Thursday, June 30, 2022

6月30日(木曜日)2022

    久々の早朝散歩。日の出の前にと思っていたのが起きた時はすでに太陽が山から出てきていたので大慌てで水をガブ飲みし日焼け止めクリームつけ、カメラ、小銭、タオル、帽子、サングラスを持って玄関を飛び出しました。

    日が出た後とはいえ、空気はまだ冷たく爽やかそのもの。気分よく多賀大社の参拝を済ませいつもの散歩コースへ。今日はロングコースで気まぐれ市まで足を伸ばしました。太陽が昇るに連れて気温が上昇しているのが肌で分かり1時間ほどの早足歩きで帰り着いた時は汗びっしょり。

    シャワー浴びて、気まぐれ市で買ったトマトのサラダ、それに麹ヨーグルトで簡単な朝ごはん。1日が順調にスタートしました。

    7月3日(日)はイザナミランチをご用意します。
ご予約 (0749−48−0186)お待ちしています。 多賀あさひや
 

  イザナミランチ(+お汁)1373円
  イザナミランチ(+お汁)+コーヒー 1700円
  イザナミランチ(+お汁)+コーヒー+もち粉ケーキ 1800円
  お持ち帰り(汁なし) 1000円
  白玉クリームあんみつ 750円

    I took an early morning walk after a long time. I wanted to do so before sunrise but when I woke up, the sun already had come up from the mountain, so I quickly drank a glass of water, put sunblock lotion on my face and arms, took a camera, towel, hat, sunglasses and some change in my pocket and got out of my house.

    Even after sunrise, the air was still cool and fresh. I finished greeting at Taga Taisha (shrine) and started walking my course. I took a long course to Kimagure Market. The more the sun rose, the more the temperature of the air rose. When I got home after one hour of quick walking, I was all sweaty .I took a shouwer and ate a light breakfast with fresh tomatoes which I got at Kimagure Market. In this way, my day started .

    This coming Sunday, July 3rd, I will serve Izanami Lunch at the cafe. Please make a reservation ( 0749-48-0186).












6月26日(日曜日)2022

    ランチの予約をいただいたので前日から仕込みにかかり準備万端整えてお客様を待っていましたが、時間を過ぎてもいらっしゃらず1時間ぐらい待機。それでもお客様の気配がないので電話してみることに。その前に手帳を見て「あっ!」、何と予約は次の日。完全なる勘違い。困ったのは作ってしまった食事。数人分を破棄するのはいくら何でも勿体無いので思い浮かんだある方に電話すると、快くお弁当として引き取って下さることに。ほっとしました。

    それから閉店後、足りなくなった食材を買いに彦根まで。自転車上ではマスクなしで店に入る時にカバンに入れておいたマスクを取り出すと、新品なのにマスクの片方のヒモが切れてかけられず。売物マスクは店にあるけれど複数入ったもので家に帰ればいくらもあるので購入を躊躇し、手でマスクを抑えて買い物を済ませ何とかレジへ。けれど財布を開けてカードや現金を出すのは片手では無理、マスクの片方が耳に掛かって、ダラリと下に切れたヒモと一緒に垂れ下がっているというみっともない姿。いつもの店ですが、我が身の図々しさでこの場を突破。食品をレジ袋に入れる作業も片手では無理。日頃マスクなんてあまり意味ないと思っていても、店内は全ての人がマスクをつけているので流石にこのような場面ではバツが悪かったです。

    今日はまたしても失敗がダブルになり教訓も2つ。スケジュールはよく見ること。マスクは2つ以上バッグに入れておくこと。家に帰って翌日の食事の仕込み。何だか疲れる1日でした。

    I had a lunch reservation yesterday, so I prepared from the day before and waited for the guests to come, but they didn't show up at the expected time and I was waiting for them for an hour. Since no guests appeared even after an hour, I wondered why they didn't show up and just took a look at my schedule notebook, then I said "Oh!" unintentionally. I realized that the real appointment day was the next day. It was completely my mistake. The problem was the lunch which I already prepared. I called a lady whom I have known since I opened my cafe, and asked if she wanted to get the food as box lunches. She kindly accepted my offer. I thanked her very much.

    After closing the cafe, I went to Hikone to get some meat and vegetables to prepare for the next lunch. I didn't cover my face on the way to the supermarket, then at the supermarket when I was about to put on my mask, I was in trouble. One of the strings of my mask was cut and it was the only mask in my bag. I knew I could buy a new one in the supermarket, but I hesitated to do so because I have plenty of new masks at home, so I put my hand on the mask so it wouldn't fall and finished collecting groceries and headed to register.

