"You should write about Japan."

"I know but I haven't really got time to blog. I've been knitting a lot."

"But your blogging's better than your knitting."

I don't know if I should take Adam's last comment as kind praise of my writing or harsh abuse of my knitting but, either way, I can put it off no longer and what follows are selected highlights of our Japanese jaunt.

It was hot. Not only hot, but humid, the kind of air that puts my hair into a frizz and and that mosquitoes thrive on. Despite being dosed up on antihistamines, the inevitable happened: I was mercilessly bitten and the familiar yellow blisters sprang up with gusto.

Welcome back, friend

There was nothing to be done; it had to be another round of lancing, which, much like the fairy tales where only the princess's true love can awaken her from a hundred-year slumber with a kiss, only my heart's true love could put himself through alleviating my bite situation. But that didn't mean we couldn't have a little fun first.

Leg bite the first

By the time we arrived in Shirahama, a small beach town popular with the natives but little visited by tourists, my right foot, with a fresh, double attack, was in this shape:

We arrived in Shirahama as the main season was ending and the beach, which apparently sees long queues for entry in peak summer, was relatively empty. We headed down to the beach early as I was anxious to secure one of a few thatched umbrella shelters; the sun was fierce and strong, and shade was essential. Fortunately there was still one unoccupied and we laid out towels and books beneath and I dug a hole in the sand in which to hide my offensive foot.

Shirahama's short-lived beach umbrellas

The beach grew steadily busier as the morning wore on. A short while later I made my way along the sand to the bathrooms, sweating and frizzing in the oppressive heat. On the way back, trying not to look down at my foot, where the twin blisters were staring up at me like a pair of bulging yellow eyes, I saw with a sinking heart that four of the most astonishingly gorgeous Japanese girls, all clad in the wispiest hint of swimwear, were playing a lively and squealy game of volleyball not three yards from where Adam was sitting beneath the shelter, mouth agape and eyes on stalks. Great.

I ducked under the shelter, relieved to be back in the cool shade, and sat down heavily on my towel. I looked at the girls and huffed pointedly.

"Well," I said, "This is just great. Isn't it? Why are they standing right there? There's the whole beach! Adam?"

"Hmm?"

"I said, isn't this great?! They're right in our space!"

"I know..."

I shot him a black look.

"I mean, er....I know! Jeez! Ahem. How's the foot?"

We both regarded it.

"It's hideous!" I wailed. "I'm a monster. A sweaty, frizzy-haired monster, and now these four supermodels and their eight prominent breasts have to play a sexy game of volleyball right here! I couldn't feel more ogrely." I sulked.

"Ah come on baby, it's not that bad! Yes, they're gorgeous but..."

"But what?!!"

"But," he hurried on, "Nothing compared to you!"

"Hmph," I said, placated. "Well. They are quite pretty...but a bit shrieky. I suppose they're only young, probably 18 or..."

The volleyball bounced over and hit me in the face. It landed at Adam's feet and two of the lovelies skipped up to retrieve it.

"Sumasen! Sorry", they trilled, smiling shyly at Adam, whilst I scowled and touched my face gingerly, checking for bruises.

"No problem!" called Adam, tossing them the ball, with a saucy wink. They thanked him in their singsong voices and bounded off.

He stared after them for a moment, then glanced over to me.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?!"

I lay down and closed my eyes. It was cool beneath the umbrella and with the gentle sound of the rolling waves and the seagulls overhead I began to relax and enjoy the beach. I dozed for a while. Adam got up to go for a swim; I watched him disappear down the sand to the sea and then leaned against the trunk of the umbrella and settled down to read my book.

