G’day all! Hope you’re all well and not shivering too much. We, on the other hand are now into summer, although it hasn’t been overly warm here as yet. The warmest day we have had so far is 30C, which isn’t what I’d call hot, especially as it wasn’t a humid day. Today it is overcast, a little humid and in the high 20s. There is a thunderstorm advisory out but as I’ve mentioned before, they often don’t come to anything. The good thing about having warm weather is that we can keep the windows open, and we don’t need any air-conditioning.

The only slight problem with having the windows at the moment is that Tahlia has gone on heat…Yes, just after we had made an appointment to have her de-sexed, since the kittens are mostly weaned now (they’re over nine weeks old now!), she went on heat. Alas, that was two and a half weeks ago and we have had to cancel two appointments for the op so far. Anyway, we took the kittens to the Vet last week and left Tahlia at home. They had their first vaccination shot and a quick check, while Tahlia fretted at home. We made another appointment for Tahlia this week, but have had to again postpone the operation.

The look on Tahli’s face…

Buchi

Yami

Zara

Akashi

Having a cat on heat in your home is not a fun thing. She is very loud in her yowling at times, and she is harassing the boys (Ziggy and Zowie), despite their not having the ‘ability’ to help her out. They are not taking this overly well, with Ziggy hiding in the bathroom on his towel bed on the second shelf in there, and Zowie is moving around from high place to high place, as much as possible. Thankfully, when she is locked away with the kittens at night, in the dining room, we can’t hear her overly much. The other news with our grandchildren is that Tamarah, our friend who is helping us to find homes for the kittens, has taken one of them (Yami, though she’s now named Derf (Fred backwards), a name chosen by Tamarah’s father who recently passed away) to add to her feline family at home. Apparently she is settling in well.

During this last month we went hunting (twice), the kind of hunt vegans go on with our target this time being irises! I truly love irises, and I love nothing better than going out and shooting them – especially at close range 😊. Many of you will know that irises are my favourite flower, so it is a wonderful thing to be able to go to gardens and parks where there are mass plantings of irises. I tend to walk around mesmerised, with my mouth hanging open, or a stupid smile on my face. This year I found two more places to visit that we hadn’t been to before (actually I found three, but I have saved one for next year!!!).

The first of our hunting trips took us to Yamashina again, through the very long Inari tunnel (nearly 2.5km long through the mountain range) and out to Kajū temple – also known as Kanshu-ji. This temple was originally founded in 900CE, by Emperor Daigo to honour his deceased mother who lived a large part of her life in the area. It is a Shingon temple and is the head of the Yamashina school of the sect. The temple was actually destroyed in 1470 as a result of the Onin war, however, in 1682 it was rebuilt thanks to a combined effort of the imperial household and the Tokugawa clan.

It is not an overly large temple, despite it owning vast areas of Yamashina in the past, but it is a particularly nice place to visit, with a number of interesting features. These include an unusual stone lantern which was donated to the temple in the 17^th century and is surrounded by a dwarf Japanese garden juniper, estimated to be 750 years old. The lantern has a large and sloping roof that is distinctive enough to have earned it the designation of a “Kajū-ji-style lantern”.

Also unusual because it has lawned areas

The most notable feature, though, is the large pond which has a small island in the middle with a large stand of trees – suitable for birds to nest in. The pond is planted with irises, lotus and water lilies, and also has koi, turtles and frogs living in it, but it is most well known amongst the locals as a good place for water bird watching. When you walk along the narrow path towards the pond and then out into the open pond area, you are struck, yet again, by the ‘Monet’ like appearance of the pond. I say yet again because we have been to a few places which have had that look about them.

Apart from a small wedding party, there only for the photographs, and a couple of other people, it was very quiet, very tranquil (occasionally interrupted by a strident bullfrog and bird song 😊). Next to the pond was a small arbour, covered by a wisteria, with a bench in it – a beautiful place to sit and ponder the serenity and beauty of nature (except the bullfrog which made me jump 😊).

The nests and a zoom lens…

The other hunting ground I located thanks to a mention of it on the local news. Though I didn’t hear them mention the name of the place, it wasn’t hard to find thanks to the electronic oracle. It was at the Shirokita park in Osaka, where they have created an entire space dedicated to irises – hundreds of iris plants. The area is walled off and you have to pay to get in, but at ¥200 it is ridiculously cheap. Not only have they created some ponds planted out with the multitude iris plants, but they have also created other little landscaped spaces, and they have set up some small spaces with single pots of irises especially for close up photographs.

When I walked around the corner to the open flower area, after going through the initial entry space, my mouth did drop open and I did become mesmerised. As I walked around, taking hundreds of photographs (literally) I felt like I had arrived at a fabulous ball, I was completely underdressed, and all I could do was look at all those who were beautifully dressed  – all those amazing ball gowns. I know, sounds OTT, but I really did feel like that. It was sort of hard to know where to look first. We spent over an hour in there, and it wasn’t that big an area. Bliss.

One other outing we had was to a vegan meet-up picnic, on the banks of the Kamo river. It was a nice day, around 26C and sunny, if somewhat windy, and spending the afternoon amongst like minded people from all corners of the earth – though this time there were quite a few Americans – was most pleasant.  There were about a dozen of us and there was even one American who had recently become an Australian citizen after living in Melbourne for five years. He said he became an Australian mainly because of the health system! Can’t blame him, really.

US, France, Japan, Malaysia

Malaysia, US, Scotland (that’s her natural hair colour…)

Before I sign off, just a couple of smallish items, the first being a Close Encounter Of The Animal Kind with a Convolvulus Hawk-moth. The wingspan of the moth is between 80 and 105mm, though it was hard to tell how large this one was because it didn’t stop flapping its wings. It was, however, very large and shocked Craig when it fell out of the washing he had just brought in from the clothes hanging area outside. It didn’t try to get away, or even move very much, so I wonder if it had just come out of the chrysalis?

On Craig’s hand

The other item relates to Japanese life, in a way. We were in town, walking to the bus stop to catch a bus home, when a guy (I think it was a male) road past on a motorbike fully clad in a spiderman outfit (yes, head to toe), and his bike appeared to be completely covered in stickers – it was hard to tell, because it happened so quickly, and it was one of the WTF moments when all you wanted was a camera… So, you’ll just have to imagine it for yourselves.

That’s all for now – it’s been fairly quiet sitting out here in the front office…

Cheers

The Shirokita park mascot

Possibly the best toilet block ever

Fully mosaic tiled…

Concrete bridge as art…

Craig as art?

Irises in our backyard

Not irises

Japanese life…(ok, setup, I rarely fall asleep on a train)