Nothing Is So Freeing As Liberating From Berating

25 July 2025

Almost precisely a year ago, I got to through off the shackles of near constant torment to hurl myself into an opportunity that I could not have even imagined presenting itself.

As a result, I’m now feeling valued and appreciated in my workplace and not just within my family and among friends. Every day for years I’d been copping vicious, relentless abuse, but that is over.

In some ways, the opportunity has made life a little more challenging, but it has also given me enough of a boost to be able to throw myself headlong into taking issues on, instead of being paralyzed by fear of failure.

Not quite the same on the bike, though, where my rapidly deteriorating body has drained my courage, but the sense of emancipation while riding remains as strong as ever. But you can’t win ’em all….even on days with near-perfect sunrises.

Survived I was hospitalized. My brother and sister dropped everything to come and help. They took me to meetings. I have stopped. I will be all right. I can’t give up....
Winter is Here Although it was a glorious morning with clear, starry skies and then a wonderful sunrise, it was bloody freezing, confirming that the long-dreaded winter has arrived. Until now we have been blessed with unseasonal warmth: I wore shorts all weekend and the temperature topped 20 degrees on Saturday. I still...
Of Banksia and Birdies It’s the most glorious day of the year so far in terms of weather and I am sitting in my back office, stuffing myself full of chocolate and lollies and preoccupied with bloody banksia and birds. I’m stuck here because I’m waiting on delivery of the newest member of Kangaeroo...
Flockin’ Wonderful Time All sorts of amazing things are happening at the moment, and I’m taking me time to let them settle in. Biggest is the new job, which is taking up most of my time at the moment and, naturally, has a huge impact on my life and that of those around...
Sounds to Trigger an Aussie Prompted by a Scottish mate’s post on Twitter about a tune that reminds him of his homeland, I got to thinking about the same kinds of songs that have an effect on me regarding Australia, my native country. While doing so, I realized there are probably a few shared by...
Crapper Crisis We’re facing possibly one of the greatest calamities imaginable in a modern society outside of a natural disaster: our washlet is broken! On a bleak, cold and dark morning, I struggled to drag myself out of bed, but my rumbling bowels made it easier. I was horrified, though, to find...
豪キャブラリー： Shoot through Shoot through （打って通れば）を聞くと何となく「銃の引き金を引く」ような感覚を起こすかもしれないが、実際にオージー英語でこの表現を使えば一切そういうような意味がない。実は、「打つ」(shoot)と一切関係ない（だったら、なんで使うかと言いたくなるよね、、、）。「出ていく」とか「場を去る」などの意味。Shoot offも同様の意味として使う場合もある、「急いでいく」ような感覚があるが、shoot offのほとんどの使う時がshoot off your mouth（口を打つ！）になり、「しゃべり過ぎ」という意味のだ！...
Craving Procrastination, But Will Procrastinate Tomorrow 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...
Tour de Gutsing Today was simply magnificent: stunning weather, delightful companions, fantastic bikes and serious gutsing of ourselves. Bromptons ruled the day and it was the common connection between us. Mechanicals slowed down our start, but also opened new doors. Following a slowdown caused by a flat, we got to eat at Hugsy...
Get Off Of My Cloud! Riding today was like floating through the heavens at times, reminding me of one of my favorite songs by the world’s greatest rock band: The Rolling Stones‘ Get off My Cloud. I’d have loved to have been able to keep the scene for myself as I rode through the mists...
Oops, I Did It Again! After having repeatedly vowed to myself that I would post content with substance that may be interesting for anybody who ever stumbled across it, I’ve gone ahead and posted more sunrise cycling pics because Mother Nature just keeps turning on the stunning starts to the day. After another near-sleepless night...
Untethered Beast I got to untether the Beast today, and by that I mean I got my first real chance to ride a new bike, and as much as I want to say it’s named the Beast because it is an amazing ride (which it has actually turned out to be), the...
Tower of Strength on an Icy Morning Today started with a pre-dawn trip to Tokyo Tower. A quick get-together with some mates over coffee and chockies followed. And then it was a ride back home. Now it’s on to familial duties. It was cold and dark heading into town. Just about every traffic light seemed determined to...
Singing Praises of Unsung Heroes May is my favorite month of the year in Japan: it’s generally warm, dry and sunny with long days and the landscape is brilliantly verdant and lush, and that applies to my own garden. We’re only a couple of days into the month, though, so its full effects have yet...
