Bing, Bang, Boom

5th November 2005

We loaded up the big rental Vauxhaul estate, strapped little three year old Sean in and left Heathrow.

I had abandoned my crutches a few days before but hadn't yet had the operation to replace my cruciate ligament. (In fact, this wasn't to happen for another two years). I had been back and fro to Japan three times in three months to finalise the house clearance over there and settle matters back in London.

We drove down to the Kent coast on the way to my parents' in a corridor of fireworks. It was Bomb Fire Night and it felt like our return was being celebrated.

We never used to do fireworks like this when I was last living here but I would soon find out that a lot of things had changed in England over the last 15 years.

I had heard so much about Cool Britania, I had sensed the excitement and the optimism; I had been in London when it was announced that we (for now I was a Londoner) had won the Olympic bid. A few days later on the 7th of July, London suffered a series of terrorist bombings.

I had arrived at the brink of its downfall - Cool Britania was melting and was in a state of unstoppable collapse which would imminently be reflected in my own downfall.

Again.

I had arrived in a booming Japan just as the bubble had burst there and it seemed now as though I had brought the curse with me. Except we weren't to know this just yet. We wouldn't really know this until the credit crunch and the collapse of international finance a little under two years later.

I had rented us a modern two-bed apartment in North Finchley, north of anything in the London A to Z. There was a strong Japanese community here; a Japanese supermarket and Japanese kids in the schools. It had been so nice during the summer and I had been full to bursting with positive energy, but looking out over North London across to Alexandra Palace from our 11th floor balcony in November was not the same. Noriko had missed the summer and now it seemed all she had to look forward to was fog and damp and cold and uncertainty in a foreign and unwelcoming land.

Shit.

What had I done?

My so-called job was far from secure. I had managed to find a three-month consultative position with a Japanese company headquartered in Wales, in Cardiff. I had little idea about what it was Saburo wanted me to do let alone how I was supposed to do it. London living was twice as expensive as life in Japan. The rent for the apartment was astronomical for what it was and my consultation period came to an end in February 2006.

I was in an awful spiral, a frightening vortex that I managed to escape thanks to my sister Katie and a kick up the arse from Jacko. I had somehow managed to make contact with Jacko, an old friend I had known in Japan, after a considerable absence. I would phone Katie on my way to the new job I had found working nights in a financial publishing house, near London Bridge and Borough Market.

Noriko had gone into a deep depression and spent most of the days hibernating under her duvet. I felt totally at fault. I should never have come here; I should never have taken the fish out of its pond.

I had been worried that the dark and cold winters of England would be too much for me as they had proved to be before I had left to go to Japan.

It seemed that the winter of 1988 had come back to haunt me.