◎ I saw your issue in homepage July in English.

Thank you for the photograph of many hydrangeas this time. They are so beautiful and natural tastes.

I felt that the walk to the park on Mt. Rokko with my three former students was very meaningful.

The weather seemed nice, but I imagine it was extremely hot. Thank you for your hard work.

 Recently, I've been avoiding going out during the day, because it's hot outside . I try to go shopping at supermarkets that open at 9:00 AM or in the evenings. Stores often have discounted items from the previous day, so it's a good time to shop. Also, It's so hot inside the house that I can't stand without air conditioning. Even in Fukuoka in Kyushu, we're seeing new midsummer temperatures, but perhaps the humidity is lower than Kanto area where I live. I feel a little more comfortable in the shade. I'm worried about the high temperature is bad impact on vegetables. The declining harvest rate will lead to further price hikes, but I guess how a housewife uses the vegetables they have at the time will be their true skill. I'll do my best.

 In July, my gospel team held its biannual major charity event. The concert was free, but donations were made to the Noto Peninsula earthquake relief fund. We had been practicing twice a month for six months for this performance. We sang not only gospel but also school songs and popular songs with the audience. We sang "Natu-no-omoide -Summer Memories" and "Yashi no mi -Coconut" with the audience. Since we always include familiar songs that we sing together with the audience, we deliberately do not include the word "gospel" on the flyers. This is one of the joys of singing of this team. I attached photos from the concert. Please don't worry about members in the photos has given their permission to appear on social media.

 The hot days will continue. Please enjoy the summer without hard work .




  ----------  Akiko Shimizu, Fukuoka, Japan----------

  ◎Thank you for sharing the beauty of hydrangeas in Kobe. As they do not grow at the foothills of Rocky Mountains where I live, I really appreciate your colorful photos.

 It is the canola season here. Although wee are having unusually cool weather for the last few days, 4c-11c. ,canola fields stretched to the horizon are as beautiful as ever. I read somewhere that during a near-death experience, Japanese people often report seeing golden canola field along “sanzu no kawa (三途川)”, while people in the western world a bright light at the end of tunnel. Obviously cultural background affects near-death experiences.

 Needless to say President Trump are not very popular in Canada. I put up portraits of Mr. Trump and St. Bernard dog on the wall of the art club to which I belong, with a little comment : “dogs have very similar eye expression with human being.

Do you see any similarity between soulful and intelligent St. Bernard's eyes and Mr. Trump's? “ Someone commented that it was an insult to dogs to compare dogs to Trump - some Canadians dislike Mr. Trump intensely.

 Looking forward to August Home Page.

 Thanks you for the news and views of Japan.    
The year 2025 will be the 55 year anniversary of EXPO 70 also in Osaka, which I attended many, many years ago …….

----------------Claus &  Michiko JEHNE, Armidale, NSW. Australia.------------. ..

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　　　---------DonaldLorentz,Poulsbo,Washington, USA-----------

◎Thank you very much for your June tsuyu Homepage. I remember the rainy season as the hot and humid, very depressing season. But your have succeeded to show us that the bad side of tsuyu seems to outweigh the good – scenic rice fields, elegant white herons , cute snail babies......

I read website (“This is Japan”) news about tsuyu. : “.....Typically, Japan’s rainy season lingers into July, but in 2025, it concluded about three weeks earlier than the norm. This marks the earliest end to the rainy season ever recorded in the region from Kyoto to southern kyushu, setting a new benchmark in Japan’s meteorological history......”

On the contrary to your wet tsuyu, our annual unwelcome event is the wild fire season fanned by hot and dry air. For the last few days the wild fire from Canada and US is deducing visibility and worsening air quality.  

I am sending you a few photos of giants dandelions (salsify Tragopogon pratensis) . Are they common in Japan? During my regular morning walk on the meadow I admire spectacular seed heads.

----------  Haruyo Konishi Hazelton, Alberta, Canada ----------

◎As always, thank you very much for your June 2025 Homepage.  

We have enjoyed the beautiful Autumn seasons in Japan during a number of years ..... and hope to come once again to enjoy them ....

Here we are heading towards a rather cold winter season ......

-----------------Claus &  Michiko JEHNE, Armidale, NSW. Australia.------------. ..

