges we now face, and attempting to inspire us to do something about it (hat-tip to Bastish.net, one of my all-time favourite Japan photo-blogs, for the link)

I found myself feeling pretty upset and frustrated by the middle section of the film – not due to the film itself, but due to the things it was telling me about what we have done to the planet. It also made me think about what I am doing here. Well actually, to be honest it made me feel that I am completely wasting my life by devoting my time to earning enough money to pay the bills so that I have enough money to go to work …and pay the bills again. I should be doing something to make a difference.

But this is why I try to make use of every hour outside of my day-job to work on my portfolio. One of my medium-term goals is to be making English-language environmental documentaries, which are linked in with online resources that allow people to get involved and make a difference themselves, locally. If we’re going to sort this problem out we need to empower everyone to do their bit. What Yann Arthus-Bertrand has created is absolutely phenomenal, but it would be even better with a little postscript of actions one could take.

Incidentally, I’m not pretending I’m any great film-maker – as you can see from my YouTube channel I’m not. But there are great film-makers out there, and I would seek to work with them. Likewise with the online side of things – I’d always seek to team up with those with expert knowledge / resources.

I’d also love to be doing something like this:

Extreme Ice Survey in Action from Extreme Ice Survey on Vimeo.

It’s early days.

I find it comforting to remember that it’s early days. If I look at people around me who are doing some great stuff in Japan, I see that on the whole they have been here for a good length of time. Say, 7-10 years. This gives me hope – I’ve only been back 10 months. If I can achieve what I have so far in 10 months with a full time job, what will I be able to achieve in 10-years (much of which will be spent without the distraction of a day job, although with the distraction of children)?

The podcast experiment is going well, with a doubling of subscriptions in the last 10 days (thanks to the Debito interview), and approximately 4000 downloads. This week marks the halfway point too (we agreed to make 12 main episodes for series one, and are now at number 6) – that feels good. I’m glad to be on the Metpod too (Thursday edition, about 3/4 of the way in); it’s good practice in being concise.

Transformers

Last night I made a mad dash from work down to the new digi-IMAX (uses standard film instead of IMAX film) in Kawasaki for the first showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – a great film for little boys like me. The gathering had been arranged by my good friend Steve Nagata, who had kindly sorted out the tickets and stuff in advance.

It struck me that this was the first time I’d hung out with a bunch of people from the Tokyo tech scene for a non-tech event – that made me smile. It’s nice to have friends.

I was given a lift back by Danny who blogged it at (www.dannychoo.com) – this was no ordinary lift home though as he provided Transformer sound effects for us as we drove, transforming the Nissan into a huge Autobot. The film had obviously infiltrated his sub-conscious as (to my alarm) upon leaving the car park, whilst concentrating on the GPS he attempted some off-road driving, mounting the central reservation! The thing that amused me was that as we headed for the kerb I was actually expecting the car to detect the side of the road and somehow stop of its own accord – clearly I’ve been hanging out with tech geeks too much.

I’m planning on registering as a sole trader on Monday to help offset some of the costs of our extra-curricular businesses. Podcasting doesn’t exactly require require a lot of investment in expensive equipment, but it does involve a lot of travel and so forth. It would be good at least to get the tax back.

The rainy season has begun in Japan – it will last for another month or so. I’ve decided that I quite like it, what with it being a natural part of the cycle.

Anyways, we’ve long since passed my stop, so I’d best be off.

tarra.

In the morning I joined Tom, Nami and Phil to run the Edogawa Ekiden (relay race). Things didn’t quite work out as planned for us personally, so I thought instead of focusing on our story I’d share with you some footage of the various characters we met throughout the event.

You can also get an idea of just how appalling my taiko drumming skills are!

All sorts of people run Ekidens. There tend to be a lot of men wearing dresses.

Here’s our team in full

Phil

Tom

It’s a chance for Japan’s top bloggers, YouTubers and podcasters to gather and talk about past achievements, and make plans for future collaborations.

This was my second CGM, and looking around I was staggered by just how many people I counted as ‘friends’, when, just three months back I knew virtually no one in this arena. It’s a good demonstration of just how easy it is to get on with folks round here – they’re all so bloomin’ nice.

Here’s an experimental video I shot on a row boat in which I talk about last night. The video undergoes a big change 4 minutes in…

It’s been a great day, during which I’ve been fortunate to spend time with my two best mates in Tokyo.

