Flake News!

Tokyo, or at least the hillier Tama part of it, got dumped by a heavy snowfall on Friday, turning the place white.

Kangaeroo Corner’s trees, never keen on the cold, struggled with the heavy snow clogging their branches.

It did look good, to be fair dinkum.

But it was another source of worry for the worry wort writer.

Amazingly, just a day earlier, Kangaeroo was thrilled when hit by direct sunshine and felt the warmth of the sun, seemingly for the first time in months.

And the weekend is set for temperatures in the high teens.

Notable performances include some of the lights turning on despite being covered in snow.

And the Fountain of Strewth! Of course it kept working even as the water in the fountain was replaced by snow and ice.

Surprisingly, the Crop Circle created on Marsupial Meadow (when Kangaeroo used boiling water to deal with an ant hole) remained uncovered for a significant period before being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of falling flakes. Mysterious, indeed!

Cop A Gander At These Rippers Too...

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    Nobody else but me is gonna understand just how ironic this post is (provided it even makes it onto the site) as I type it out in an MS Word file rather than directly into the blog as I would usually do. With a couple of extra hours available to me this morning, I always had it in mind to write a post with the above title. What I hadn’t calculated was just how accurate that it would turn out to be. I was going to write about how 2024 has been nothing like how I had imagined it would unfold and that the devils laughs at those who make…

  • A Fern Native Action

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  • Love The Way You Lie

    Kangaeroo got a much better day than expected today, Japan’s National Foundation Day but not a holiday because it fell on a Saturday. Waking, Your Humble Narrator (to borrow a turn of phrase from Anthony Burgess) was greeted by a winter wonderland from the previous day’s snowfall. There would be no customary morning bike ride on this day. Instead, with great community spirit, Mrs. Kangaeroo suggested Kangaeroo get his morning exercise by shoveling the snow off the paths so none of our neighbors slipped and hurt themselves. So, it was out on the shovel and into the snow. And great fun it was, seeing the path re-emerge on the northern…

  • There’s Something Coincidental About Serendipity

    Serendipity has shaped my life much more than I would ever have expected. Two of the most fateful moments of my existence arose by coincidence, both of which involved bumping into someone I’d never expected to see again. These accidents led to me spending most of my life in Japan, and for now doing so clean and sober. Anyway, I’m digressing from what I really want to talk about, which is coincidence. Over the weekend, I was at a meeting when a neighbor walked in with his wife trailing behind him. The wife looked familiar as it turned out she should….More than three decades ago, she had kindly been one…

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    Strine-speaking, Sydney-born star made Japan’s queen of natto fermented beans

    Strine-speaking Shiori Kutsuna has been declared the 2012 Natto Queen, an award handed out to celebrities who promote fermented soybeans, or natto, as they’re known in Japanese. Kutsuna, a 19-year-old Sydney-born actress, was presented with her award at a ceremony in Tokyo earlier this week. Natto are a popular dish, particularly in eastern Japan, and are highly valued for their nutritional content and health benefits. Less widely praised are the gooey, sticky texture of the fermented beans. Kutsuna was born in Sydney and spent her formative years in Australia’s biggest city, learning how to speak fluent Strine. She is a dual Australian-Japanese citizen. As Japan’s Natto Queen, an award bestowed…

  • Wattle Y’Know

    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, is the large number of wattle trees on show. They…