Bromocalypse, Now! As fate would have it, I got to ride my Brompton in a post-apocalyptic landscape over the weekend, making for some eerie-looking pics. It’s not the first time I have been able to ride through the area, but it was Brommie’s first chance to do so. Although the scenes appear...
Avoiding Only Putting The ‘Little’ Into ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ Dragged out of lethargic sloth, I joined Mrs. Kangaeroo in watching the Tachikawa Twinkle Garden projection mapping event on a bleak Sunday, with only dextrous digits saving the show from putting the “little” into Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. After being bombarded by Facebook ads for weeks, I was pretty keen...
Wisteria Hysteria For the second time this week, I headed off to nearby Yakushiike Park to get photos of the glorious wisteria there, this time with the hope that they would be in full bloom. I was probably still a bit too early, but it was beautiful nonetheless. And the short trip...
Tigers Trump Tenderfoots Richmond Football Club will contest the 2017 AFL Grand Final! The mighty Tigers triumphed over the Australian Football League’s newest team, the Western Sydney Giants, a talent-packed outfit created to boost revenue from TV broadcasts. Now, Richmond will play the rampaging Adelaide Crows to determine the Aussie Rules champion of...
Welcoming In Winter Like it or not, and I’m firmly in the “not” camp on this one, winter is here again, but I’ve been kind’ve happy to see how well Kangaeroo Corner has held up this year as the cold sets in. This year is the second year of our garden and for...
Whirlwind Week And Winter Wonderland It’s been a whirlwind week, not because of the speed that it has passed, but the tumultuous time it has been. That’s not to suggest it was a torrid affair. In fact, it was anything but. Work was a generally great time. Monday I had been expecting to receive notice...
Blowout! Even Fartilizer Couldn’t Help Well, strong winds have put paid to a lot of my experiment in growing seeds from Australian native plants, and even fartilizer couldn’t help. Gale-force winds daily for pretty much the past week made life tough for the little seedlings on the patio at Kangaeroo Corner. Watering, care, and even...
Biking Biblically This morning’s sky was, for a brief instant at least, biblical, in the sense that rays of the rising sun briefly broke through the clouds of the overcast morning as though some majestic deity was bursting forth to greet the day. I’m not a believer, but I pray…almost constantly. Fear...
Velodramatic! I’d love to say I’ve done something exciting on my bicycle, but I mainly thought of a snappy word that should go down in posterity as a snappy blog title. I’ve been cycling, but not nearly as much as I would like to have done, but then again, perhaps too...
Bountiful Blessings This morning was another gloriously beautiful late autumn morning with the full, beaver moon glowing until well after the sun had risen and mists floating up above the Tama River to create wonderfully serene scenes. Pity the mess in my head can’t turn in a similar direction. I’m a wreck....
Sweltering! It’s boiling hot and the heat and humidity are energy sapping, but I still love summer in Tokyo. The heat means I can eat to my heart’s content and won’t gain too much weight, especially if I can continue cycling. I’m still able to ride at least twice a day...
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,...
Virtuous Cycle Today’s title is more than just a play on words to boast about the beautiful bicycle photos I have been able to take recently. It also refers to what’s going on in my life at the moment. I can’t stop pinching myself to check that I am really going through...
Koala-ified for Anything Tokyo is a city full of surprises. And that is the least surprising aspect of the world’s largest city. Kangaeroo got a pleasant surprise yesterday while pottering through the backstreets of Shinjuku, one of the Japanese capital’s many sub-capitals. For some reason, Lord alone knows why, there was a statue...
Break Affords A Break From Brakes Arthritis has crept through my hands over the past few years, crippling my fingers and robbing me of any power. This has made braking difficult while cycling, effectively ruling out hitting mountains and group rides because I can’t be sure of being able to brake in time. But a break...
Goings On It’s been a strange old start to the year, really, mainly because Kangaeroo is strange and old. Tokyo has been experiencing a mild winter. So far there has been no snow and daytime temperatures have been closer to what you’d expect in March than the opening month of the year....
Willow Worlds Cricket is one of the few things I really miss about life in Australia, and stumbling across the Japan Cricket Association website recently led me down a rabbit hole centered around willow, an integral yet often unremembered part of life in my two countries. Come down the willow wormhole with...
Saving Things For a Rainy Day It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of...