    I found that I was not able to take my money and card out with one hand. While I was paying the money, my mask was hanging down from my right ear and another string was also hanging down. It must have been funny to look at me from another person. Basically I don't like to put my mask on, but in this situation all people except me were putting masks on and I was embarrassed indeed.

    After all, it was an unlucky day for me and I got two lessons through my experiences. #1, I should look at my daily schedule carefully. #2, I should put more than two masks in my bag just in case. When I got home, I prepared lunch for the guests as scheduled. It was a tiring day.


Sunday, June 19, 2022

6月16日(木曜日)2022 

    多賀中学校の体育祭を午前中覗かせてもらってきました。昔から変わらないのは挨拶の後のラジオ体操だけで他はコロナ禍ということもあってか半世紀以上前の私の頃とはすっかり様変わりしていました。

    まずスピーカーから聞こえるのは今風のラップ調の音楽。ブラスバンドの力強く軽快な音楽ではありませんでした。学年を通して赤と青の団対抗になっていて、最初は「8の字跳び」。何だろうと思っていたら、赤青の2チームが生徒達二人が回す大縄を順番に跳んでいくというものです。これが回す縄の回転が速いのなんのって。それを隙間なく一人ひとり、あるいは2人、3人一緒の時もあったりで2分間次々に跳んでは回ってまた順に跳んでいきます。体育の時間に練習をしているのでしょうが、あまりに上手に皆んなが跳んでいくのにびっくりしました。集中力とチームワーク。1年生、2年生、3年生と体格が大きくなっていきますが、上級生になるほど男女皆んな上手になっていました。初めて見たゲームでしたが面白かったです。

    続いてはリレー。昔は学級で足が速い人が選ばれてリレーに出ていましたが、ここでは全員参加。男子と女子が同時に走るのは体力的に差があり気の毒に思いましたが。速い生徒の走り方は見ていて気持ちがいいもの。ただ、スタート時に先生が「On Your Mark」「Get Set」などと英語で指示をしていたのが気になりました。生徒は気分がいいのかな?国際試合ではないのだから「位置について」「用意!」と言えばいいのに…とここでも日本語が失われていく寂しさを感じました。とは言え全体を仕切っていた女性のベテラン先生の歯切れの良い進行で生徒も先生たちも力を合わせて動いていました。

    I went to see the Sports Festival in Taga Junior High School in the morning. It has been continuing since decades ago, but only Radio Calisthenics after morning greetings by a school principal was the same from when I was a student, but other parts were totally different from the age more than 50 years ago.  

    First of all, the music from the speakers was new, some kind of rap-ish music compared to brass band music which was popular in my age. Second, there was team competition divided into red and blue teams instead of individual competition. The first program was "Jumping in one rope with a group one after another". It was so fast to turn the rope and students came, jumped and got out without any interval. Some students came in two or even three together without getting caught in the rope. It was just amazing! Students were required to concentrate and work as a team. One senior students' group finished with only one miss in the two minutes of jumping!

    The next program was relay. When I was a middle school student, we selected our classmates for the relay who were good at short distance running, but the relay I saw was different. All students participated in the relay. It was a mixed race, so sometimes girls and boys ran together which I felt was unfair. It was probably because the school needed to save the time to run the Sports festival. Anyhow, the running form of the faster students was so beautiful and I enjoyed watching them. At the start, the teacher said to the students "On your mark" and " Get set" in English which was a bit surprising because we have Japanese phrases meaning the same and we had been following them in my school days. It was not an international competition and I felt sorry to have to replace those Japanese words with English.

    Senior physical teacher was giving clear instruction to students and other teachers and the Sports Festival was well organized. I enjoyed it very much.



Tuesday, June 7, 2022

6月6日(月曜日)2022

    爽やかな6月の風が通り抜ける昼下がり、能楽師・一噌流笛奏者の一噌幸弘氏による笛の演奏会が行われました。2年振りに多賀あさひやにお迎えする一噌さん、縦、横、和、洋、長、短、数えきれない種類の笛を並べて演奏が始まりました。頭の中は笛のことばかり、どこまでも笛の可能性を追求し続ける一噌さん。その演奏は伝統的な能楽古典から田楽、日本民謡、洋楽はバッハにまで、様々な笛を使いわけての精力的なもの。能楽では強く吹くことが基本だそうですが、あまりに激しい吹き込みで見ている者が酸欠になりそうでした。また数カ所しか穴が空いていないシンプルな日本の楽器で#や♭の複雑な洋楽のメロディがどうやって吹けるのか、魔法のような指さばき、複数の笛を一緒に演奏する超絶技法の披露もありました。

    実は数ヶ月前に裏小屋二階の箪笥の中に眠っていた古尺八を発見。一噌さんに見せたら驚いたように喜んで「地無し延竹」の貴重な尺八だと教えてくださり早速演奏もしてくださいました。先祖が吹いていたであろう我家の尺八が天才的な笛奏者に息を吹き込んでもらって柔らかな深い音色を出した時の感激は忘れられません。