Whilst I’ve managed to get up at 6am every day this week, last night’s ridiculous experiment to see if I could run four operating systems at the same time on my old MacBook made sure that I had no chance of making it a full house. (Yes, it can run 4 at the same time. Very slowly).

Still, I was up by 7am, met Tom on platform 2 at 7.30am – destination Tokyo Station.

It wasn’t really planned, but we ended up jogging 15km (9 miles) around the emperor’s cabbage patch (otherwise known as the Imperial Palace). Having not exercised all week (mainly due to the cold in the mornings and my woosyness) I was a little sceptical as to my ability to complete the last lap – so as we entered the final 3km and my hips began to hurt, I just kept on telling myself that this was only the first lap, and I felt as fresh as a daisy that had just eaten a Freshness Burger. The result – a very strong finish!

Back home, bath, then out to Shibuya for a lunchtime English lesson. That done, I headed south to Ebisu to meet Stu, my kiwi mate from the Niseko years. Having arrived a bit early, I sat on a step beside some coin lockers and played with some photos on my MacBook to pass the time.

“Hey! Wass your name?”

It was a boy in his early twenties. He looked Korean. Guide book in hand, he was probably on holiday.

“I’m Joe! I’m from the Korean Navy, in charge of look-out for 168mm gun.”

I was happy to have someone to talk to. We chatted for 15 minutes until Stu arrived. It was funny – when talking with Joe I found myself coming out with all the questions I ask my students on the phone (Ok, so I missed the one where I ask for directions to a fictional sushi shop). Nice guy. Reminded me of me on my first trip to Japan, except that I wasn’t in the army, and don’t like guns.

Stu and I spent the best part of 4 hours talking, drinking coffee, eating ramen. It was good.

Like myself, he’ll be taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test this year – good to know that others will be going through the same pain :-p

Back home tonight I processed a few of the tilt shift shots I tried to take earlier in the week. I’ve loved tiltshift photography (or more accurately, Tilt-shift minature facking) ever since I first saw some examples on NHK (TV), but have only recently learnt how it’s done.

I find it fascinating how our brains can tricked into thinking that we are looking at a miniature scene by having an extremely shallow depth of focus. I’m now wondering though, if I look at enough Tiltshift photos, will their effect wear off on me, will my brain learn to associate them primarily with tiltshift and not miniature models? I guess I’ll just have to wait ten years and see.

I thought that producing tiltshift photos would be relatively easy, and in a way it is, but producing really effective shots is difficult. The examples on this page are testament to that – they’re not very good.

First off you need to find a good candidate out there in the wild. Then, you need to choose an appropriate depth of focus, and place it well. The latter two stages I find pretty challenging. Still, it’s early days, and I have a lifetime over which to improve.

*Twinkle*s been busy today. She and a professional pâtissier hosted a Valentine’s Planning event, and, with a group of 15 or so friends who are also building Amway businesses, created a whole load of (what were apparently) delicious homemade chocolate delicacies. Unfortunately, no men were allowed entry.

She also gave a (light-hearted) talk on How to Find the Ideal Partner! Why she didn’t follow her own advice I don’t know…

Our Amway business is doing pretty well. The worsening economy has resulted in a lot of people looking for the means to create a second or third income. With so many redundancies over the past few months it seems that the awareness of the importance of having multiple income streams is growing, and people are starting to look seriously at using their own skills and talents to build their own businesses.

In some ways it’s not a bad time to start a new business, as a lot of companies that provide a poor service are going under, making way for new entrepreneurs who are determined to offer exceptional products / services.

In addition to our full time jobs and our Amway business, *Twinkle* continues to do translation work, and I’m working on creating a new Internet-based media company, about which I don’t want to say too much at the moment. Let’s just say it’s at the cross-section of a lot of my passions – I’m very excited! It won’t make money for some time, but I see a lot of potential in it. I just have to Believe, and Act. More on that in due course.

Anyways, it’s time for me to make a cup of tea.

tatta.

One of the reasons for the visit was that I wanted to play with Bibi’s big chopper, which some mumblers may recall me talking about a year or so ago.

Here’s Bibi in action:

…and me looking, er, manly?

It was lovely to see them both, eat some delicious homemade food, breath in some fresh countryside air. Thank you, may the ankle-healing continue

The journey there had been a good one too – I played “spot mount Fuji” with the two oba-chans (grannies) sitting opposite me on the train, and had a long conversation with a third obachan about my patchwork jeans, which I spent much of the journey working on, patch, needle and thread in hand.