Back Attack Continuing a run of at least four new year seasons, I’m ailing yet again. After a cold, covid, the flu and another cold, this new year I’ll be welcoming in with a case of lumbago. Worse still, I owe it to a case of hubris, having twinged my back by...
With 10 Thumbs, Odds Were Always For 1 Being At Least Malachite, If Not Green I’m notoriously clumsy, making even the simplest task a monumental one, but having 10 thumbs also increased the odds of at least one of them being green, if not a little shade of malachite. Nah…just kidding….I’m still bloody unco, and trying to prove I’ve got something of a green thumb...
Breaking The Banksia It’s becoming increasingly obvious that we’re finally going to get a banksia flower in the garden. We’ve had a banksia in the garden from the outset, but yet to get a flower some three years down the track. And we’ve had plenty of troubles along the way. In addition to...
Some of the Cycling Camerawork that can be Expected These are the types of shots that I’ve been able to take of bikes....
No Paws for Thought Kangaroo paws, the big success story of my Aussie seeds saga, and the one that most mattered to me, reached a new stage in their progress from propagation. Mrs. Kangaeroo noticed that they were crowding the large pot that I had planted them in, and if they weren’t moved they...
A Handmade Tale Some of Japan’s finest cycling handiwork was on display at Handmade Bicycle 2025 held at the Science Musuem in Tokyo on Jan. 25-Jan. 26. Given that I had no other plans, wanted to do something special to celebrate Australia Day and needed to go for a ride with a decent...
Glorious Grevillea Although the harsher than normal seasons this year have made it tough for our garden, our consistently strong grevillea has survived and thrived....
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Ego…(But He Really Is Weighty) Actually, that title’s a lie and my enormous ego is tremendously cumbrous, probably to the extent that it’s been the bane of my life. My over-sized ego’s up to its old tricks now–especially when cycling–at a time when I need to be humble. Maybe it’s because of being the baby...
Springing Into Inaction 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...
Satoyama For the past few years, I’ve been very fortunate to live adjacent to (and, more recently, nearby) a satoyama, a little strip of near-wilderness amid the hustle and bustle of suburban and metropolitan areas. Tokyo is the world’s largest city and it is densely populated. Much of the city is...
Bonzer Bonsai! Given that this site started with the intent of spreading information about Japan and Australia and matters related to these countries, including languages, and then how much focus I have placed on gardening over the past couple of years, it’s surprising that I haven’t had much to say about bonsai....
Kangaroo Paw Finally Hopping Into Action My heart-wrenching kangaroo paw plants have finally started to flower, bringing some joy, but a little bit of sadness, too. Perhaps the best lesson they’re teaching me at the moment is not to get too attached to anything. I’ve always wanted to have kangaroo paw in the garden. They’re one...
Three-Day Monk One of my favorite phrases in Japanese is mikka bozu, literally a three-day monk, and it’s a term used to describe the length that most people can maintain their resolve. I’ve got to admit to being an archetypical example of the concept. Having accumulated a huge spare tire and found...
Slice of Heaven Kangaeroo Corner, the name I give to our garden even though it’s not a corner but close enough anyway (which kinda sums up my life) is a little slice of Godzone for me. Gardening had never entered my radar until Mrs. Kangaeroo and the amazing Alex Endo presented us with...
Life Gets In The Way I’ve never been good at dealing with life on life’s terms, and being a selfish and spoiled type, easily get down when I don’t get what I want. I got to experience that side of me again this week. My boss finally pushed through the severe pay cut she has...
Should’ve Been Astuter With Astuto 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...
Well, Wattle Ya’ Know! Spring can never come quick enough, and even though Tokyo had a warm winter, the wait for warmer, brighter weather seems interminably wrong, as symbolized by the blossoming of the wattle trees in Kangaeroo Corner. Although temperatures may have been warmer than average in the 2023-2024 winter, the fully fledged...
Brush With Death I got to have a brush with death this morning. Nothing serious, of course, as I’m referring to a log-awaited photo opportunity with our bottlebrush in full bloom and the Death Machine as we refer to the rickety old recumbent bike which seems to offer the opportunity of terminating life...
大ヒット中のTimTamって「豪菓なビスケット」と言っていい？今では、オーストラリアの味が日本でひそかなブームが起こっている。 Australia is, in a way, flavor of the month of sorts in Japan at the moment. Amazon.co.jp ウィジェット　それはチョコ・ビスケットTimTamのことだ。 That exalted status is thanks to the humble TimTam. 　今、日本のどこのコンビニーでも売られているし、多くの駅売店でも販売されている。 TimTam biscuits are now sold in just about all of Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores and most station kiosks in the...
