When I saw the announcement of an essay contest in my English-langage newspaper one autumn morning, I decided to have a go. It didn't need much deep thought - I simply told the story of our activities out in the country during our summer stay at the home of my childrens' Japanese grandparents.

As is normal with such activities, after sending in my submission, I didn't give it much further attention. But ... here we are ... I won! And it turned out to have a huge impact of our life that year. It was still early days in trying to make a living as a printmaker, and the income was nowhere near enough to cover our expenses. (I had been forced to close our at-home English school in order to properly care for my daughters after their mother had left us the year before ...) The prize money - a very cool million yen - fed us for many months to come!