I’m really blessed to be able to ride a Brompton folding bike. I think…. ….Anyway, my Brommie is the reason I got hooked on cycling. I fist learned about Brompton bikes through a work mate who had one. I was already riding extensively at the time on a Dahon folding bike, riding it to a station midway through my commute, packing it away and taking it on the packed public transport for another section and then getting off for the final leg of the journey. The Dahon Route was an awesome ride, but not made for the heavy duty use…
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Work is dominating my life at the moment and I have little time for anything else, yet we are fortunate that our kangaroo paws are leading the way in a thriving summer garden. I’ve detailed my attempts at growing Australian plants from seed. While most failed, the kangaroo paw, the ones I really wanted most to survive, are flourishing now. I’ve even managed to give away a few to neighbors, which was really awesome! I hope to be able to spread the joy even further. All this is even better as I thought that I had killed my original kangaroo…
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It’s no longer possible for me to trust my own mind because I know how utterly unreliable it is, but I got greater affirmation of why I’m so uneasy in my workplace when I learned last night that we have lost yet another very decent person from our working team. My boss is toxic. So am I, though. I’m not a positive, constructive workplace presence; at least in terms of what my employer would like. Nobody can work with my boss. She has chewed up and spat out everyone she works with, mainly through being excessively demanding and relentlessly uncompromising.…
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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 Corner, a hairpin banksia that I am positive is going to be worth the wait. For me, no flower is more iconic of Australia than the banksia. And it holds a place in Australian folklore, named after Sir Joseph Banks, an 18th-century British naturalist who accompanied Capt. James Cook on…
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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 could end up choking each other. Showing a turn of speed I’m not known for (unless there’s chocolate around), I was off to the local 100 yen store to fill up on pots and stones to put at the bottom of them. Along the way, I put in an order…
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Having been gifted with the precious opportunity to maintain a garden filled with Australian native plants, one of the highlights of a trip back Down Under last year was bringing back loads of seeds that I hoped to grow and plant. Most of the propagation worked, but once the seedlings were transplanted, the experiment turned into a mess. Of all the seeds I brought back, though, the one I really wanted to succeed–kangaroo paw–worked astoundingly well! I think it was because I planted the seedlings in a large pot as opposed to the smaller pots I’d used with all the…
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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. May seemed a little cooler and damper than usual this year, and all sorts of appointments meant I wasn’t able to ride as much as I would have liked. June is a hard month for cycling as there is so much rain. I have pretty much given up on riding…
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Today greeted me with the pitter-patter of raindrops (and a hefty dose of demotivation), so I spent the predawn hours vegging out with the idiot box on and gazing into the garden, appreciating the raindrops glistening on the leaves. In days of yore, I wouldn’t have been deterred by the not-quite-drizzle level of the rain and just gotten on the bike. I should have done it today, too. But I am struggling to see and have lost my nerve, particularly when cornering or riding on potentially slippery surfaces. It was enough to keep me sedimentary. So was a demoralizing public…
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Kangaeroo Corner has now got a fully fledged fern in place, with the amazing Alex Endo planting a dicksonia tree fern this morning. The fern went into the back entrance where the nandina had been. BEFORE Alex, who specializes in Aussie plants and creating gardens filled with Australian native plants and a magician who conjured up a magical transformation on Kangaeroo Corner a little over a year ago, also pruned the garden and got it looking even sharper. DURING It was important for me to have a dicksonia because they’re a tree almost synonymous with the Dandenong Ranges, where I…
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Some massive changes at Kangaeroo Corner this week, which is pretty apt for the early summer, but there has been some man-made actions, too, with a tree fern poised to take center stage. As mentioned earlier this week, the nandina had to go as it was killing all the other trees. We got a bloke in who meticulously removed the tree. He gently cared for the golden wattle and alpine cedar gum located precariously closely to the powerfully spreading endemic plant. And it seems he has saved these two trees. We then had a powerful typhoon that sent ceaseless rain…