Language Exchange Alley

There is this lady, who cares even more than I do about the alley cats, I have forgot to ask her name. However, she is far from crazy cat lady, she knows lots of things, like a little bit of English eventhough she is most likely past 60. Today, we talked about flowers, I said that in Japan I prefered the Ume over Sakura, since Ume comes out when it is still cold. Then we started talking about other spring flowers, I said in Sweden I love Snow Drops, she was very fast at typing it into her mobile phone dictionary Snödroppar=待雪草 (matsuyukisou, maybe translatable into wating-snow-grass) だから、梅も好きと言っていました。And yes, it became kind of clear that I like the plum blossoms for the same reason I like the snowdrops, they symbolizes spring's victory over winter.

The Magnolia tree in our ally have lost its flowers' weeks ago, but I still learned that it is called hoonoki, but now ume,  hoonoki, and sakura have finished and it is the time of the Azalea, she pointed at the bush... I naively guessed rhodeodendoron, we looked it up, apparently Azalea is called Tsutsuji...but now when wiki'ing it at home, they seem very closely related to the the rhododendoron. And she seem very happy with the latin/greek explaination of rose-tree. 

My alley cat lady is a Fukushima child, and sang me parts of the fukushima song... something about the great smell of the tsutsuji (rhododendoron)... and what can you do but agree? Early summer in southern Sweden is the same - hälsobacken and Sofiero! And in the middle of Spring - Road work!?

And then finally a photo from last weekend, slighlty Adam-and-the-Ants-ified... or something.. cheap editor effects ... done on me iphone, not good.. but could have been good enough for a late 80s' CD cover... 

What is cooler than cool? Cheap iphone editors!