Sorry-ology

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...