.◎We are all well, with no problems or negative issues.  Doug and Sukanya are in Tokyo now but return to the Seattle area in a week

Daughter Kristin, husband Kyle and granddaughter Annika are visiting friends and relatives in Sweden and Norway.  Linda and I are taking care of the garden in Poulsbo.  All the best to you and Rumi.

----------------------------Donald Lorentz, Poulsbo, Washington, USA------------------------------

◎ I have been impressed with your fantastic photos and deep contents which are beautifully edited in your English home pages. You are a professional photographer and good writer as a man of versatile, supported by your graceful wife. I also enjoyed reading positive messages from your close friends all over the world which makes me very proud of you and your wife. You both are role models of our generation.

I hear it has been very hot and humid in Kobe in this horrendous rainy season. My wife and I have been fortunate enough to enjoy the blessing of the gentle breeze in Malvern, the country of Worcestershire in June. I have stayed at a self-catering flat in the Victorian old house in Abbey Road to work on the sequel of my English novels published in London. My wife is also writing Victorian water cure in Malvern through the eyes of Edward Bulwer Lytton who established “copyright” as a journalist, dramatist and politician. Our books are in Malvern Library, albeit she has been more popular here as a Japanese researcher of Victorian Malvern water and intellectuals who came here for water cure, such as Charles Dikens, Darwin, and Nightingale.

I was very encouraged when we found my novels (Dreams of Serendipity 2018, 2019 and The Journey to Serendipity 2021) in the Humanity Corner of BL (British Library ) in London last week.  It has been exhilarating pleasure to know that my English novels are open for the public and some British citizens are reading them.  It is quite funny to know that some of my English novels have been listed and viewed in the corner of foreign novelists in Kobe City Central Library and Tarumi Library, which made me smile.

Due to global warming, even the UK has been warmer than usual, and it is said the four seasons are getting less distinctive here in the UK. We were invited to Knebworth Castle by Lord Henry Lytton again as he is very interested in my wife's book and her research on his great great grandfather. His garden is 28 acres, and he showed us all the rooms where Edward Bulwer Lytton used to study in the huge Knebworth House. We had a convivial conversation, and we found a trinkle in his gentle eyes whenever he talked about my wife’s research.  His grandmother was a girl friend of Winston Churchill before WWII and his grandfather was president of Bank of England

We respect you both and we are very proud of you as my professional mentor when I was young. Ken and I used to work under the surpassed supervision of Principal Takeuchi. Ken Tamai, Professor, Emeritus, Kobe University of Foreign Studies (Graduate School) are excellent tennis player and artist now. My wife and I appreciate his artistic talent such as water paintings, potteries, calligraphy and tea ceremony. We sometimes play tennis together, however, I have been defeated by him and it is fun to play tennis at the age of 75 and 71. Alas! Time is really a thief! Before we know it, we have already become 70s and you will be nearly 100 years,  however, what makes us relieved is that time is also a great writer to witness what we used to be, what we are and what we will be.

Thank you again for being Takeuchi-sensei. We can live on, keeping our head up and looking ahead with our shared and treasured memories with you from the 1970s and 1980s.     

Please take care and stay young as our eternal role model with your lovely wife.

Attached are with Lord Henry Lytton in his garden,  Kenworth Castle,  Multiple hydrangeas in my little garden in Kobe.

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-------------------------  Koji Nakamura, from Malvern, UK-----------

◎It is nice to see you with the camera in front of the rhododendron garden. You seem to be enjoying May weather, in good health, before the arrival of the rainy season.

Here at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, spring and summer have come suddenly and at the same time, as soon as snow and ice disappeared in late April. I enjoy everyday watching farm machines sow  canola and barley seeds.

----------  Haruyo Konishi Hazelton, Alberta, Canada -----------

----------------------------Donald Lorentz, Poulsbo, Washington, USA------------------------------

◎ On my wall at home there is a Calendar ( Heisei 5 nen,  Reiwa 7 nen, Heisei 37 nen 

and Showa 100 nen).      that a good friend from Shizuoka sends to me every year.

The calendar, each month, mention Health Topic....  this month it is  "Kokoro no Kenkou".

 Anyway, every time that I look at the Calendar, I seem to think about you and your 

long life and achievements .........  your anniversary must also be soon, having been born in 

Showa ichi nen.