This evening our friends S&M came round for dinner. S&M are a great source of inspiration and encouragement for me, and it was lovely to be able to invite them into our home – although in the presence of such experienced hosts I started to realise just how much practice I need. Thank you both for coming.

Tomorrow morning I’m off again for a run around the palace at 7am, this time with the Tokyo Vegan Runners – a group I found on www.meetup.com. Two lessons in the evening, and hopefully some time to breathe during the day.

oyasumi xxx

It’s so good to see your friends doing well.

The Kirk family have been good friends of mine for about 20 years. My trip to Islay (Scotland) to visit them 17 years ago was probably my first ever ‘big’ trip somewhere by myself. Later, they were kind enough to let me live with them for a few months. Jo remains one of my bestest friends – it’s been great to grow up ‘together’ (by letter / phone / email / visits to Hereford & Bristol).

It’s also been great to see the boys (Jo’s brothers) grow up. They’re not much younger than me, although when you’re a child a few years seems like decades.

Anyhow, a few years back Pedro, the eldest, started a band with his friend Luke. Joined by another three friends, they converted the garage into a studio, and then worked damn hard at getting good at what they did.

Things are really taking off now for Brandon Steep. Just last week I got a mail to let me know that they have a CD out in Japan, available from (Amazon, HMV and iTunes.

I was so excited buying this CD at HMV today. I’ve never bought a friend’s CD from a ‘proper’ shop before. It felt real good to be able to support them from such a distance (and get something good to listen to too).

(The chap behind the counter was full of praise for them, saying they were getting quite a following over here).

Congrats to Brandon Steep for your continuing rise, long may it continue!

Their website seems to be being re-worked at the moment, so for now www.myspace.com/brandonsteep is the place to go to check them out.

Oh, and check out the Herefordian field in this video

For the past two weeks I’ve been looking for someone to do tandem learning with. That is, someone who will teach me Japanese in exchange for me teaching them English.

One might think that having just spent 4 years studying Japanese the last thing I’d want (or need) is more Japanese lessons. Not so. I didn’t put as much into my course in my final year as I could have done (a conscious decision that I don’t regret to split my energy between my course and extra-curricular activities), thus I failed to internalise a lot of the vocab I was learning.

I’d like to emphasise that this is in no way a criticism of our course, which was bloomin marvellous. If anyone wants to learn Japanese in the UK, Sheffield is the place to go, no doubt (n.b. I may be biased). But of course, you only get out what you put in, thus a lot of my course-mates have much better Japanese than me.

Whatever, I’ve come such a long way, and am constantly delighted by the fact that I (of all people) have learnt to speak Japanese. However, I do tend to stick to the grammar patterns that I’m really familiar with, avoiding the use of complex structures. It was brought home to me just how far I’ve gone down this road when the other night *Twinkle* applauded my use of a complex pattern – it should be normal, not praiseworthy.

So I put the thought out there – I need a Japanese teacher – and tonight she presented herself (although I didn’t know she was a teacher until after we’d been chatting for a while).

She contacted me having seen my profile on www.findateacher.net, and requested a trial English lesson. We met at a subway station near my office and made our way to a nice little cafe. We chatted a bit more, with her explaining why she wanted to study English.

Then she stopped, and with a mysterious look on her face said, ‘actually, I’ve got some photos to show you’. Confused, I took the envelope in her hand and took out the photos…

…and blow me down if it wasn’t Phil, my coursemate from Sheffield! I was stunned, and naturally clammering for an explanation.

She explained how Phil had been one of her first students shortly after she qualified as a teacher, when he was living in Tokyo a year or so back. It was only after she’d initially contacted me last Friday that she’d mailed Phil to ask if he’d heard of someone called ‘Joseph Tame’ who’d studied at Sheffield. Seeing that I was quite a bit older she assumed that we wouldn’t know each other …and thus was very surprised when Phil replied that he did indeed know me!

Spot Joseph

So that’s how it went. We’ve decided to meet on a weekly basis for language exchange – my calls for a teacher have been answered. Thank you Universe!

It’s several years now since I decided to actively create an online presence. For a long time it was limited to my website, TameGoesWild, and this blog, The Daily Mumble. Not that many people knew about it, and I rarely talked about it. I seldom posted any personal stuff, fearful of criticism from the People Out There. I can remember trying to keep it a secret in my first year at uni, such was the embarrassment I felt when real-life friends referred to something I’d written.

