• Daily Life

    Foo, Gee!

    May is, for me, the most delightful time of the year in Tokyo, and I was doubly blessed this morning when greeted by the sight not only of Mount Fuji, but with snow on top. Fujisan, that iconic symbol of Japan, is notoriously camera shy and it’s a rare day indeed to get a clear view of the mountain outside of the colder months from say, late November through to March. When you do get to see Mount Fuji in warmer times, more often than not it is a view of the bare mountain. But today, just a couple of…

  • Daily Life

    Brushing Up All Right

    Our bottle brush has finally burst into bloom, and what a glorious show she is putting on for us! Mrs. Kangaeroo has let loose with her amazing talents again and made plenty of bouquets using the delightfully scarlet flowers, and now I’ll deliver some to Mother-in-Law Kangaeroo to mark Mother’s Day, as it is here in Japan and in many other parts of the world today. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums around the world, and heartfelt thanks to my mum, who’s still kicking on (and probably will be for eternity the way she’s going).

  • Strine Strife

    After the Apocalypse….

    We’ve just had a wonderful weekend enjoying the pleasures of the Tama Hills Recreation Area, which combines luxurious quarters with wild, somewhat terrifying scenery reminiscent of what a world without humans might look like. It’s the latter that continues to delight me in the bi-annual visits we’ve been fortunate to make over the past decade or so, though such opportunities may about to draw to a close. We will enjoy them while we can, though.

  • Daily Life

    Just A Bit Longer!

    The hand-wringing wait for spring blooms is slowly starting to draw to a close as more and more sections of the Kangaeroo Corner garden burst into flower. Our callistemon is literally packed with buds that are bursting into blossom in what is actually quick succession, but feels to be interminably long. The yearned-for kangaroo paw are also showing tremendous progress, as are the banksia and grevillea. Another week or two and the garden will be at its peak! Sadly, the cute little bugs that were enjoying our garden through to this morning appear to have met their demise, judging by…

  • Daily Life

    So Close…

    Mid May, now basically, has become a tantalizing time of the year for me, with most of the spectacular blooming of the gorgeous Japanese flowers like cherry blossom, wisteria and azaleas (to name a few) having ended, but the Aussie plants in my garden not quite ready to spring forth. Plants are budding and growing, but flowers are few and far between now. Our garden superstar, the grevillea, has finally started to show a bit of flower growth with lots apparently still to come. I need to learn about deadheading to make the bloom a bountiful one. Kangaroo paw are…

  • Daily Life

    Wake-Up Call

    For someone who usually wakes before 4 a.m. daily, the past couple of days have provided some pretty lousy wake-up calls. Professionally, there had been a job eating away at me over the Golden Week holidays and a check this morning revealed I had overdone it as I had suspected. Given a proper amount of time and no distractions, I could fix it up today. Still looking at a tough and demanding week ahead. Then, one of the great joys I’ve had this year has been watching the plants I’d grown from seed grow and start to flower. I was…

  • Daily Life

    Kangaroo Cookies, Tim-Tams, Cakes and Cuppas: Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This

    Mrs. Kangaeroo whipped up a few culinary miracles (making the impossible look simple and all while not having slept a wink) including kangaroo cookies and Tim-Tams to put the most amazing topping on what was a magnificent day. We welcomed my oldest friend and the person who brought me to Japan in the first place. It was their first chance to come to Kangaeroo Corner and we celebrated by centering the day around an Australian theme to mark having met Down Under way back in the 1980s. The gods were on our side, too, putting on a display of simply…

  • Daily Life

    Watching from the Window

    I’ll never forget how I delighted I was a few decades ago now when I discovered the Japanese term madogiwazoku, literally meaning “the tribe beside the window.” It’s a derogatory term dating back to the country’s postwar economic miracle heyday and used to refer to the usually older workers who’ve been deemed to be beyond their serviceable peak for the company. But, either as a reward for services performed, or more likely strict labor laws that make it detrimental for employers to simply dump workers when they’ve outlived their usefulness, the window-side tribe seemed to have fallen by the wayside…

  • Daily Life

    Singing Praises of Unsung Heroes

    May is my favorite month of the year in Japan: it’s generally warm, dry and sunny with long days and the landscape is brilliantly verdant and lush, and that applies to my own garden. We’re only a couple of days into the month, though, so its full effects have yet to show, but that’s allowing lesser lights to take center stage, I realized this morning. Sitting in our living room and looking out into the garden I got to notice how delightful the bush rosemary is with its plethora of dainty little blue flowers. Despite being overshadowed by the bloody…

  • Daily Life

    Princely Reward

    Nature, and Mrs. Kangaeroo, provided a princely reward for patience and perseverance as the little prince protea I had been nagging for months to have removed from our garden because it had died actually sprouted and proved that it was as alive as my spouse had been saying it was. To be honest, I’m not that keen on the proteas in the garden, even though they’re delightful plants and the flowers are exquisite. That’s because I see them as being quintessentially South African and not really part of an Australian-themed garden. But in Japan, proteas and other leucospermum are lumped…