Little things in life have kept me scrambling and stumbling in such a way it’s hard to get much else done. Work is always much busier in the warmer months. This year has been particularly demanding as our tyrant boss drove more staff out of the door and their tasks were often imposed on me. Early morning starts have been the norm and I’m often exhausted by the time the sun sets. Health hasn’t been great and the teeth I neglected for decades have come back to haunt me with a vengeance, which will result in two more of them…
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One of the highlights of Kangaeroo Corner is the Fountain of Strewth, which I placed with the hope of attracting birds to the garden, but the role has been served so well, I’m now drawn to the idiom used in the headline (which stems from a passage of Aesop’s fables that says “We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified,” according to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations Sixteenth Edition and as I learned today). Sweltering heat and fierce sunshine has made the Fountain of Strewth a popular part of the neighborhood’s avian residents. And I’ve been delighted by this, sitting in…
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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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Kangaeroo Corner, our garden, is basically filled with Aussie native plants, but there were a few trees and plants there when we came to live here, and they have largely remained, including the nandina, also known as heavenly bamboo. Unfortunately, her presence in the garden proved far from heavenly. The nandina, or nanten in Japanese, is a very popular plant in Japan, where it is native, as it is throughout east Asia. Despite its name in English, it’s not a bamboo, but a shrub. But it grows like a bamboo–fast and powerfully–and that’s why we’re saying good-bye to her. Today…
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All sorts of things have been happening, but also nothing at all. I hope that doesn’t seem too strange? The “all sorts of things” are just day-to-day events that keep me busy. And there was yet another clash with my boss, this time leading to her humiliation. I could have made it worse for her, but have decided to quit while ahead. I’m sure that will have repercussions down the track. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it, though. For the time being, I have another five months’ work, so I can hopefully make the most of it.…
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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…
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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…
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During a brief visit to Australia last year, after a separation of about 40 years I got to meet a schoolmate who I had greatly admired as a teen-ager, and he referred to me as someone “who always was a gentle soul.” It was one of the, if not the, nicest things anyone has ever said about me, in my opinion. Having something like that said about you would likely impress most, and I was deeply moved. It touched me enough that I remember it now, months later, when I struggle to recall anything that has happened just hours earlier.…
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Has Kangaeroo mentioned that he’s got a garden? And he loves it! Just in case he hasn’t, let me remind you again that Kangaeroo Corner is a little Aussie plants garden in comfy outer suburb of Tokyo. And playing a prominent role in that Aussie garden is the Fountain of Strewth. At first glance, there seems to be nothing untoward about the fountain (which is actually a bird bath with a solar-power water sprayer, but still….). Except, of course, that few Tokyo homes have a fountain. But this is a little special, and that’s where the strewth factor comes into…
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Kangaeroo Corner has got one of the greatest gardens in Tokyo, at least according to Kangaeroo, and one of its features its the extensive lighting. Alongside the mostly Aussie native plants adorning the garden are plenty of garden ornaments of Australian native animals and birds. The kangaroos, koalas and various types of avian life such as a kookaburra, cockatoo and galah, are lit up using solar-powered garden lights. Much to Mrs. Kangaeroo’s chagrin, Kangaeroo adores these garden lights. And the growing length of sunshine each day as spring approaches affords each lighter with a greater charge of its battery, which…