A Second Bite of Biwaichi Fatigue, muscle soreness and endurance were going to be the order of the day on the Kangaeroo crew’s second leg of Biwaichi, the circumnavigation of Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. Mrs. Kangaeroo had completed the 70-plus kilometer first leg with barely a hint of trouble, but not being used to cycling, it...
F.R.O. 2022 As 2022 draws to a close, Kangaeroo will be glad to see the back of it. There was plenty to be grateful for: a happy marriage, closer relationships with children, excellent friends, a life filled with love, family reunions, delightful garden, a full year of employment, generally good health. For...
Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 7: Matsuyama to Wakayama A moving day allowed the tour riders to freshen legs ahead of the trip’s biggest climb, but that didn’t mean it was an easy day. Riders had a free morning in Matsuyama before assembling around midday to catch a bus to Tokushima. Activities engaged in during the morning included watching...
Walking Like An Egyptian…In Yokohama Blessed with a rare shared holiday for Marine Day, Mrs. Kangaeroo and I headed off to her much-loved Yokohama to enjoy a day of walking like Egyptians. We didn’t really walk like that, but I needed a snappy line for the blog title and lede, so that’s how it turned...
Wonder Undies! Kanageroo hasn’t really won a great deal in lotteries or the like over the years (despite hitting the jackpot in so many other ways), so it was a pleasant surprise last week to win a great prize! That prize was a gift coupon for undies! Kangaeroo won the undies through...
This Is Democracy Manifest! Get Your Hand Off My Succulent Sausage! Very glad to have grown up in a society that still seems to ostensibibly respect democracy and the rule of law, I was delighted to visit the Australian Embassy in Tokyo and partake of democracy manifest in the form of a snag. The bleak, wet day (eerily reminscent of my...
Far Canal! Had No Idea Boating Is This Much Fun! Tokyo is a city built on rivers and streams, and much of its history is built around waterways, yet it took until last weekend to finally enjoy a really decent yakatabune boat ride. I’ve been here for decades and been on cruises and even ridden in yakatabune, which are long,...
Fat-Arsed Friend! Fortune blessed me with lots of wonderful reminders of how lucky I am yesterday, including through a fat-arsed addition to Kangaeroo Corner. We held a garden party for close friends and family, hoping to show off Kangaeroo Corner. A harsh summer, untimely rains and, I think, excessive intervention on my...
Getting Real The year pretty much starts for real from tomorrow, having had the new year break, punctuated by a week of work, followed by another long weekend to mark Coming of Age Day. It’s gonna be a hell of a busy year. I’ve got work, which is a delight, providing stimulation,...
Trying To Kid Myself On Children’s Day Blessed with glorious weather and little wind, it was almost appropriate I spent the first part of Children’s Day trying to kid myself that I am something of a decent cyclist. I did manage to build up an almost acceptable pace considering the countless number of traffic lights I had...
Springing Into Action After an interminably long wait, it finally got warm this week, prompting me to spring into action. It was hard to believe that just last week Tokyo got blasted with heavy snow. Short sleeves and shorts were the watchword, even for typically well-covered types such as Mrs. Kangaeroo. Even though...
Kangaroo Cookies, Tim-Tams, Cakes and Cuppas: Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This Mrs. Kangaeroo whipped up a few culinary miracles (making the impossible look simple and all while not having slept a wink) including kangaroo cookies and Tim-Tams to put the most amazing topping on what was a magnificent day. We welcomed my oldest friend and the person who brought me to...
Too Good To Miss Out On Lots of life stuff is going on and even though I have a lot of “free” time, there’s not enough to allow for writing up a blog entry. Got a gorgeous sunrise today, though, and it couldn’t be missed....
Mirror, Mirror On The Paddy, Tell Me Now, ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Tempted by the rice paddies, which now look like mirrors as they are filled with water and the stems planted, I rode through western Tokyo along the Tama and Aki rivers into Itsukaichi to climb and take beautiful photos. It’s been a while since I have ridden in the mountains,...
Hitting The Early Morning Jackpot After three days of incessant rain, we finally got a dry start to a morning, which enabled me to get out on the bike and end up being rewarded with the most extraordinary sights for getting out so early. Wet roads are my enemy as I don’t have the grip...
