A brief update ... I've had a fantastically successful week of work in Japan. We've been working with our partners here developing and configuring a system for a refinery, and today we had a meeting with them and got very positive feedback, which was very rewarding. I'm totally loving being in Japan again! So much seems so familiar even after a long absence. I've posted photos of the trip so far online.

Danielle has been doing a sterling job at home with Charis being sick with high temperatures - a bug that's going around Cape Town... Loving and missing the three of them loads!

Tomorrow I go down to Nagoya for a few days to see old friends for the first time in three years. It's quite amazing to think about it! On Monday I have a business meeting in Nagoya, then return to Tokyo on Tuesday to catch my flight back via Singapore and Joburg to Cape Town.

Since our holiday it's been the flu season in Cape Town - swine flu, other flu, and serious pneumonia going around. We've all been sick in turns and James has spent quite a while off school - two weeks a few weeks ago, and then the first three days this week. He could have gone back earlier the first time but we didn't want to risk him getting a more serious infection. He's back to school today. Tomorrow is their dress-up-as-a-Letterland-character day which he's really excited about (yes, he's going to be Jumping Jim).

We had lots of fun celebrating Charis's birthday although she was sick around it. One of the highlights was that the International Space Station was flying directly over Cape Town just around sunset - Danielle and I spotted it the night before (when it came past a bit later) and then on the day we all went outside and saw this yellow "star" moving rapidly across the sky until it disappeared in the Earth's shadow. The next day I found out that the space shuttle came past 5 minutes later and that night they docked. It's fantastic thinking "there are people on that thing whizzing round way up there!"

I've put up some photos mostly from Joy's visit in June but also of us being silly - hopefully more will follow soon.