The few weeks leading up to the start of the rainy season in Tokyo are, for me, idyllic, and for the past few years I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to get an early morning bike ride in on most days, and today was a ripper. The sun rises at about 4 a.m. at this time of the year, and so do I! I get up, pour myself into cycling gear, have a quick brekkie and then get out on the treadly before I can convince myself there’s something better to do than ride a bike. And Mother Nature…
Something was amiss with the start of the weekend when I was barely able to sleep, spending a restless night ahead of plans to head into central Tokyo to pick up some parts, but little did I know that a vanilla slice “snot block” was on the way to rescuing me. Using the restlessness to advantage, I got stuck into the garden, weeding and then being able to cut the lawn courtesy of a quiet push mower and getting down on my hands and knees to manually trim the edges. A quick clean of the Brommie, which has been squeaking…
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 is a notoriously poor communicator. So, even though we agreed to look after Uyu months ago, and the date was decided, we needed to wait until she actually arrived before we could be sure that she would come. Then, when Uyu did get here, things didn’t always go to plan.…
For a measly 1,000 yen I got to get a totally unexpected and delightfully amazing full day’s entertainment, a couple of souvenirs and an all-round wonderful time at the 2024 First Nations Film Festival held by the Australian Embassy in Tokyo at EUROSPACE. I’ve always been sympathetic to the cause of Indigenous Australians as I’ve understood it, but in recent years I’ve developed a bit of empathy fatigue, or even borderline antipathy, as the blame for society’s shortcomings are increasingly laid at the feet of all white men. So when Mrs. Kangaeroo expressed an interest in going to the festival…
Barry Humphries, the creator of characters such as Dame Edna Everage – the Moonee Ponds housewife famous for her flamboyance and shouted greeting of “Hello Possums” – Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone, and himself an entertainer and icon of Straya in many parts of the world, has passed away. Humphries died aged 89 on Saturday following complications from a recent hip surgery. Personally, I wasn’t a great fan of the Moonee Ponds housewife — Dame Edna Average is my name for her — but she had her moments and was a wonderful example of Humphries’ acerbic, anti-Establishment wit that…
There’ve been better times than the past week, and hopefully the climbing hardenbergia comptoniana planted today augurs a rise out of the doldrums. I couldn’t sleep, so as soon as it was light, I got out into the garden, moving the lawn, weeding and my efforts culminating in re-potting the hardenbergia comptoniana, better known as the Australian native wisteria, which had grown too much for the humidity pods. Most of the seedlings have failed, so hopefully the wisteria will be a shining light. There’s still the promise of kangaroo paw and dwarf wattle. Not much else promising going on. Work absolutely…
I’ve been alternating between busy and broken over the past few days, resulting in fewer posts and less cycling, but still lucky enough to catch some tremendous snapshots of the bike like the ones here. Work has been proceeding at a furious pace as we have not replaced people who have left and remain terribly understaffed. It’s hard to get motivated, too, as my employer tried to cut my wage just days after inking my current contract and doing nothing to reassure me that they will not try the same thing again this year: if, in fact, they even offer…
La Cangura is the name of my bike, a beautiful gunmetal and gold-trimmed machine from Orbea, a manufacturer from Spain, hence the name (which means The Kangaroo in English). She looks delightful in among the canola, the yellow hues of the bike and the flowers a wonderful match. Just wish I was having as much luck with my flowers and other plants in the Kangaeroo Corner garden. I’m relatively new to the gardening caper, only having really taken a great interest in it since Amazing Alex made the Aussie garden for us in March 2022. While the garden is, for…
Crikey, Kangaeroo.com is colder than ever before and I’ve got no explanation for what is happening. Let’s get one thing straight, first: Kangaeroo.com has never been hot! This website started in March 2010 together with a sister site (now defunct) called Yutairui.com, which had a record of attracting more than 35,000 visits in a single day not long after it opened, but was shut down by a DDoS later that same year. Kangaeroo.com, to the best of my knowledge, has never had more than five visitors in a single day! This site, centered on the Strine Dictionary, was supposed to…
Following slovenly Saturday where I did basically nothing for the whole day, today has become a bit of sprightly Sunday, being busy from the get-go, with the Death Machine taking a prime position. The Death Machine is, of course, the nickname I give to my Performer recumbent bicyle. It gets that name because the bike feels so unsafe, the feeling while riding it is that death is imminet. It’s no exaggeration. Riding the bike is a frightful experience. And I crashed the Death Machine badly around this time last year, fracturing my leg and causing permanent damage to my knee.…