The last 18 months has seen a huge shift in my attitude towards my online presence. As a part of the process of learning to trust my own judgement, and to not be hurt by the subjective opinions of others, I deliberately chose to write about things that mattered the most to me, such as the spiritual path I began to travel down last year. I remember at the time debating whether or not to mention the name Wayne Dyer, for fear of people accusing me of being brain washed by some American celebrity doctor – a fear I can’t help but laugh at now, given just how much I have been helped by his [audio]books. I still regularly dip into his take on the Tao, and often find that the one verse (out of 81) that he is focusing on is the exact one I need to hear.

I think the next step for me was signing up with Facebook, something I had resisted for some time. I’d tried mySpace and generally found it to be a complete waste of time …and I must admit that Facebook didn’t do much for me at first either. Now however, it plays an important part in creating and maintaining my sense of place in the world. Regular updates on my friends’ activities gives me context. Living here in Tokyo with access to very few real-life friends would be much harder without my virtual (usually passive) participation in the lives of others.

Recently I’ve been delighted by a spate of photo uploads by my friends from Camp Jened (New York) where I worked in 1997. Those were pre-email days for ordinary folks like us, but 11 years on Facebook has enabled us to recreate that community, to share our happy memories. This has promted me to re-evaluate the part that that experience played in making me who I am today, something I doubt I’d be able to do if working from my own foggy memories alone.

Then there’s Twitter. I forget when I signed up, sometime earlier this year. At the time I didn’t quite realise just what an impact this would have on me. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a tool for micro-blogging, any one post (‘tweet’) having a limit of 140 characters (such as the posts top-right of the Mumble. There’s a great demo video on YouTube called ‘Twitter in Plain English’). Historically, the majority of users have been those into all things techy / internetty, but recent months have seen it move into the mainstream. It’s a powerful dissemination tool – the Obama campaign team caught onto this pretty early on and have used it to great effect.

But of course, without an audience, Twitter serves little purpose as a broadcast platform. Personally, I only know a handful of people who use it, and thus initially wasn’t all that inspired. But then I discovered Twitterific. This desktop app takes my Twitter posts and send them to Skype, where they become my status message, visible to all of my contacts.

…That’s was all well and good, but still, Skype isn’t exactly an everyday app for most users.

The breakthrough came with the Twitter app for Facebook. This takes your Twitter status and posts it to Facebook, thus making it visible to all your Facebook friends. So that’s one message posted in Twitterific being sent to Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Friendfeed, and any web-page you have control over (such as TDM).

But what next? It’s all a bit one-way.

Well it was, until the release of the new Facebook interface a few weeks back. What seemed like just another makeover has actually begun to fundamentally change my interaction with others. Unlike before, it is now incredibly easy to post comments on Facebook status messages. Thus, I can post reactions to friends’ daily doings with one tap of the screen, and of course they can do the same with me – and do. Suddenly, one-way broadcasting has become two-way communication.

There’s one final piece to the online presence jigsaw though – the iPhone (oh cripes here he goes again…). The new iPhone Facebook app is bloomin fantastic. It enables the user to have easy access to their network of friends wherever they are, to react to messages on-the-road almost in real time (depending on how often they’re bored on the train) Couple that with the easy posting of messages and photos to Twitter (using mobile Twitterific) and the publishing of (line-break heavy) blogs via email (which are then automatically reposted on Facebook), and your online-presence becomes an extension of your real life interactions.

I’m sure this all sounds like a complete nightmare to some people. Not only the idea of publishing your every action online, but also the idea of your friends being bombarded by numerous 140-character messages describing tonight’s pumpkin soup (I just remind myself that they can simply unsubscribe from your updates if they wish to)

I’m fascinated by just how much this has all come to mean to me. I guess in my current circumstances it’s not surprising that I am seeking to maintain established (distant) friendships, to reach out to as many people as I can from my relative isolation. It’s a bit of a lifeline really.

I’m also interested in how our shared online presence impacts upon our real-life relationships. So far, I’ve found it to have an immensely positive effect. On seeing friends, one can quickly move past initial catch ups, and get to the important stuff, or explore areas of life that might usually be hidden due to social norms. The Internet offers us the freedom to express ourselves in ways that might be frowned upon in real-life, thus we can discover shared interests that might otherwise never be discovered. I can think of several real-life relationships whose foundations are reinforced to a considerable extent by the things that I have learnt about them online.