Minding My Peas, and Queues In my Aussie plant grow from seed experiment, desert peas moved outdoors today, with more budding plants queueing to join them. Only three of 12 desert pea seeds germinated, but did so strongly. Nonetheless, having struggled with clumsiness when repotting everlastings last month, I was better prepared this time. By...
Bracing… Unfortunately, the bracing in the title of today’s post refers to readying for what looks like a rough ride ahead instead of the alternative meaning of refreshing. My job search has proved disastrous, and it’s hard to keep trying to convince myself that I should be grateful for the position...
Dog’s Life We’ve been blessed for the past few days with the presence of Uyu, a gorgeous border collie. Uyu, which means ‘milk’ in Korean, came to stay on Friday night. We weren’t sure if she was actually going to come and stay. She belongs to our son and daughter-in-law. Our son...
Magnificent Ms. Minogue 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...
Tokyo’s Strange Socceroos Japan has a strange affinity when it comes to using Australian animals for its advertising. A number of major Japanese corporations use koalas and roos to plug their products and services. One with a difference is Hayashi Corporation, a construction company with a history of over 100 years and based...
Fountain of Strewth Frozen Over! It’s a gloriously sunny morning today, but bloody freezing, as attested to by the Fountain of Strewth freezing over. Birds are coming to Kangaeroo Corner throughout the day every day at this time of year, largely to enjoy a drink or a bath from the Fountain of Strewth. I broke...
Arrows of Outrageous Fortune Mrs. Kangaeroo invited me out on a date today, which turned out to be an absolute ripper (how could any event with Mrs. Kangaeroo not be?), but involved horses, of course! Mrs. Kangaeroo is an avid equestrian and her devotion, best seen when it comes to living and providing loving...
Flashes of Brilliance, but Lacking Focus Today’s title was a perfect summation of the photos I took on my morning ride, but could also describe my life to a tee. The skies were spectacular! My photography, not quite so. I am struggling to hold my phone still. My hands shake all the time. I got a...
Springing Into Life With Flower Power It was an extraordinarily hectic day of being flat out from go to whoa, but also extremely productive and fulfilling as I was propelled by the thrill of the garden’s explosion of color through flowers. I started the day with a ride, dealt with some of the village’s board responsibilities...
Forget Tiptoeing thru Tulips and Plod thru Paddies Normally, we’d be smack-bang in the middle of the rainy season by now (and we are, officially), but the skies have held off for the past few days, providing great cycling weather which has made for some wonderful rides, including this morning’s through the rice paddies of outer suburban Tokyo....
Bloomin’ Bewdy! It was the D-Day anniversary today and it sure felt like I was storming enemy territory for most of the day, but the fantastic flowers blooming in the garden warmed my soul. And the magnificent Mrs. Kangaeroo took the ugliest flowers in the garden, the Australian native hops, chucked in...
A Pheasant Start to the Morning I got a delightful start to the morning with a not-quite-chance encounter with a beautiful green pheasant near the Tama River. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to cross tracks with pheasants in a few places. They’re beautiful birds, the males are at least, and I loved...
Prayers Gonna Pray I’ve been praying a lot lately, which is bloody hypocritical because I don’t really believe in having to rely on an imaginary friend. It’s been a rocky start to 2024 for Japan, beginning with the deadly New Year’s Day Noto Earthquake, a fatal crash at Haneda Airport the following day...
Stunning Start The 2025 new year has kicked off in a maginificent manner. We have had unseasonable warmth and the return of once customary brilliant winter sunshine. I started off with a flurry of enthusiasm, too. My year started with an extremely early rise not long after 4 a.m. I quickly showered...
Wrapping Jacarandas On Christmas Eve, I thought any wrapping I’d be doing would be presents, not bloody jacarandas, but between a hectic time at work that was exactly what I found myself doing. Amazing (and incredibly patient) Alex Endo, who created our Aussie garden at Kangaeroo Corner, wanted to protect the tips...
No Making A Blue When It Comes To Big Red As anyone who knows Australian slang could tell you, anything with a hue as azure as the latest bike in my fleet could only possibly be given a name like Big Red. So that’s exactly what it got, and that’s not making a blue in the slightest. Big Red came...
A Pheasant Makes Things Pleasant Late May is nearly always an idyllic time with the glorious weather hiding the impending onset of the rainy season. This morning’s ride was made even pleasanter by getting to spend time looking at a glorious Japanese green pheasant reigning over its territory near the Asakawa River. Pretty much every...