A few moments later a Japanese man appeared next to the umbrella and peered in. He said something in Japanese and looked at me expectantly. I returned his gaze blankly but then it occurred that he might want payment for use of the umbrella. I reached for my bag but when I looked back he'd gone. He returned a moment later, ducking under the umbrella and attaching a thick metal cable to its base. He disappeared yet again and I leaned out in confusion to see what was going on. That was when I saw the crane. Its engine roared and the ground beneath me began to shudder. The umbrella stand shook and sand spilled up around it, as it was hoiked abruptly out of the ground. I sat staring in disbelief but then had to hurry to grab all our belongings that were being scattered by the hastily unearthed umbrella.

In a matter of moments it had been hoisted out of the ground and dumped on the sand, leaving me exposed and unprotected in the intense midday sun. I looked around for some spare shade before I was burnt to a crisp but there was just the wide expanse of white sand. I saw that the umbrella next to ours was also lying on the ground but all of the others remained intact. The two men were now packing up beside me and wandered off, leaving the crane behind. I was utterly bewildered. And hot.

Adam came hurrying up the beach, clutching his sides and roaring with laughter. "What happened?!" he cried, looking down at the now defunct shelter.

"I don't know!" I said crossly, gathering up our things, "I just wanted a nice day at the beach, with some shade and a sea view but no! Four shrieking Venuses and a crane saw to that! I'm going back to the room, I'M GETTING SUNBURNT OUT HERE!" I stomped off up the beach, back towards the ryokan. Adam followed behind, laughing his head off, and picking up the things that were dropping from the heap of belongings I had scooped up and piled in my arms.

Back at the room, I put 100 yen into the coin-operated air conditioner and had a sleep. I woke up an hour or so later to see Adam holding a newly purchased beach umbrella. I gave him my sweetest smile and a kiss on the lips, and we went back to the beach and wiled away the afternoon on the sand, in peace.

For the past two weeks I have been thinking about what to write about Japan. There is simply too much! Perhaps I should start at the end and say that it was the most amazing trip I've ever had. It was hectic and exhausting and at times overwhelming but it was all part of the fun. At least, I can say that now, retrospectively. There were some points, standing in the baking heat with the sun pounding down after having walked solidly for four hours and insisting that we have to stop for lunch right now or I would die, that were hard work but every minute was amazing.

I arrived in Tokyo after an uneventful twelve-hour flight. My careful beforehand seat schemings were hopelessly in vain as I boarded the plane and saw in the seats next to mine the heart-sinking combination of, God help me, a wide-awake fidgety whiney three-year-old and his inattentive mother who already had her nose so far into a magazine that I couldn't see her face. I almost cried. Fortunately there were two empty seats in the row in front and as soon as the seatbelt signs had been turned off after takeoff I leaped into one, reasoning that although I now had a kid behind me at least he wasn't in my personal space and I didn't have to look at him.

Adam was waiting for me as I came out into Arrivals. It was so wonderful to see him after so long that I wanted to run and throw myself into his arms but of course I had a trolley with two suitcases, a coat, a handbag, and a bag of duty-free, not to mention there were five thousand other people with trolleys between the two of us so instead I inched my way forward until finally I reached him and we were reunited. It was heaven.

Tokyo station was incredible and terrifying. It was chaos with signs that pointed to different areas of the chaos. It was spread over several levels, each looking identical, and with hundreds upon hundreds of people rushing through. You could only go into certain parts of the station with the right ticket and if you had the wrong one you might not be able to get out. Fortunately by now Adam knew the station well enough to find our way around with relative ease and whilst he was buying and charging my electronic travel card I stood and gawped at the scene around me. I was in Japan. Japan!

The next two and a half weeks were to be the most exciting and awe-inspiring I have ever been lucky enough to spend in the company of a devilishly handsome and wonderful man and I'm not just saying that because he paid for everything and carried my suitcase around the entire time.

Next week on Paradise Deutsch: where we went, what we saw, what we ate, who got bitten (any guesses?), who got headbutted, who got burnt, and how many rows we had. With pictures!

I'm packing. I've been packing for four days.

The excitement surrounding my two-and-a-half-week trip to Japan has been quickly building over the past few days, aided greatly by the pictures of the ryokan inns we will be staying in and images of great sweeping beaches of white sand, upon which we shall be relaxing and sweating in equal measure.