An example of a relationship strengthened by an online presence could be that of the friendship I share with an ex-coursemate who is now working in a remote part of southern Japan. They often blog about their experiences, the challenges they encounter, the happy successes they enjoy. We were never particularly close at uni (although I always liked and respected them), but reading their blog fills me with admiration for what they are doing, and makes me feel enriched by the remote friendship I share with them. It encourages me to send good wishes their way, and to want to offer assistance to them should they ever need it.

Having said that, in the long term I’m not sure how much of a difference it will make. If I imagine myself meeting offline coursemates after a prolonged period of no contact, the feelings are similar to those connected with meeting my online friends. This leads me to think that perhaps ultimately, online communication can never have the same kind of impact upon relationships that even limited offline interactions can have. This I find quietly reassuring, as much as I love the online world, I know that ultimately it’s what I do in real life that matters.

After all, no amount of Status Updates will get the washing up done before *Twinkle* arrives home.

Tattaa.

At 7.20am I was on my way to Hereford to do some shopping. Concerned that we wouldn’t have enough drinks, I’d decided to get a load from the local supermarket, to where they could be returned afterwards if we didn’t use them (although I’d forgotten that alcohol can only be sold after 8am – had to wait by the checkout with my trolley, watching the seconds tick by!).

That trip kind of set the pace for the rest of the morning. I think it was also demonstrative of how I was having problems letting go. Having spent so many weeks planning and organising, I was now finding it hard to trust that the details would sort themselves out. I wasn’t used to having so many people on hand willing to help, and still felt that if something needed to be done I should do it myself (not that I didn’t trust others, but rather because it was my ‘responsibility’ to make sure everything was OK).

In the face of this my brother Stephen did a fantastic job of ensuring that I breathed before the service. I was confined to my bedroom, forbidden from coming downstairs. I was to get dressed, and then sit on my bed and wait until it was time to go.

I more or less managed this, and the last hour or so before the service was actually pretty relaxing.

A memorable moment came at 2.30pm, half an hour before the ceremony was due to begin. I suddenly realised that I could hear the bells ringing at the church across the valley – they were ringing for us! That made me so happy… I thought of the difficulties I’d had in finding the bell-ringing team (in the end I located them through a wild Google search!) – it had definitely been worth it!

All suited up, we then made our way to the church in my little hire-car. *Twinkle* would be following later from the guest house with her father in the classic 1930s Alvis, owned by a neighbour of ours who had very kindly offered his services (and he did so against the odds too – only a few days earlier the gearbox had packed up; he’d put considerable effort into finding another in time so that he could drive us on the day).

*Twinkle*, father, and the Alvis, arriving at the church

It’s now ten minutes to midnight on the night before my wedding day. I dropped *Twinkle* back to the cottage we’ve rented for her parents, where she will spend her last night before she becomes my wife.

It’s been an amazing day. Thinking back over the last 16 hours I feel tearful – we have been shown such kindness by so many, and the day itself is yet even to begin! We are so so grateful. Thank you so much to everyone involved.

The village hall looks great – we have hundreds of metres of bunting – handmade by a friend. There are hundreds of origami paper cranes too, made by *Twinkle*s family (it took three of them several hours to fold them all, but they look amazing). In the church we have some beautiful beautiful flower arrangements made by my brother’s fiancé and mum, using flowers donated by local gardeners. Paper flowers too, made by *Twinkle*s family and fixed to the walls by *Twinkle*s best friend from Japan, Mariko, who arrived from Barcelona at lunchtime. Our guests from the Netherlands have also arrived safely, as has *Twinkle*s second bridesmaid from Tokyo.

I am staggered by the amount of organisation needed just for a party of about 80 people. My head has been buzzing so much I’ve found myself feeling pretty out of it for a lot of the day. Kind of like, in a dream world. Floating, watching as my body goes about doing this that and the other. It’s not been a bad thing, although I know I’ve looked pretty dreadful!

But I really can’t emphasise enough just how much this wedding is a product of many hours of effort by our family and friends. I am so grateful to be able to hand over huge great chunks of organisation to various volunteers. How can we ever repay them?

