Tag: La Cangura

Strine

Golden Girl

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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 the most part, thriving, as I noted a while back, the plants I really wanted to flourish–kangaroo paw, tree fern and jacaranda– all died.

A grevillea we picked up from a local supermarket was our first-year miracle, blooming six times and looking absolutely wonderful before suddenly taking a turn for the worst about a month ago.

With the onset of spring, I expected the existing plants in the garden and the new seedlings I have been growing since around Christmas last year to all thrive and create a lusciously colorful slice of paradise.

Yeah, good luck with that one.

Anyway, we got back in touch with Alex and received some advice on fertilizer that we hope will give the trees a bit of a lift.

Fertilizers designed for Australian native plants are also on the way and should arrive today.

My seedlings are looking sickly, so I took the feeblest of the lot back inside and reinstalled them in the humidity pods under the growth lights.

The great seed experiment has not really paid off well at all, but it is still far from over.

Patience, never something I have been overly endowed with, is now being required.

The weather is not being a great friend, either. This week has been alarmingly windy and I am sure it is not making things easy for the plants, either.

A few delightful success stories from the spring so far have been the blossoming wattle, the cherry blossom plant and the wisteria, which is now verging on full bloom if the wind doesn’t blow away all her petals.

None of these plants bloomed last year, so they are clearly enjoying the conditions at Kangaeroo Corner.

Let’s hope other plants will end up doing the same.

Daily Life, Strine Sports

Let There Be Light

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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 was noticeably lighter because it was my first morning ride in about a week.

A series of events had kept me off the bike.

First, there was the lousy weather.

It started raining last Thursday and barely stopped.

I’m scared to ride in the rain after losing my nerve in a crash last year that broke my leg.

That fear was exacerbated by by plagued by punctures.

I’m not a great bike mechanic, but can handle basic field repairs.

Unfortunately, I got too much practice in the past week or so.

I couldn’t find the source of the puncture, with the tires and inner rims coming up clean and each tube seemingly leaking from a different place.

But I went through six tubes last week.

I finally found the culprit, which was a tiny stone that had torn a hole in the tire.

The tires were old, so I replaced them with the more durable Gatorskins that I had put on Belladonna before her untimely demise last spring.

The tires felt shaky and I was unsure of whether I’d tightened the quick release levers probably as La Cangura felt wobbly.

But it was good to be out there again on what shapes as a shoddy kind of day with a wake for my father-in-law tonight.

Strine Sports

Tripping on the Tama River

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Kangaeroo cycles pretty much daily.

Due to a number of time constraints, nearly all the rides are along or near the Tama River. This river is one of the main waterways in Tokyo and has been supplying the city with water for centuries.

River-side cycling is on bike tracks and really isn’t demanding (except for the requirement to be constantly wary of pedestrians). But it’s still great fun.

Being able to wake up, get on the bike and shake off the cobwebs and let life rip is a blessing for this old man.

And Kangaeroo is even luckier by being able to ride the absolutely gorgeous La Cangura, who heads the fleet of Roo movers.