Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the dinosaur led to messing about on the computer. Unfortunately, this opened the door to a reacquaintance with Osama, a delightful performer who made his name playing renditions of famous Western tracks mostly from the 1970s in Japanese in a style he calls 直訳ロック (chokuyaku rock, “literal translation rock.”) Didn’t take…
-
-
Though I had no legs, I was gifted with a glorious morning today. Nearly every day this week has been tough going in the pre-dawn hours. Wind was the main scourge, and there were a couple of days when I had to take irregular routes because the wind was so strong that riding through it threatened to leave me too tired to work. It proved to be a wise decision. Cold, which is only natural at this time of the year, and errands, which were extremely frustrating and ultimately fruitless, were other factors that ate into my riding. Anxiety and…
-
It’s bloody freezing, but some know the best way to beat the cold. We had a pretty heavy snow fall last week, but it was followed by a few days of unseasonably warm spring-like weather that took the edge off. Only for winter to return with a vengeance as the mercury plummeted, the winds wound up and the sun struggled to break through the clouds. Some of us are better at coping with the cold, with my pet Dinosaur being a case in point. Dino is a rosy-faced lovebird, which is endemic to south-western Africa, so they’re genetically inclined to…
-
With Valentine’s Day focusing a spotlight on love (or at least a love of chocolate in Japan) and having gone to a movie theater to see a film for the first time in decades over the weekend, I got to thinking, which can often be a dangerous thing. Growing up when I did, I became accustomed to barriers breaking down as the conservatism of the 1950s gave way to the counterculture of the 1960s and moved onto the freewheeling 1970s. It was natural for me to see society become more progressive and permissive, as well as more diverse and inclusive,…
-
Today I got a message from someone who really inspires me to be a better person, and it has thoroughly made my day. That message has now gotten me away from writing in the third person because doing so makes me sound like an even bigger tosser than I am. As I sit here with a warm, fuzzy feeling, it was also a nice reminder that I should tell people how they’ve made my life better. Cold, bleak, dark and windy, with not much else nice about the day, I’ll brighten it up a bit more with a snot block,…
-
Cycling is one of Kangaeroo’s great loves. And so is chocolate. It’s rare when the two meet, though it’s not unfair to claim that the prospect of guilt-free gluttony of chocolate is a motivating factor for Kangaeroo’s cycling. But in this week when chocolate assumes center stage in Japan, it was a delight to come across cycling chocolate sets. It was this great delight that Kangaeroo managed to come across the sets, which are selling for a measly 184 yen apiece (for a boxed package of five decent-sized chockies!) The sets contain chocolates in the shape of a bicycle, a…
-
Actions by many people give Kangaeroo to give life a go, and they almost certainly don’t know it, and Kangaeroo doesn’t even know nearly any of them. One of the benefits of the dark period of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the gift of being able to go for a bike ride, usually along the Tama River in the western suburbs of Tokyo, and nearly every morning. These rides are a crucial part of Kangaeroo’s life because they provide routine. Kangaeroo has been able to learn that routine is essential for his wellbeing and the pandemic threatened that when his…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Has Kangaeroo mentioned that he’s got a garden? And he loves it! Just in case he hasn’t, let me remind you again that Kangaeroo Corner is a little Aussie plants garden in comfy outer suburb of Tokyo. And playing a prominent role in that Aussie garden is the Fountain of Strewth. At first glance, there seems to be nothing untoward about the fountain (which is actually a bird bath with a solar-power water sprayer, but still….). Except, of course, that few Tokyo homes have a fountain. But this is a little special, and that’s where the strewth factor comes into…