Please stay healthy and enjoy every day.

We and many other people all over the world are thinking of you ........

-----------------Claus &  Michiko JEHNE, Armidale, NSW. Australia.------------. ..

Although the cherry blossom season has passed, I am sending you a photo I took on my way to work the other day.

The location is just south of Syukugawa-station on the Hankyu Kobe Line, As you know Syukugawa has long been famous for its cherry blossoms. I like the Japanese atmosphere here, with the cherry blossoms and the big pine trees.

The cherry blossom season is good, but I also recommend early summer when the green leaves appear.

Classes for the spring semester have started at the university and the place is crowded with many new students.

From now on, I will be busy answering surveys from the Ministry of Education (MONKA-shou) and various other administrative bodies.Really, we are getting a lot of surveys. I hope this can be utilised in the national education policy.

 My wife, Michiko went to Japan recently to meet her sister and her family in Osaka.  It was the end of the Cherry Blossom Season.  

 Unfortunately, her flight  to KIX (Kansai International Airport),  arrived (due to smetechinical pron=blems in Sydney) at 2amin the morning.   She, and some fellow passengers had great trouble getting  to Osalka by taxi ......however she arrived safely at her sister's house at 4 am in the morning.

 She enjoyed the 3 weeks that she spent in Osaka, Kyoto and Nara at the end of the Cherry Blossom Season.  Se was much surprised at the crowds of foreign visitors that she saw everywhere ......

 It reminded me of my first travels to Japan in January 1965, just after the Tokyo Olympics and then our second visit in 1969 -70 when the Osaka Expo was held.  And this year there is another one in Osaka !!.It will be Brisbane;s turn to host the Olympic Games in 2032.

 Please keep well and enjoy the beautiful seasons in Kita-Kobe, Our thoughts and those of your Coffee Club friends are with you both always ......

-----------------Claus &  Michiko JEHNE, Armidale, NSW. Australia.--------------

We all respect your ever-lasting momentum to stay young and communicative competence with people of the world. Tamai Ken-san and I play tennis twice a week together with advanced level-players. He is 70 and I am 75. Time is a thief and we cannot believe our eyes, however we appreciate our serendipity at Fukiai High School under the supervision of our famous Principal, Mr. Takeuchi. 

  Last month, 18 students I was in charge of as their home-room teacher at Fukiai High School (from 1974-1977) got together and had a lunch party in Kobe. They came from all over Japan. They are just 9 years younger than me. In those days I was 26 years old and they were just sweet 17. It was just 48 years ago, and the remains of their high school faces and voices swiftly came back to me and my photographic memories of recognizing their full names and individual faces impressed them all.  My long-term memories are still working, albeit my short-term memories are terrible and hopeless. 

 Time passed so quickly, and it was really like a wink. Before we knew it, everyone went back to his or her high school days.  It was exhilaratingly fun to know that my two former female students who were late for the party asked everyone, looking at me from a l

ittle distance, "Who is that guy? Was he one of our classmates?  What was his name?" ... There was a brief silence for a little while. Then, our class representative told them with a mysterious grin, "This man was a transfer student from the UK. Don't you remember? Look at his British hat? " He presumably told a white lie, and everyone enjoyed this dramatic irony in the class reunion.  Everyone felt "Time is a thief, however it is a great writer, too."   We sang "Graduation Photograph" together. 

 An autumn afternoon with lovely smiles and laughter brightly colored each matured face with treasured reminiscence and gentleness in their high school days.

 -------------------Koji Nakamura,Kobe, Japan-----------------------------------------

Our morning temperature is very chilly (the lowest -4C last week) , but usually in the afternoon it warms up to 15-20 c. I go for a one  hour walk almost everyday and enjoy the wide open prairie and a big sky above it. I also enjoy walking through the residential area and look into their garden. Right now most of the houses are displaying  Halloween decorations. Instead Japanese Halloween focuses their creative energy on their costumes , ours is still quite a traditional children's fun festival- “trick or treating” by children with scary costumes and garden ornaments of pumpkins and ghosts (or anything spooky ).

The best season is ahead of you. Enjoy!!

 --------------------Jocelyn Fifield, Christchurch, New Jealand--------

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