Pruneboy

Back from the onsen trip. It was good. Onsening is always exhausting, but at the same time, relaxing. Gunma is wild. We saw monkeys sitting by the side of the road. Never seen wild monkeys before. Ate fugu for the first time (i think) and have lived to tell the tale (i think.)

Made a couple of hundred pages of progress on the first Orwell book. The last thing i read on the train was his diary / notes for the road to wigan pier. The parts about going down the coal pits are intense. The thought of walking for two miles or more, in tunnels that aren't even tall enough to stand in. Makes my head spin. Hard to imagine.

This was all written during the mid 1930's. Around that time, and during the war, my grandfather was working as a mine rescue worker. When a tunnel would collapse he would be sent down the shaft to dig out the survivors. Thinking about it, it's amazing that he lived to tell the tale. It would have been good to have asked him what it was like. He died while i was still living in london, over ten years ago.