The Surprise Part II

Saturday 7th November 2009

AM

Least: At nearly 11:00am, I sat down at work with tweny-five minutes to kill. I had arrived in Wakayama at 10:31am, a full three quarters of an hour before I have to clock in. Because of the train timetable on the JR Hanwa line, if I get a later train to attrive at 11:05am, I have to wait at least twenty minutes on the platform at Hineno. Boring - almost ads boring as discussing train timetables.

Most: At about 10:20am, as my train exited the last tunnel of my journey, I could see that the mountains were quickly changing colour. Many of the leaves of the trees have begun to turn, slowly creating a spectacular backdrop to an otherwise boring train ride. Hopefully in a couple of weeks the Autumn colours will be on full show - I'd better get some photos.


PM

Least: At just after 8:00pm, the first searing ball that I picked up for the night at the Sakai-Higashi takoyaki party rolled down my shirt-front. Given that it was drenched in delicious brown sauce, I wasn't surprising that it left a similarly delicious train down my front. It was embarrassing, though luckily I wasn't wearing a tie. By the end of the party, I was swaying with beer and looked like a complete wreck with the stain giving added effect.

Most: At nearly 11:00pm, I staggered up the stairs and opened the front door. To my absolute astonishment, my mother was sitting on the couch and had arrived earlier that evening. Given that I was completely unaware of the conspiracy, I could barely believe my eyes and had to look twice to check that it wasn't some kind of hallucination. Rosie had known for a week and kept the big secret under wraps perfectly. We celebrated with some chanpagne - what a nice surprise!