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…
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With only mildly sincere apologies to perhaps the ultimate bogan band, Cold Chisel, this morning’s rising sun just stole my heart away. Although Jimmy Barnes and the Chisels had their girl stolen, I had mistakenly believed it was their heart. But the title was too good to throw away, so I had to tie them into this in some way. It’s been a somewhat lousy week, mainly because I have been flat out and it has stopped me from riding regularly. Mrs. Kangaeroo was on night shift last night. As always when alone, sleep didn’t come easily. I got to…
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For the past few years, I’ve been very fortunate to live adjacent to (and, more recently, nearby) a satoyama, a little strip of near-wilderness amid the hustle and bustle of suburban and metropolitan areas. Tokyo is the world’s largest city and it is densely populated. Much of the city is industrialized, but frequently there are little havens of almost untamed natural woodland or small-lot farms. I used to go for walks in the farmland near our previous home and loved the serenity. I could walk through pristine forests just a couple of minutes’ drive from bustling highways and densely packed…
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After yesterday’s spectacular start and the promise of a 20-degree day, I woke with great expectations of another brilliant beginning. Anticipations of even greater things arose with the warmth being decent enough to enable the year’s first early morning ride in shorts and short-sleeves (albeit with a heattech T-shirt). Wanting to get higher quality shots of the expected glorious sunrise, I loaded up with the heavy DSLR camera. And it was with great delight that I headed up the Tamagawa Cycling Road and noticed a bit of patchy cloud cover. This was delightful as the presence of clouds creates greater…
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Mother Nature turned on an absolute bloody ripper of a morning with the sunrise of the year so far, at least as far as I am concerned. The skies were simply glorious as light broke through, blended with the clouds and created a mix of vibrant colors crossing the spectrum. And the clouds played their part, too, creating swirls in the skies that shaped an otherworldly ambience. It’s the second consecutive fantastic sunrise I’ve seen and was simply breathtaking. I spent a lot of the ride voicing my thanks to Mother Nature for such a stunning start to the day.…
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Project Plants was temporarily unplugged because of overloading just as I’d been able to plug in again on another aspect. Mrs. Kangaeroo gave a frantic phone call as I headed off on an afternoon ride to say that the humidity pods containing the Aussie plant seeds were emanating an awful smell. I asked her to unplug the pods and headed off on my ride again. We’ll get some extension cords out today and give the pods a try again. It seems that I overloaded the power outlet. At least, I hope that’s what it was. Project Plants is on hold…
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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.…
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Though I had no legs, I was gifted with a glorious morning today. Nearly every day this week has been tough going in the pre-dawn hours. Wind was the main scourge, and there were a couple of days when I had to take irregular routes because the wind was so strong that riding through it threatened to leave me too tired to work. It proved to be a wise decision. Cold, which is only natural at this time of the year, and errands, which were extremely frustrating and ultimately fruitless, were other factors that ate into my riding. Anxiety and…
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It’s bloody freezing, but some know the best way to beat the cold. We had a pretty heavy snow fall last week, but it was followed by a few days of unseasonably warm spring-like weather that took the edge off. Only for winter to return with a vengeance as the mercury plummeted, the winds wound up and the sun struggled to break through the clouds. Some of us are better at coping with the cold, with my pet Dinosaur being a case in point. Dino is a rosy-faced lovebird, which is endemic to south-western Africa, so they’re genetically inclined to…
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Actions by many people give Kangaeroo to give life a go, and they almost certainly don’t know it, and Kangaeroo doesn’t even know nearly any of them. One of the benefits of the dark period of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the gift of being able to go for a bike ride, usually along the Tama River in the western suburbs of Tokyo, and nearly every morning. These rides are a crucial part of Kangaeroo’s life because they provide routine. Kangaeroo has been able to learn that routine is essential for his wellbeing and the pandemic threatened that when his…