Much to the chagrin or Mrs. Kangaeroo, our garden is filled with all sorts of weird and wonderful Australian creatures, and they’re designed to look nice nocturnally. We have all sorts of kangaroos. Their sizes range from life-sized to tiny. A similar story goes for koalas. We have a koala couple. And another pair climbing one of our wattles. And there is even a learned fellow who reads a book. Considering we are supposed to be a kangaroo-themed garden, you could possibly say we are a bit over koala-fied. Aside from the marsupials, we’ve also got a wombat, and a…
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Unsure of where to put the punctuation in the title, I decided to go without any at all, and I used this phrase because I wanted to talk about the garden, have something catchy, and draw from the Velominati’s Rule Number Five. Our garden, Kangaeroo Corner* is absolutely thriving. But not quite in the way that I may have originally envisaged, hence the latter part of the title, and the uncertainty over where to place the punctuation.** Banksia I should originally have planted in sunny spots are doing well, but none of our four trees have never really flowered, which…
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I’m not quite out of action, but not far from it, thanks to popping a tiny blister on my finger over a week ago now. The bloody thing got infected and the infection started to spread up my arm. Pain has been excruciating, which has come as a total surprise considering how small the original blister was, and I have barely slept in a week filled with visits to the dermatologist and being pumped with increasingly large and frequent doses of painkillers and antibiotics. It finally appears as though the drugs are working and the swelling has subsided and the…
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Spring has really kicked into motion, one of the upshots being that our garden presents us with a new gift nearly every day. Our garden is providing us with a series of new flowers one after another. Hardenbergias have been giving me great delight for a few weeks now, particularly because I grew all of our four thriving plants from seeds I brought back from Australia. But our biggest surprise this year has come from the white paperbark teatree, which we picked up in a bargain basement bin at our local home center and have now been rewarded with a…
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Our dearest–in terms of both emotion and bloody expense–little mate gave us a bit of a shock the past few days as Dino, our rosy faced lovebird, appeared to be petering (ptering?) toward the brink only to slowly move toward recovery. I’m guilty as I’ve been sharing meals (and snacks) with Dino for years now, and she also shares my love for carbs and cheese, making her as fat and unhealthy as I am. You’d never know it, though, as she is vigorous and active, spending nearly all day out of her cage and flying freely throughout our home. But…
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Much as I would love to have been tiptoeing, I’m way too fat to do that, so when Mrs. Kangaeroo and I headed off to the Hamura Tulip Festival, it was stomping heavily through the gorgeous flowers. Mrs. Kangaeroo and I had done some cycling tours together in the past, but not since before the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d been pushing all week to go as the return trip is largely flat and a distance I thought Mrs. Kangaeroo would be able to handle despite not having cycled for many years. But the visit seemed unlikely yesterday as our dinosaur fell…
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Our garden, Kangaeroo Corner (even though it’s not a corner), is unabashedly at its best in the spring, though it also thrives in places during the other seasons. Flowers are blooming now, bringing immense delight. Flowers I grew from seeds–hardenbergia and kangaroo paw now, a dwarf wattle that briefly flourished last year before I killed it through neglect, and hopefully some banksia–bring a special kind of joy. Having said that, the garden hasn’t provided the comprehensive delight it had brought at times in previous years. Part of the reason is that it hasn’t needed to. For the few years up…
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It looks like the last of the cold weather might finally have left us behind in Tokyo, allowing the final few days of the glorious pink cherry blossoms to be enjoyed in warmth. Sunshine might be a different matter. But I think we can finally wave winter goodbye. Temperatures are set to top 20 degrees every day for the next week. Mrs. Kangaeroo and I have got a weekend together. I’m hoping to visit a tulip festival in Hamura. Every year a number of fields are used to create a patchwork of colorful tulips. It’s quite spectacular. It reminds me…
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Arthritis is taking over my body, seemingly joint by joint, with my left foot in particular so painful it’s becoming a struggle to walk, even as the spring makes the prospect of doing so ever more appealing. Arthritis runs in my family and I often teased my mother over her crooked fingers which had been warped badly by the affliction. I’m laughing from the other side of my face now as my digits are pained and twisted. It’s creating something of a dilemma because it has severely hampered my cycling, which had been instrumental in maintaining a semblance of good…
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I’m in a mad rush today because my customary morning riverside bike ride continued for almost twice as long as usual despite being roughly the same length as I was mesmerized by the spectucular blooming of spring flowers, which mostly means cherry blossoms. I was waylaid by the sights on a number of occasions. One beauty trap lured me along a river I rarely traverse. I was rewarded by a whole series of breath-taking views. The upshot was that I was late getting home. And didn’t shower until half an hour or more than my usual time. Which meant I…