After I suggested that perhaps Adam's original itinerary, which took in every city in Japan, stopping for a maximum of four hours in each, and includes a visit to his host family, be revised slightly to accommodate those of us in the party who are likely to deliquesce in the heat and whose pace will deteriorate to an exhausted shuffle, I have been receiving email updates on the amendments of the schedule, of which the following is the latest:


"Hi Soph, had a reply from the host family, saying that on the first Saturday you're here they're free - although the mother isn't, only the dad and the kids. And they don't say whether we should stay the night or not. What do you think?

This the plan so far:

Visit host family on the 29th.
Head to Kyoto on 30th.
Nara on 2nd.
Temple place on 3rd.
Shirahama 4th - 6th.
Then Hiroshima.
Then back to Tokyo on 8th.

Things we could change:

1) Go to host family a day later to see the mother too. This means an extra day in Tokyo at start. We could then either lose a Tokyo day at the end, cut out the temple place, or cut out Hiroshima.

2) Cut out the temple place and have an extra day at the beach.

3) Not go to Hiroshima. This gives us an extra beach day and one extra day in Tokyo to visit Nikko (mountain temples, lake, waterfall) or Hakone (hot springs, Onsen, lake).

4) See host family at end instead and shift schedule back by three and a half days, not counting the beach day, and gain a day and a night extra over the second weekend, depending on whether or not we go to Hiroshima.

Thoughts?"

Thoughts? I have no brain left. I don't know where or what Temple place is. In the end I said he clearly knows best when it comes to these things and I'll happily go anywhere as long as he doesn't try to show me the spreadsheet, which has no fewer than 17 columns.

Adam has requested that I take with me to Japan several items of English culture that will form gifts for the friends from his lab and I was issued with the following list, the majority of which, please note, are not easily and cheaply available in Germany:

Bottle of Musty Ferret real ale
Marmite (in a glass jar, not the squeezy type)
Tin of shortbread
Chocolate orange
Bottle of whiskey in a nice box
T-shirt

T-shirt? What size? For whom? Germans do not eat Marmite, shortbread, or chocolate oranges, and they do not drink real ale. However, they do drink whiskey and wear T-shirts, so I was able to obtain these items easily enough (the latter of which, it transpired, is for Adam -it appears he was so ill-packed that, despite having miraculously struggled through the past three months without one, he now desperately needs me to go buy a T-shirt, in a light colour with a V-neck and no writing on the front, and fly it 6000 miles to Tokyo, where he will leave it three weeks hence. And since I'm going shopping anyway could I get sunglasses and a camera case too please).

The other items were assembled through a combination of the outrageously expensive English shop in Heidelberg (7 euros for a chocolate orange? No thanks) and a short trip to the Homeland last weekend. There are going to be some serious foodmiles on that jar of Marmite.

Total carbon footprint? Best not to think about it.

I hate flying. Or more, accurately, I hate every single passenger on the plane when I'm flying. It is for this reason that I spent 40 minutes choosing my seat, wishing to minimise the number of people within earshot and trying to decide if I would be more inconvenienced in terms of toilet access sitting by the window or in the aisle. By the window I am at the mercy of the fellow occupants of my row, which is indeed annoying and inconvenient when I wish to get out. On the other hand, I don't want to be disturbed by their wishing to get out either, and there will be two of them and thus double the likelihood of occurrence, and to spend most of the flight with someone's crotch or buttocks inching past my face. I chose window.

I have not seen Adam in three dimensions for 76 days. There are three left to go.

Last week brought with it the milestone birthday of the quarter century. This was my fourth German birthday and fortunately the only one I have passed at work. A stark lack of holidays and flight money owing to August's upcoming venture to Japan mean that presently I am confined to the Deutschland.

