My annual MOT

MOT - that's what we call the test we give our cars every year in England once they start to get older. It just stands for "Ministry of Transport" - I think. The Ministry of Transport Test.Of course it's ages since we had anything as simple as a "Ministry of Transport", now it's all much bigger and sophisticated and called something like the "Department of the Environment, Movement and Ethnic Rural Concerns". It even has a special section for ballet dancing subsidies. Well, it''s a kind of movement isn't it? Only joking of course ...

Anyway, today was my personal MOT. Us 'oldies' get a 'free' MOT once a year and it only costs 500 yen, I guess that's just to cover Mr. Koizumi's taxi fare across town to the Yasukuni Shrine eh? It's a 'high stress' time for me because it's all so Japanese and also in Japanese too of course. Doing anyhting about your health in a foreign language is stressful; in a situation where you are already not in charge a completely random set of added problems also appears. There are always four people in charge of everything, yes you DO have to take your slippers off to get your blood pressure checked. Also of course no matter how carefully you checked that form before there are always those secondary bits of paper - that appear just when Kodemari is behind the screen with the doctor - demanding to know if your mother's brother had chickenpox before he was six.

Today as I'm being treated for diebetes I got the 'cut down' test which involved missing some bits. For example I by-passed the dreaded weighing machine, for which you also take your slippers off. I guess that must have been a big saving for someone, not noting that I currently weigh 58 kilos. Or something around there ... ho hmm