    Fresh June wind was blowing through in the afternoon, and the Japanese flute concert by Yukihiro Isso was held at Taga Asahiya. We had this event after two years break. At the start of the concert, he put so many flutes (vertical, cross, Japanese, Western, long and short ones) in a row. He seems that he is always thinking about flute and continuing to explore different possibilities of sound with his flute. His performance started from traditional Noh music, Japanese folk music to Bach (Western music) using many kinds of flutes. All of his music were so powerful. According to Mr. Isso, you need to blow flute so hard in Noh music and he was doing so. Looking at his powerful performance, I felt as if I was about to run out of oxygen. I wonder how he plays such a complicated music which has many # and ♭ with a Japanese flute which is a simple instrument having only a few holes. He showed stunning finger movement and transcendental skill with several flutes at the same time.

    A couple months ago, I found an old vertical bamboo flute in a drawer of an old chest in upstairs of the storage house back side of the house. When I showed it to Mr. Isso, he was surprised and excited at it saying that it is "Jinashi Nobetake" and very valuable old bamboo flute. Then he played it. It was a deep and soft sound and I felt so good to hear the old bamboo flute which must have been played by my ancestor in Edo period. I was excited to hear the sound of playing by a genius flute player, Mr. Isso.








Thursday, June 2, 2022

6月1日(水曜日)2022 

 「一噌幸弘、笛の世界」が今週の土曜日に迫り、楽しみにしてくださっている方も多いと思います。一噌さんの笛の音の響きは鋭く深淵な一方で優しく温かいものがあり、ジャンルも和に止まらず洋にまで広げて素晴らしい技法で聴かせてくださいます。 

 お出でくださる客様に、もう一つお楽しみが増えました。多賀大社名誉宮司の中野幸彦氏は能面作家でもあり素晴らしい作品を数々残していらっしゃいます。6月4日は多賀あさひやの会場に中野宮司の作品を数点展示してご来場の皆様に鑑賞していただきたいと思っています。能面は作者によってはもちろんですが、わずかの角度や光の当て方によっても驚くほどその表情が変わります。私は能舞台でシテが面を着けて舞っている姿を数回と写真でしか能面を見たことがなく、今回間近で中野さんの作品を拝見してその迫力と表情に驚きました。写真を何枚か撮りましたが、実物に勝るものはありません。

    Flute concert by Yukihiro Isso will be held this Saturday and I guess many people are looking forward to coming to the concert. Isso's flute playing is deep and sharp and on the other hand gentle and warm. He will play not only Japanese traditional music but also western music with amazing technique.

    I would like to add one more pleasurable thing for the audience. Mr. Yukihiko Nakano is the honorary chief priest of Taga Taisha Shrine and he is also Noh mask creator and has already created many wonderful masks. We will display some of his works on the day of the concert so people appreciate them. The expression of the noh masks will change not only by the creator but also the angle of the mask and lighting. I saw noh actors putting on masks on stage, and I also saw several photos of noh masks but I haven't seen real ones closely before. I was overwhelmed by the powerful expression of Nakano's works. I took several photos of these but the real masks are more powerful. 








5月31日(火曜日)2022

 5月の最終日。朝は雨で屋根が濡れていたため二階の窓拭きはやめましたが、お昼前には晴れて気持ちの良いお天気になりました。

    さて、ドクダミがあちこちで勢いよく生えて白い花をつけています。実は白いところは花ではなく萼(がく)で真ん中の黄色いところが花だとか。今回は白い部分だけを摘んで、虫除けチンキを作ってみました。数年前に友人に教えてもらって以来かかせないものとなりました。あまりたくさん作っても使いきれないので瓶の1/3までアルコール35度の焼酎を入れました。3週間ほどで出来上がり。最初は透明で見た目にも爽やかなドクダミの瓶詰めも次第に色が茶色に変わります。

    明日から水無月。一噌さんの笛のイベントを間近に控えアレコレ準備に追われています。

    It is the last day of May. Since it was raining in the morning and everything was wet, I decided not to clean the windows of the upper stairs, but the rain stopped in the afternoon and turned into a fine day. 

     We can find white flowers of fish mint everywhere this season. As a matter of fact, the white part looks like a flower of the plant, but it is a calyx and the flower is a yellow one. A friend of mine let me know the way to make an insect repellent from the extract of fish mint. Since then I have been using it by spraying the tincture. The way of making it is very simple. First put in the flowers, which look so clean at first. Then gradually the color will turn to brown. June will start tomorrow. I am busy preparing for the Japanese flute event by Isso.