I awoke early to open my cards and presents in the company of Adam, by virtue of miraculous modern technology. He was sitting in his room in Tokyo at 2 pm, I in my pyjamas at 7 am in Germany, connected by webcams and Skype.

I'd had several presents from Adam and mother piled up on the desk in the spare room for a month. Various others had been arriving in the post during the week and it was finally time for the opening ceremony. Unfortunately for Adam, who had but a lunch hour in which to bear witness to the great unwrap, I like to take my time over the cards and gifts and enjoy each to the full - it's only one day a year after all. What it isn't, as Adam revealed in a burst of impatience when it became just too much to stand, is a spectator sport.

"Ok Ad, I think I'll open this card next! I wonder who it's from, let's open it and find out.....ooh this one's from Grandma! It's got a picture of a teddy holding a balloon on the front and it says "Happy Birthday Granddaughter". Can you see? Let me get closer to the camera, hold on. Can you see that? Wait a sec, I'll zoom in."

"Just hurry up."

"And inside it says "Happy birthday, love from Grandma and Grandad." That's nice, isn't it? There's a lovely verse too, shall I read it out?"

"No."

"Ok, next. I think this present is also from Grandma, I can tell from the wrapping. Look how well it's wrapped! Can you see that on your end, is the sellotaping coming through on the webcam?"

"Dear God, please get on with it."

"I need a pair of scissors."

"Soph..."

"Right, here we go, let's see what's inside! Ooh, it's more wrapping paper! Isn't it well wrapped?! Let me show you...."

"Just open it!"

"Here we go, nearly there....it's a scarf! Oh it's lovely, what do you think?"

Thus I went on until all of the cards were opened, read aloud, and positioned on the mantelpiece, and the presents were each unwrapped, gushed over, and neatly stacked on the table.

Let's take a closer look at the state-of-the-art Comfort Summit hiking socks (which I suspect were generously re-wrapped and gifted to me when the giver discovered they were five sizes too small for him).

I'd have previously doubted that the design and functionality of the humble sock could be improved upon but note how much technology has been knitted into this garment: a warmth and cushion rating of four, no less, and constructed not from wool but from heavyweight coolmax wool fusion. The Comfort Summit socks also feature "a soft, slack-knit cuff, a warm, full terry leg, and double density pads underfoot". These are serious socks.

The back of the packet notes that they were previously called "Ascent" but this name must not have been getting the comfort level of this footwear across; also, hikers of a more literal mind may have assumed that these are monodirectional socks and are not suitable for descent. There is no such ambiguity with the newly branded Comfort Summit.

Now all I need is a mountain to climb.

I would just like to say that I do have several very credible excuses for not blogging these past four months but rather than bore you with trivial detail I shall instead update Paradise Deutsch.

So to begin: is four months sufficient a period to master the cello? Alas no. Is it sufficient to discover that your cello teacher is actually an arrogant egotistical mad pervy bastard with short-man syndrome? Indeed yes.

Unfortunately, following my last post things immediately went sour. He took great delight in mixing up anatomical terms when directing me where to hold the instrument. "Oops, did I say breasts? I meant of course chest, it's my English you know." Sure.

Clearly I am far from being an expert on methods of teaching music but there was a lot more walking around the room, "connecting with the music", touching the piano, and imagining the bow as part of my arm than actually playing the cello.

I already regretted signing the six-month contract as it turned out to contain all manner of sneakiness, the main point of which was that he took money from my account and may or may not feel like "teaching". Several times I arrived at my lesson on time only to find him still with another student and I had to wait almost an hour to begin. It was at this point that I knew I should have listened to Erin, who had said "He's a bastard!" almost immediately after meeting him.

In the meantime, however, Erin and I found a new cello teacher. We went to her house in the sticks for a free trial lesson and I learnt more with her in twenty minutes than three months with Niko, despite it being entirely auf Deustch. I could play a song! I walked out with a light heart -even the cello felt less cumbersome - and was so thrilled to have discovered what it feels like to actually play an instrument and not just absorb the essence of the music and breathe in the spirit of the cello that we missed the last bus and the last train home and had to be rescued in the dark and the rain by Denis, who had doubts about the ability to fit two girls and two cellos in his pimped-out Golf and was right.