Charmed And Cheered Thanks to a minor quirk of fate, my life has turned completely around and I’ve gone from cursed to content, all within the space of a couple of months. For the first time in years I’ve got a great job in a prime location. My company values me and goes...
Watch Your Words! Many foreigners guffaw at the frequent mangling of English that some Japanese can achieve and there’re plenty of websites and the like dedicated to highlighting these flaws, but they should note that this can go both ways. Perhaps a tad of extra time and consultation could have gone into the...
Laudable by Libs (Outside of Office) and Skillful Journalism For much of my life, I was something of a political animal, tempered by social requirements, but eventually tamed and then driven into apathy by circumstance. However, given a chance this week to watch a series of brilliant documentaries about Australian politics with a Tokyo connection, I felt stirrings of...
Darkness Deathtrap This morning reminded me that I am a potentially lethal presence on the Tama River Cycling Road. It was cold, wet, dark and raining. And I realized yet again that I am basically blind in those conditions, being unable to see. I’m not helped by only using an 800 lumen...
Doxing Paradoxes OK, the title is a bit of a lie, because I confused doxing with poxing, but the wordplay was better, so that’s what I went with. The paradoxes I’m dealing with are trying to make a living while blessed with innumerable talents that are all useless and a track record...
Angels Without Wings Blessed by sublime weather, I got to experience the delight of helping out a canicross–canine cross country–and spent the day being surrounded by literally hundreds of doggos, thse glorious little angels without wings. They were taking part in Dog Marathon 2025 Shonan Beach Canicross on Tsujido Beach in Fujisawa, Kanagawa...
Paws and Reflect Possibly the most meaningful part of my Australian seeds experiment arose today when I transplanted my kangaroo paw seedlings. The great experiment, which I expected would result in me proving to have a green thumb and presenting all my gardening mates with exotic plants has proven only that I am...
All in the Timing A long-time wish finally came true with a session around the Kawasaki Velodrome, and though I notched times that were the slowest of anyone on the day, my timing has been pretty fortunate over the past few months. All seemed lost and forlorn at the start of summer, but I...
Whetted for Wet Rain is falling pretty steadily and though the rainy season in Japan gets me down, on the verge of its start, the precipitation has whetted the garden’s appetite for the wet; at least for the onset of the season, which could go on for months, or not happen at all,...
Rounding Biwa, Japan’s Largest Lake Blessed with a long weekend and loads of motivation, Kangaeroo and Mrs. Kangaeroo got out the foldups and built up the resolve to circumnavigate Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. The 235-km shore length is not for the faint-hearted, though plenty make the trip in a single day, courtesy of the almost...
Princely Reward Nature, and Mrs. Kangaeroo, provided a princely reward for patience and perseverance as the little prince protea I had been nagging for months to have removed from our garden because it had died actually sprouted and proved that it was as alive as my spouse had been saying it was....
Awe-tumnal! Glorious autumnal weather and a magnificent event lighting up the coloroful leaves made for an outstanding occasion at Showa Kinen Park. Mrs. Kangaeroo and I enjoyed a hot date on a cool day by spending the early evening at the park, travelling there and back on the scenic Tama Monorail....
‘Sno Business Like Snow Business March in Tokyo always feels like a bit of a tease as expectations of immediate warming are invariably let down, which is a feeling probably stemming from childhood in southern Australia where there is a clear demarcation in the transition from summer to autumn. And today we got snow, albeit...
Budding (and Blurred) Spring can’t come quick enough, not just for me, but also for the blossoms in Kangaeroo Corner. For weeks now there have been signs of flowering in the garden. The silver wattle (acacia dealbata) has shown signs of budding since at least the middle of February, looking to repeat its...
Scorched! It’s too hot for me to do anything. With requirements to look after Uyu the border collie and to devote time when I can to Dino the rosy faced lovebird, I’m limited in how far I can move. Most of the time I’m stuck at home and can move only...
Washout Heavy rain put a dampener on any outside activity this morning, but it was a good chance for other activities, notably the family dinosaur throwing herself into a bath. She’s the clumsiest bather imaginable and watching her trying to bathe always fills my heart with warmth and hope that she’ll...
Simply Spectacular Cycling Sunrise I’ve got nothing to write about, other than being extraordinarily lucky to get consecutive days of glorious sunrises over the Tama River. I’d take a decent camera to get better photos except it’s still hot and the sweat would destroy the DSLR’s parts as happened with my other cameras. So...