• Daily Life

    Bloomin’ Slow to Flower

    Argh, the wait for the spring blossoms to bloom in Kangaeroo Corner is proving to be annoyingly long. As noted yesterday, my gut feeling is that this year has been dark, even if it was a warmer than usual winter. And the bleak, cloudy nature of many days has, in my opinion, delayed the onset of flowers and blossoms in the garden. My unofficial Fountain of Strewth Meter attests to this feeling. The solar-powered fountain spouted consistently over the winter last year. It’s performance was sporadic this year, though. I thought it had something to do with the motor, but…

  • Daily Life

    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 onset of spring is as slow as ever, we’ve had more days of snowfall and, at least as far as my guesses go, it’s been a darker year than usual. My reckoning is that 2024 has been cloudier and seen less sunshine than normal for a winter in Tokyo, which…

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    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 care, extends to her encyclopedic knowledge of horse-related events going on at any one time in Japan. And she let me know that we were going to be watching a display of yabusame, horseback-mounted archery, on the beach at Enoshima, a small island and tourist attraction about 50 km south…

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    Inuit ‘Innit

    It’s snowing in Tokyo again, reminding me that the Inuit are supposed to have 50 different words for snow and making me wonder if the equivalent to English’s “Oh no” is one of them. I’m not the biggest fan of snow falling on Tokyo, mostly because of the paralyzing effect it has on the city. Hailing from Australia, the idea of snow was something of a dream when I first arrived in Japan back in 1988. We got the odd spattering of snowfalls akin to those that would hit Melbourne during my initial stay here until the day of my…

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    ‘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 little more than a spattering that will probably be washed away in a couple of hours. But more snow is expected on Friday, too. To be fair, the cold lingers way longer than I expect it to every year, only because I want the warmth quicker. And I am well…

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    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 wonderful bloom from last year when the tree turned into a series of puffy, yellow flowers. Next to it, the golden wattle (acacia pycnantha) seems poised to burst forth in a blaze of aureate befitting its third year in the garden and flying the flag as Australia’s national flower. Also…

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    Rooted!

    Having experimented with growing Aussie plants from seed last year, this year’s efforts have focused more on growing from cuttings and finally, from this morning, replicating the seed propagation experiment. Turns out that things are rooted, but not the way I had hoped. I started trying to grow cuttings from our extremely successful grevillea about two months ago. Following instructions online and from veterans, I took over a dozen cuttings from branches, added a growth-stimulating hormone powder to the ends, stuck them in pots filled with kanumatsuchi, watered them and covered the pots with plastic. I basically left the two…

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    Barking Mad at a Dog Marathon

    In a move I’m pretty sure I’ll end up regretting later this week, I spent nearly all day helping out at a dog marathon and having the time of my life! I was supposed to help clean our village this morning, which is one of the requirements for living here. But rain intervened. A friend had previously asked me to help out in the cleaning and operation of his mate’s dog marathon event, the first of its kind in Tokyo, apparently. The mate expected maybe a couple of dozens entries….almost 600 dogs applied (each paying a pretty hefty 4,000 yen…

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    ‘Bitch-face’ Lovebird

    I’m the ‘proud'(?) parent of a rosy-faced lovebird, who I must admit brings an immense amount of joy into my life, but I also learned a new Japanese phrase over the weekend that perfectly sums up these tiny avian pterrors! Kozamesu, a contraction of the term kozakura inko mesu, literally a female rosy-faced lovebird, is a term used to describe the feisty nature of the birds. A loose translation of the word kozamesu could be something like bitch-face lovebird. And my experience suggests the term is spot-on! From the almost constant and often painful biting, aggressive defense of anything perceived…

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    Gazing at Japanese Tit Birds

    Having put in the most demanding week of work I’ve done in years, then been woken early after a mostly sleepless night, I’ve kicked off this long-awaited weekend by sitting at the living room window and gazing for hours at Japanese tits. In a life increasingly marked by failure, it’s fair to say that one area in which I’ve excelled is in having a good eye for the birds. With a constant companion twittering away while nibbling on my ear, it’s hard to keep my mind of things like boobies and other types of tits, and before I come across…