The only question was how to cunningly extract myself from the remaining three months of my contract with the prima donna. I had made up my mind to complain that in all the lessons I'd had essentially I could still only bow the open string. As it turned out I needn't have worried as when I arrived at my next lesson he was angry with me, for not going to his concert the night previous. He demanded to know what I'd been doing instead. A row ensued and the contract was cancelled. A perfect result.

Thus is the current cello situation.

I have a great many other events of recent months to relate, most notably the departure of my beloved Adam to Tokyo. We are no strangers to the long distance but a 79-day separation is a new test. However, this has allowed for the occasion of my going to Japan for three weeks at the end of the summer, which is sure to be an adventure, the like of which will keep Paradise Deutsch going until Christmas.

Sundry other news items include two new additions to my ever-growing family in the form of babies: one human, a new sibling courtesy of my father and stepmother, due end of September, and one canine, a Norwegian elkhound puppy by the name of Kizzy, belonging to mother and sister; Brid's wedding in Galway, where I spent most of the day trying not to bawl my head off at how beautiful she looked and how much she and Fred clearly adore each other; a much anticipated trip to the Hay Festival, which included a resistant sister as a last-minute addition, and one fabulous evening in Manchester that was as close to going back in time as I am likely to get, as despite already living in the future there is still no commercial time travel available at a reasonable price.

I hope to expand further on the above instances of interest in future posts but forgive me if I become neglectful once again - it really is remarkable how much of my time is taken up just by working, sleeping, thinking about practising the cello, and worrying about going to the dentist.

My new baby

My new baby's disturbingly penguin-esque case

Friday night's musical beginnings were a satisfying if slightly delayed success. It was cold and snowing when I arrived at the practice room a few minutes early and the cello teacher, Niko, whose name I type with crossed fingers that he isn't in the habit of Googling himself, told me that they were a few minutes behind schedule and he hoped I wouldn't mind waiting.

Niko's wife was at the piano and another student cellist accompanied her (on the cello that is, not the piano). As previously noted, the practice room itself is rather bare (when I have established myself in a few lessons' time I'll get a photo), and I found myself perched on a cushion on the floor, alongside a lady named Tanja whom had finished her own lesson and was staying on for the social scene.

There were thus five of us crowded into the tiny room; Tanja and I drank some of the Japanese tea and listened to the piano and cello music, and Niko shouted words of German encouragement amid much emphatic gesturing.

Eventually, when the few minutes had ballooned into more than an hour, I unpacked my own cello and handed it to Niko for approval. He ran the bow over it. His face took on a look of horror and he cried out "Oh no no! This instrument has had already a great adventure, yes?!"

It was apparently horribly out of tune. He sat opposite me on one of the room's two stools, I upgraded to the other, and spent the following ten minutes turning the fine-tune pegs by minute amounts scarcely visible to my keenly watchful eyes.

"We have a saying in German: 'Somebody already died tuning a cello'."

He handed it back to me and took up his own instrument. He drew the bow across the strings and a low, resonating sound filled the room.

"The cello is tuned in fifths," he said. "Fifths are perfect! Fifths are pure! You know what is a fifth?"

I shook my head.

"Ok, let me put it this way. If it was tuned in thirds, it could be like this."

He grinned hugely, the corners of his mouth reaching up past his ears, and screwed his eyes up tight. He bowed the G string, giving a long, drawn-out note.

"It could have a very smiley sound, like that! Or," he said, in an instant melancholy, with his bottom lip stuck out, "It could have a very sad sound........"

He bowed the G string again, giving out, to my ears, an identical long, drawn-out note.

He looked up. "Still a third."

