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…
-
-
Fate smiled broadly on me today as I finally dragged myself out on the recumbent (or the rikonbento as we’ve come to call it), and was rewarded by getting a meeting I had yearned for years. Following yesterday’s glorious weather and my most recent viewing of a weather forecast showing us to be in store for more of the same, I woke with high expectations. I was shattered, then, to see it had rained overnight and it was cool, overcast and bleak. We’d transplanted the carefully cultivated seedlings yesterday based on the weather reports only to go out and have…
-
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 that, I mean Mrs. Kangaeroo stepped up to the plate. She would handle the task of gently shifting the seedlings from humidity pod to pot. As always (except in her choice of men), she was superb. We used a potting mix containing soil for Australian native plants, starter soil from…
-
March draws to a close today, ending the first quarter of the calendar year for 2023 in what seems a stunningly speedy period. Time is, of course, relative. Each year, the relative amount of time each period occupies in our whole lives is shorter. So. it’s only natural that time seems to pass quicker. At least, that’s how I think it works. Spring is beautiful in Tokyo, especially when it’s not raining. After a disjointed week for all sorts of reasons, I got to ride this morning as usual. With the spate of repairs that I carried out and diminishing…
-
This morning I got an entire ride in the light for the first time this year. I still had lights on my bike, but they were the flashing type that enabled me to be seen instead of the high-lumen shiners that all me to see. It was lovely to be able to see the faces of people using the Tamagawa Cycling Road at the same time. We’ve only been silhouettes to each other for an interminably long time until now. There’s a chance to smile and greet instead of furtive glances while trying to stay safe in the dark. Today…
-
Despite parents who were avid gardeners – Dad even worked as a part-time gardener – and growing up surrounded by greenery, I never got into horticultural pursuits until I got a plot of my own and became enthralled, even though I’m a bloody ning-nong in the yard. I don’t really know what I am doing and have a garden of Aussie plants that probably need a little bit of special care because of the climatic conditions they may not be suited for. It’s a case of live and learn, but I love it. I wish my ignorance was less harmful…
-
Most of Japan is now awash in a glorious blanket of pink thanks to the blooming of the cherry trees. The cherry blossom is Japan’s national flower and when they bloom, it’s not hard to see why. The fragile flowers create a spectacular floral display that flourishes for about a week, gives another dazzling display as the petals fall and then disappears until it’s time to do it all again the following spring. My opinion is that cherry blossom season turns Japan into the most beautiful place on earth and there are truly delightful sights to be seen just about…
-
Rain continued throughout the weekend, barely stopping from the time it began on Friday afternoon. This made me miserable at a time when I was in the mood to celebrate, but the weekend turned out to be a ripper one anyway as we hit the streets of Yokohama. I’ve always had an affinity for Yokohama, as it’s a sister-port to Melbourne (my hometown), and I arrived in Japan at the same time as Aussie Bowl ’88, the last VFL footy game in the code’s Japan experiment, was played in the city in October 1988. But the weather was bleak and…
-
An unseasonably warm and dry late winter and early spring has given way to more customary wet, with really lousy weather since rain began early yesterday morning. Wet weather makes me whine, but I really shouldn’t because it was supposed to pour all day today, but I woke to warm sunshine and got to ride (and see the cherry blossoms!) It was a bit of a mixed bag, because I ended up getting a puncture….my fourth in the past week, added to which I destroyed my pump because the tip of the tire valve got caught inside and can’t be…
-
It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of weeks. Perhaps most important is the passage of the first anniversary of my garden, Kangaeroo Corner, earlier this week. Amazing Alex, his mate, Mrs. Kangaeroo, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law built the garden as I was out with a broken leg at the time. It has since become one of the…