Autumn It’s been a particularly lovely autumn this year but now the days are getting shorter. Winter is coming this week. When I lived in Melbourne I enjoyed taking the city bound tram and heading off very early to work on golden autumn mornings. There weren’t many passengers on the first leg of … [Read more…]
Summertime ‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’ So hush little baby, don’t you cry …’ George Gershwin’s lyrics to Summertime On the island chorusing cicadas are marking the arrival of summer weather in my … [Read more…]
Just breathe deeply … Some time ago, when I was living and working near Tokyo, I got to know a Japanese bullet train driver. Roshi was a witty joker, a rabid opera lover and a layback kind of guy. He drove trains on the Tōhoku Shinkansen line. Roshi’s job carried a lot of … [Read more…]
Mystical Mushrooms pine mushrooms live a thousand years in one autumn Den Sutejo 1633-1698 (translated by Makoto Ueda) Wild mushrooms have been getting bad press recently. A murder trial in the Australian country town Morewell has just commenced, but it all began back in 2023. Erin Patterson – known on social media as ‘the … [Read more…]
Spring is sprung Spring is sprung, the grass is riz I wonder where the birdies is. They say the birdies on the wing, but that’s absurd. I always thought the wing was on the bird. attributed to Anonymous/Ogden Nash/ obscure 19th Century poets. This year Spring on the island has been preceded … [Read more…]
There Goes the Neighbourhood A small furtive movement attracted my eye. I dropped the hose and reared backwards. It looked like a coiled snake. From a safe distance I gaped at the reptile. Two well-nourished lizards eyeballed me. They were luxuriating in my garden bed and had no fear of me. Indeed, they were … [Read more…]
The Zen of Happiness Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it. David Lee Roth, American rock musician. To be sure there are people who are largely unscathed by our global pandemic and their happiness seems unblemished. … [Read more…]