Most of the remaining lesson was spent with me bowing the open G string whilst he played along with wonderful, effortless music. Though all I was doing was drawing my bow back and forth across the G string and trying to remember to relax my wrist and my shoulder and to move my body in the opposite direction to the bow, it felt rather good to have some small part in creating beautiful sounds in a tiny room in Heidelberg whilst the snow fell outside.

He talked whilst he played, imparting insightful advice and telling me of his student days, at the same time reminding me to relax and move ("don't forget your body").

He told me that he had been taught to play by a very severe cellist. "I think it was because he had a bad childhood. The kind with only bread and water. And punishment."

He also said, as my bow slipped off the end of the string with a horrible clang that grated the nerves, "You should know, noise is the brother of great sound."

Just before nine I packed up and headed out into the snow, trying to avoid banging the neck of the cello case on the roof as I boarded the tram.

I think I shall like learning to play but the trek up to Heidelberg every week carrying one and half thousand euros of cello with me is an inconvenience I would have preferred to be without.

Champagne, Subway, and a String Quartet

...but not necessarily in that order. During my weeks absent from Paradise Deutsch I have been attending my German language class twice a week, sitting in a class of immigrants whose common language is the mime and feeling right at home as one of them.

I have also taken up the cello. I am not, nor have I ever been, musically inclined but I suddenly took it upon myself to learn an instrument, of which the cello has always held a sophisticated, elegant attraction. Within an hour of taking the notion I had secured private tuition with a cellist in Heidelberg and the following Saturday I took the train to a small town outside Heidelberg to visit a cello maker, whereupon I hired a cello, including all the necessary accessories, for the very reasonable monthly price of €30.

This is what the inside of a cello-maker's house looks like

The cello teacher, who is German and has a Japanese wife who plays the piano, is not as severe or bald as his photograph on the website would have you believe. I went to meet him before deciding whether or not to sign up to his course of lessons (though to be honest, the choice of English-speaking cello teachers in the Rhein Neckar delta is not vast). He has a small practice room a few minutes' walk from the main sqaure in Heidelberg. The room has bare walls and contains only two stools, a kettle, and a grand piano.

After introductions and explanations as to why I wished to learn the cello in particular, he asked if I wanted to hear him play. The music that he effortlessly picked out almost broke my heart with its grace and beauty. I took a gulp of the lukewarm Japanese tea I'd been given by his wife and swallowed a jaffa cake so as not to burst into huge sobs of grief and longing - for quite what I'm not sure.

He handed me the cello. "Now you try". He showed me the correct way to hold the instrument.

"Hug him! Hold him like you give him a cuddle, yes?!"

I hugged the cello.

"Right, now you are holding him the right way. Now move the bow from left to right. Move it gently."

The sound that issued forth was somewhere between a foghorn and a choked cat. But it felt good. He was full of flamboyant gestures and big grins and wandered around the tiny room waving his arms and waxing poetic about the beauty of the cello.

I asked, somewhat doubtfully, if he would be teaching from a book.

"A book, ha! I am the book! We don't need a book. I could have written ten books if I had wanted!"

My lessons are to be once a week, beginning tomorrow evening.

To return to the title of this post, Thursday evening brought the lovely Adam over from England; we passed an idyllic weekend (with only one cross word exchanged when he hung his wet towel to dry on my cello) that left me feeling blissfully happy that I am so lucky to be able to spend an idyllic weekend with the man I love, and yet miserably depressed because I wish every weekend were like that rather than the reality of spending most of them in my pyjamas eating dry cereal from the box and listening to Radio 4 on the internet.

Saturday was Valentine's Day and in a infinite improvement upon last year's, we began the evening with dinner and champagne and then went to see a string quartet play in the town hall. We were the youngest people there by forty years. Nevertheless, the music was wonderful and afterwards we walked out into the snow feeling both very uplifted and very hungry.

This is when we stopped into Subway to share a 30-cm chicken-with-everything sandwich, bringing our sophisticated, classy evening down a notch but it tasted pretty good.