Following the rehearsal, *Twinkle* and I decided to spend some time together to just ‘be’ and share our thoughts and feelings of what the day gone by had meant to us, and our feelings about tomorrow, and our married life beyond that (and to practice our ceremonial kiss!). The venue was our lovely little hire car (I am anti-car in principle but i do like our little blue Chevy which came as a free upgrade from the hire company and sports a string of wedding flags flying from the back!), and the Moon Inn at Garway.

I recently wrote of how marriage is changing things – and again tonight we noted how we could almost reach out and touch the change. It’s shifting our feelings for one another to a deeper level. The feeling of trust and commitment is really strong – it’s taken me by surprise several times today. (…but I thought I already trusted *Twinkle*, and wasn’t I already committed to our relationship?!”). The past week has been a simply perfect ‘ramp up’ to what will take place tomorrow. The timing could not be better.

The wedding rehearsal was really enjoyable, and natural. It was very relaxed – meaning that it felt appropriate to turn around and put my finger to my lips signalling everyone to be quiet when the priest asked if anyone knew of any lawful impediment to our marriage… tee hee, ;-p We are very fortunate to have Elaine as a priest – she is fantastic, and sets everyone at ease.

If I think of us doing that for real tomorrow surrounded by 80 or so of our closest friends, well, …wow! Just indescribable! How wonderful to be in that environment, sharing our commitment for one another with all those that mean so much to us.

Well, I guess I’d better get some sleep. It’ll be an even longer day tomorrow.

My thanks again to all of those involved in making this happen. In my mind, tomorrow’s event will not just be a celebration of the relationship that *Twinkle* and I are committing to, but also a celebration of community, of mutual love and support, of family, of friendship, and of the general wonderfulness of life.

night night.

One of them I’ve not seen for years is the documentary made about my home of two years up in the Swiss Alps, Kleine Scheidegg. It’s extraordinary seeing all those familiar faces again. Albert our station master. Tomoko who worked in the buffet. My boss, Andreas, and other colleagues from the hotel.

Andreas

Tomoko. She was very strong. I was a little afraid of her.

These memories will be with me for life. Watching Tomoko go up the stairs of the station building I’m taken aback by my sudden recollection of the smell of the place. It’s not that it was particularly smelly, but it did have a distinct scent, a cross between wood, clean toilets and bratwurst sausage. It’s amazing how much information I must have stored in my brain, all these little details – like the train conductors shouting “achi achi” (That way that way!”) at the Japanese tourists in a Swiss-German accent, or the trains with their electric folding wingmirrors.

Oh! And there’s Phil, from South Africa. He worked as a photographer with Benny the dog. Benny would pose with his brandy barrel in the midst of great gangs of Japanese tourists, the must-have Swiss shot to take home to their families.

Having these records of past lives helps me appreciate just how fortunate I’ve been to have had these experiences. We’ve all had them of course, but I personally find it difficult to remember events that happened a long time ago unless I have a trigger – such as a photo or film. I don’t want to forget, they’ve all been such an important part of making me who I am today.

I used to take it to extremes. When I was age about 14 I’d always read my diary entry from exactly a year ago. It became a bit obsessive, and I remember worrying that I was becoming stuck in my past.

I like to think I’ve found a healthy balance now. A balance between appreciation for what has gone before, planning for the future, and focusing upon the here and now.

I visited some friends last night who are helping a great deal with the wedding. I lived with one of them, Frances, for about a year in the very same Hotel Kleine Scheidegg as featured in the documentary above. She became a dear friend to me, and seeing her again after what might even be years without meeting reassured me that we are still close. It was such a meaningful experience to sit and talk with her, and observe how we’ve both changed since our time in the Alps. People like her make the world a very happy, caring place.

Frances, about to throw a snowball at me

The wedding is really starting to take shape now. This evening I spent some time painting elephants on jam jars for the nightlights on the tables. That was very therapeutic, and helped me unwind after yet another day of sorting through belongings and assigning stuff to the recycle or charity shop pile.

I think *Twinkle* and I are going to have to work very hard together, especially over this coming year. We’re both capricorn, both very ambitious, both with strong personalities. Of course, we differ in many ways too. For a start, she’s much cuter than me.

I hope that I’m far enough along the relationship road to have learnt to not put pride or ego before love. It’s going to be a challenging education, being husband to *Twinkle*, but I’ll do my absolute best. She’s worth every bit of energy I have.

We’ve been apart for over 4,800 hours. In 40, we’ll be together.