Night Duty

Seasons here in Japan do not roll gently into one another. Here in Japan, one does not have to tentatively remove their coat and warm wintery gloves, hats and scarves to let the spring's soft sunrays dance on their skin. One does not experience the swapping of jeans and cute little tops (a staple of Spring time back home) for even cuter sun dresses. Seasonal change in Japan is sudden. Seasonal change in Japan is abrupt and summer seems to already be here in Kagawa, bringing with it the onslaught of bugs, creepy crawlies, and all manner of things that make the life of an English girl living in rural Japan, somewhat more complicated...



One morning last week,I encountered my first unwanted visitor of the summer; an enormous Japanese cockroach, as gruesome, enormous and vile as I had anticipated, brazenly sitting on the kitchen wall of my apartment. A cockroach was one of the things that I had been fearing most about summer time in Japan. Japanese cockroaches are not only unusually big, but they can fly.Being unable to pluck up the courage to run past it,not only was I very late for work, but I ended up doing my hair and applying make up (in an attempt to eliminate the very white palor my face had assumed through the fear inducing events of the morning)in the toilet of the supermarket - a fine moment! My get-ridder-of-all-scary-things friend, Ciaran came over after work that day to remove the beast but alas, we couldn't find him. We optimistically decided that he had finished in my apartment, having moved on to explore another...

*PAUSE* jaunt to Tokyo, having such lovely times that all thoughts of cockroach intruders disappeared from my thoughts....

...until last night, when he returned to the very same spot on the kitchen wall. Still feeling exhausted from the night bus, I didn't pay much attention and was able to get some sleep (albeit, with all the lights in the house turned on in a desperate attempt to deter him). He is here again tonight. This time, my friend Daniel attempted to catch him whilst I stood outside on my balcony squealing. It was a fail for Daniel too; cockroaches are fast, and he half scuttled/half flew away to find another dark corner in which to lie in wait.

Daniel has gone. All of my friends here in Marugame are asleep in their lovely, cosy, cockroach-free abodes. I am on my own and my cockroach (he seems to be here to stay, so why not refer to him affectionately...) keeps tormenting me by crawling in and out of my room. I hate the way they move.
I have tried several times to poison him with my magic, get rid of cockroaches spray, but this one is a toughie and my failed attempts have left me feeling dizzy from the not so magic as I had anticipated poisonous spray fumes. I have thus resorted to night duty. I am so tired but cannot sleep knowing that he is here.

It is 3.30am. I am sitting here in my room, listening to the rain pouring down outside and wishing that I was brave enough to only close my eyes and fall asleep. Soon I will 'get up' and have breakfast, by which time, perhaps the cockroach will have finished his all night party in my kitchen.

Rural life is not for a girl like me. London, I miss you and your comparatively endearing house spiders.

xo