Sorry-ology

These days I love waking up around 5 or 6 in the morning to tend the garden before the sun is in full sight. It was a very private moment of the day for me, a block of time before neighbours get out to work, before birds start to tweet, before bugs wake up, before much traffic begins to flow, and before everyday routine resumes. The garden is in full shade around this time, bright but elegantly grey in tone. Given that I do not need to dodge burning sun beams, I am able to feel the garden in a more intimate way. It smells fresh, feels cool, and sounds quiet. Colours are even brighter. Every second is endearing to me. My garden was never productive in summer in the past due to irresistible heat and ever-proliferating bugs, but this year I sowed some zinnia and portulaca grandiflora with a very humble expectation that they would eventually flourish. Surprisingly they have taken over the entire space of the front patch with their bright blossoms at different heights. They are b...

A wooden cover for ventilator has been sitting in our garden for a couple of years. Brown is always a safe choice of colour for furniture, I reckon. I never dislike it, and it, too, tends to be my ultimate choice; nonetheless, the natural tone of the wood is, to be honest, never very exciting. Between having fun and playing safe, even though I had been brewing over a revolutionary idea against K's reservation about loud colours, no action was ever taken. Summer and vacation are two factors that would lead to changes. I spent an entire day last Friday painting it blue, a careful choice of mine, Virginia clock blue, which provokes a sentiment of nostalgia. My amateurish skills with paint and my obsession with perfection plus the weather made the project too full of details to complete early. Yet, the first large-scale DIY was  done without much hindrance at the end of the day. The new color is adorable, and this adventure with visual effect has allowed the reformed furni...

Two years after we moved in, we finally acquired a set of wooden chairs to furnish up the dinning room! They are elegant and comfy companions indispensable to an enjoyable dinner from Kashiwa furniture .

I still am not very sure if I love lavender. In my impression, they are too popularly loved that it becomes difficult to appreciate their beauty. However, for my herbs project in the garden, I planted some lavender in the garden 2 years ago, After a long wait, now here they are, blooming and airing natural aroma. They are lovely adornments, and their quiet scent soothes whoever approaches them. One regret is probably that I should have dedicated a larger space to them. It is difficult to understand their humble beauty in these two small bundles. 

The good weather of spring continues to encourage blossoms in May.  Now the central stage of the garden is given to three types of roses.  At the corner of the garden is a climbing rose with a beautiful name: the blue moon. It has been staying with us since the first year when we moved in. Their gigantic blossoms and impressive volume have attracted much attention in the neighbourhood. I do heart them as they are the first-born of my gardening project.  The blue moon is commanding an unmissable presence in the garden. However, I have a feeling that they are not doing as well as last year, or as I have expected. Perhaps I did not make enough efforts to care for them last winter; or perhaps it rained immediately after they started blooming, and the rain somehow burned the edges of its silky petals. The shape of the entire shrub is far from ideal, too. As I did trimmed it down harshly in the past 2 winters, it is not supposed to grow too vigorously either h...

Spring is indeed the prime time of everything exciting, le printemps.  The tulips in the garden did very well in April. Cups of solid colours waved in their small circles in the garden. They would have lasted much longer if it had not been for an overwhelmingly windy day on which I harvested an armful of them and secured them in the house. They served as wonderful companions indoors especially when the last bit of wintry chill still lingered around. With the heater on, they would bloom as wide as the size of a palm; however, such artificial warmth had stretched these darling creatures too much that their lives were unfortunately shortened.  As a gardener, I guess I am not mentally strong enough to bear the thoughts that it is in the end more than natural for plants to sprout, to grow, to bloom, to wither and to die out in its natural surroundings.  Tulips in April, 2013 Since the first year we moved into the house, one of my keen anticipation for the gard...

Youtube source Further info on EYE Title: De Groeten Van Mike!           (Mike Says Goodbye!) Director: Maria Peters Country: Netherlands Language: Dutch  On a KLM flight back to Tokyo last March, I watched this Dutch film, Mike Says Goodbye! This is probably something that I will not have easy access to in Asia.  The story succeeded in tickling the soft part of my heart, which had been battered and benumbed by academic training.  It is a feel-good family movie telling a story which evolves around the central character, Mike, and his friends in the section of paediatrics in a hospital.  From a critical viewpoint, the plot is not special, ordinary, I would say. However, the story itself feels real and moving right because of its simplicity.  What really got me in the film is a poem written by a supporting character, Mike's roommate in the hospital. That little boy is paralysed in the lower part of his...

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival at Tokyo Dome Last January (2013) I went to Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival with a friend in my weekend Japanese classroom. As far as I know, she is quite into knitting and needlework. My inspired interest in craftwork does not show an equal strength in my ability, and the end results of my work always fall short of the blue plans in my head. My mother started patchworking a couple a years ago after her retirement. Like drawing, another activity in which she has been zealously engaged, quilting seems to provide an equal amount of pleasure of solitude. This other space - which her two hands create with cloth ruler, needles, fabric and colourful threads - is probably an alternative version of the space, which Virginia Woolf has called a room of one's own. The exhibition space was packed with fervent weavers and covered with tapestries of breath-taking beauty. Although it might be true that most needlework must have been co...

Youtube Source Asada Mao definitely has outgrown her past self in her latest performance in the 2012 Japan National Figure Skating Championship: Merry Poppins. When she lost the champion title to Kim Yuna in the 2010 Winter Olympics, she was obviously disappointed and somehow lost in disbelief. Undoubtedly she had been diligent and already did her best at that time, but Kim was definitely beyond comparison in that game. Asada looked stressed and tensed in her though beautiful and graceful skating; while Kim gave an impression that she danced at ease in every step. On technique front, I am not any expert to judge, but as an audience I was much more enchanted by Kim in 2010. By chance I watched Asada's performance in the national championship in 2012. She skated like an elf on the ice and seemed to have raised herself to a different level of the sport. Even without her signature jumps - triple and 3 and 1/2 - she was still fascinating. Possibly without those highly risky sh...