With the onset of spring, I finally took action and planted seeds in the hope of bringing more, longer-lasting flowers into the Aussie garden we call Kangaeroo Corner. I planted some banksia, grevillea and eucalypts, using a variety of different methods. I put seeds into growth pods in three types of planter box. Two of these were to be lit 24 hours, and the other left to get light when it could. Two were also soaked in water, and the third wettened, but essentially to remain dry. The seeds are supposed to sprout anywhere from one to three weeks from…
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After months of being covered up to ward off the cold, I spent the morning removing the insulating materials draped over our jacaranda tree, unleashing the tree beneath the bright spring sunshine in the hope that we will get a full blooming tree by the early summer. It was good to crack open the tree again after months of a huge bag dominating the garden and being an eysore for the neighborhood. In theory, covering the tree in insulation material over the winter will make it more likely to bloom in the summer. Our jacaranda bloomed in the first year…
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Spring in Tokyo is always a delight for me, particularly as I age and the cold makes it harder to get active and the winter seems to linger endlessly, but sometimes it’s hard to see the silver lining in the clouds and today is a case in point. I’ve got meetings all day today, so I got up early to head off on a quick ride to give myself some spark, but it was pouring rain. With my wet weather bike with disc brakes and thicker tires stolen, I don’t have an option to ride on days like today. So,…
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Kylie Minogue dazzled Tokyo on March 12 on a whirlwind trip as part of her global Tension Tour 2025. The evergreen Aussie singer thrilled the packed Ariake Arena in her first show in Japan for 14 years. She clearly enjoyed being around the Japanese crowd and thanked them for the huge support they gave her career by backing such hits as Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, I Should be So Lucky, The Loco-Motion and Turn It Into Love, a Japanese version of which reached No. 1 in Japan in 1988 when performed by Wink. Kylie is gorgeous, both…
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Having lived in Japan for decades, it’s suddenly strange to see the country become what seems to be the global flavor the month, particularly when it comes to the phenomenal interest in akiya, one of the millions of empty homes throughout the country. All of the photos in this post are of akiya on sale for less than 1 million yen, which is about A$10,000 at the time of writing, picked up off a site at random. Akiya has become a well-known word globally as people have become attracted by the prospect of owning real estate for a fraction of…
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As the tiny yellow blossoms slowly starting to open on the wattle trees in our garden are showing, spring is gradually inching closer to realization, but it can never happen fast enough. Cold seems to linger for an inordinately long time at the end of every winter, especially as I advance further into old age and the chill’s effects deepen. But that’s usually because I expect too much of March, having the false impression of it being a month where things warm up despite decades of experience proving that to be the contrary. One highlight of March for me, though,…
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For me, riding a Brompton bike is about more than mere cycling. I didn’t realize it when I first picked up one of the prestigious folding bikes a bit over a decade ago. At the time, I just wanted a fold-up bike that wouldn’t break after a few rides as other collapsable cycles I had purchased seemed prone to doing. What I didn’t know was that bikes need care and maintenance. I know, dumb, but that was what I thought. Having spent most of my time until then on ultra-durable mama-chari that are virtually unbreakable, I believed all bicycles were…
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Cold weather in the early spring is always a reminder of getting old, and few places send the message to me louder than my mouth and feet. Oral problems have plagued me for years and persist in doing so now. And it is apparently the start of effects from my ‘Don Martin feet’–long and flat and apparently bent along the way but without an arch in a manner famously depicted by the MAD magazine artist. ‘You’ve got to adapt to being old,’ was the less-than-pleasing message the podiatrist had for me last weekend. If I’ve gotta have aches and pains,…
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Despite a short work week, life was busy and the cycling gods dealt another blow that made it hard to stay on the bike. After riding more than 30,000 kilometers in 2021, the fates have combined to drastically curtail my riding as I’ve been affected by work, play, family, health, commitments and theft have intervened. This week, I worked on site every day and left my PC in the office, which enabled me to commute by bicycle two days in a row. By the time I went to a colleague’s band play on Friday night at the Ruby Room in…
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Someone stole my Astuto bike and I’m feeling pretty lousy about it. The bike was special because a lot of people showed me kindness and generousity so I could build it up from scratch. I should have kept her inside the house, but we simply don’t have the room. I thought she was covered by insurance, too, but it turns out not to be the case because the bike was not taken from inside the home. Apart from the benevolence I received, the bike also promised to help me rejoin the cycling community. I was once an avid and highly…