Kanako is going back to Japan tomorrow

we are making sure that we have exchanged as much vital information as possible. I have introduced her to oxtail and steak-and-kidney and she has discovered English sandwiches and jam rolypoly for herself. On Christmas day we did crown-wearing at dinner.

Yesterday we held a conference

have you had mince pies?

yes at least seven pieces they are very delicious

Christmas cake was missing from the list but luckily we found some that I hadn't eaten yet, we also covered bramble jelly, fried christmas pudding, sponge cake and marmalade.

We moved on to some Japanese essentials

1) Dried firefly squid tastes densely old fishy and gluey, the tentacles have a nice crunch but the wings and body have the texture of a plastic blister pack - this aspect is a bit sore on the mouth.

2) The Japanese winter sock routine involves four pairs of exquisite white socks, the silk and cotton socks with toes - footgloves - first put on the silk then the cotton. Then the silk foot mittens then the cotton foot mittens until you have a pair of very fat and warm feet.

This is the secret to being able to continue wearing little thin flattering easy-to-move-about-in clothes on the top of your body in winter.

3) The Japanese omelette is a delicious and beautiful thing. 

Put a fish-and-seaweed teabag in a cup, pour on a little hot water, add this infusion to eggs in a bowl and beat with chopsticks.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan (at this point my drawing skills fail)

Pour some of the fishy egg in the middle section of a pan, muddle it around until set then add a small pool of egg mix to one side, as this part sets the middle section can be rolled onto it then you can lay down another side section of egg and roll again, if you add seaweed at each part the omelette spiral becomes more evident and very beautiful. The end result is a fat egg sausage to be sliced up like a Swiss Roll