A Taste of Japan

This morning we went on a little trip (with the dogs too) to have a taste of Japan.

Although we did not physically go to Japan, we did go to the site of the International Garden Festival in Liverpool.  I remember as a kid, along with millions of others visiting the site in 1984.  It was full of different gardens from around the world, milature railways and so much to see and do covering 95 hecters which is 230 acres.

Alas the site is now very very small, the rest of the site referred to brown land which should be re-developed into thousands of houses, retail area and a new ferry terminal.  It is a shame to see that most of the site has been lost, but if Liverpool Council do what they say and pump £700m in to the site, then it should be a lovely place to live.

Summertime…

… and the living is easy.

Well, in truth it’s not.  We are not used to temperatures currently of 32.5c (90.5f) on this little old Island, and it has been hotter than this in June.  Being about 650 miles away from the arctic circle here in the north we do not get such balmy temperatures and are more happy with 21c or 22c.

We cannot walk the dogs as within minutes they are exhausted or have to go at first light being about 4:30am or after 11pm.  Even Mazikeen is doing a rain dance in the hope to get cooler weather and quench the parched lands.

There have been wildfires up here too.  One part of the dues was alight, which spread to the woods, which destroyed several acres.  Where one of my friends lives there are wildfires on the moorlands that have caused massive devastation and according to the Woodland Trust will take a decade to get to back to being habitable again.  Other fires are at Saddleworth Moor, Winter Hill and Rivington Moor.

On some days if we look inland we can see a haze line of smoke from the moors fires.  Last Thursday we were out and about and could see the devastation of the moor fires and even see the flames leaping about.  This is not something we usually see in the UK in real life, the closest we get to this is watching the fires rage in the likes of California on the TV.