Had things been different, right around this time I would have been getting ready to go off on an exciting bicycling adventure that I’d named the Big Red Bike Tour. But the trip is off, or at least changed into a different, much-truncated version.
Having fortunately fallen into buying an aesthetically delightful bicycle of such an azure hue it could only be given the name Big Red, I was keen on taking advantage of its comfortable riding sensation and ability to go anywhere to head out on a tour.
Keeping up the Big Red theme, I promptly went out and ordered a blue Kangaeroo kit (replete with thought bubble to reinforce the idea that the kangaroo is thinking), blue gloves, blue bike bags, blue shorts and a blue helmet. As you do.
Cycling gods intervened, though, as they have shown a tendency to do for me over the past few years, both good and bad.
This time, it wasn’t my hands avaged by rheumatoid arthritis and infection–or any other health issue of my own come to think of it–or lack of ideas or bad weather or stolen bikes or free bikes or any of the other reasons that the velo fates have turned their attention toward me to affect my riding in recent years.
It was the bloody bird, still undergoing treatment at the Yokohama Bird Clinic. Dino is not going to recover and we are going to bring her home. But only after throwing everything we had at trying to make her better, including the funds for the Big Red Bike Tour. I tried to sell another bike to buy her one last week in the hospital, but there were no takers.
I’m still taking the time off I had planned to use with the Big Red Bike. And I will ride as much as I can over that time, just in less exotic places and for much shorter durations.
And I will spend as much time as I can showering love and affection over my best feathered friend…I hope.
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- Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 9: Koyasan to Nara Glorious weather almost a complete turnaround from the previous day was the hallmark of the penultimate day of the 2019 Kagoshima to Kyoto cycling tour. Sunny skies greeted the riders as they roused from their sleep in a chilly Koyasan temple. Riding remained cold and rugging up was the order...
- No Better Time To Ride In The Land Of The Rising Sun Now’s about the best time of the year for me to cycle in Japan. Being an early riser, I hit the road just before the sun rises in the sky. The upshot is that I get to see some beautiful skies to start off most days. Today was a bonus...
- 南天は難点…Or, Farewell Heavenly Bamboo! Kangaeroo Corner, our garden, is basically filled with Aussie native plants, but there were a few trees and plants there when we came to live here, and they have largely remained, including the nandina, also known as heavenly bamboo. Unfortunately, her presence in the garden proved far from heavenly. The...
- Praying To The Dinosaur Deities To Save Our Little Pterror As one last roll of the dice to save our rosy faced lovebird, I took myself off to Nishirokugo Park to pray to the dinosaur deities. The park, in the southern part of Tokyo and basically on the way from home to the Yokohama Bird Clinic where Dino is hospitalized,...
- 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...
- Lots. And Nothing All sorts of things have been happening, but also nothing at all. I hope that doesn’t seem too strange? The “all sorts of things” are just day-to-day events that keep me busy. And there was yet another clash with my boss, this time leading to her humiliation. I could have...
- Economic Organizations/経済団体 Nippon Keidanren 日本経団連 The Japan Chamber of Commerce & Industry Keizaidoyuki 経済同友会...
- 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...
- Procrastination Propagation Winter is probably the worst time of the year to try to grow plants from cuttings, except, like for me, you’re desperately trying to avoid doing something unpleasant and you’ve been handed unseasonably fine weather. So, instead of taking a trial test for a potential new job as I could...
- Sunflowers in the Rain Fortune smiled favorably on me this morning, too, as I got to ride out to a nearby sunflower field and get some awesome photos. There’s not much I can elaborate on, other than to say the field was a spectacular sight. There were lots of people around, even though the...
- Costly Bloody Crash! Kangaeroo’s accident this week continued to have reverberations. Although both Kangaeroo and the bloke he collided with rode away apparently unharmed from their predawn collision, costs have since mounted. The crash gave greater urgency to updating the chain and gear sprocket on La Cangura, which had been showing signs of...
- Bird Brained Dominated in our day-to-day lives by a delightful little dinosaur (one of their modern day descendants in the form of a rosy faced lovebird to be precise), Mrs. Kangaeroo and I decided to spend a rare shared day off by playing with birds. And our flying visit to Moff animal...
- Glad to be Alive Kangaeroo is easy to be critical and cynical, less so to be thankful. Today, he is taking a moment to be thankful for life. Kangaeroo loves life, even though he has largely made a mess of his own until recent years. Life interrupted this week, preventing any significant entry here,...
- 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...
- Happy Bird-thday, You Pterror! Today is Dino (the dinosaur)’s third birthday. Our little rosy-faced lovebird has been with us for three years, and has been pretty much a constant companion since the early days of the pandemic. She is my best mate, but at the same time, the bane of my life. She demands...
- There’s Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself Fear dominates my life. Always has. Probably always will. And it has raised it’s ugly head again recently. Even though I can’t do much about it, I’m struggling to just accept what I can control and get on with living. Even being greeted almost daily by glorious sunrises, it’s not...
- Practicing for Hades It’s been bloody hot the past few days, but I’ve been mostly stuck inside trying to keep up with the onerous demands being laid on me to try to get me to quit. I managed to slip in a couple of rides along the Tama River today, though, and it...
- Foo, Gee! May is, for me, the most delightful time of the year in Tokyo, and I was doubly blessed this morning when greeted by the sight not only of Mount Fuji, but with snow on top. Fujisan, that iconic symbol of Japan, is notoriously camera shy and it’s a rare day...
- Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 3: Ozu to Kurokawa Mount Aso threw everything it had a tour participants today including heavy rain, strong winds, great elevation, mist, clouds, cold, storms…and kangaroos. Kangaroos can be found grazing along the sides of Mount Aso. But thanks to a heavy cloud of mist, little could be found as the tour crossed the...
- 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...
- Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 2: Hinagu to Ozu The tour’s drive into Kyushu moved northward on its second day of riding, and first when inclement weather came into play. Rain fell about halfway through the 72-km leg, drenching riders, but fortunately not resulting in any injuries or accidents. The trip was largely along the plains of Kyushu, following...
- Shots for Paws-terity It’s an unbelievable joy to be able to go into the garden in the mornings and see the kangaroo paw grown from seed flourishing so well. Today I captured some photos for posterity, which was prompted by the solstice and realization that days are getting shorter from now onward. The...
- Get it Over and Done With! 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...
- Crikey! Didn’t See That Coming We got back from Australia at the start of the month and Customs were warning about people who had been in Wuhan. The next week, our office shut down for good and we were sent home to work there permanently. Now we’re ordered not to come into contact with anybody...
- 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...
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