Now we don't have animals to worry about, I love a good thunderstorm. Lightning and thunder are excellent reminders that nature is way more powerful than we humans can ever hope to be. Bring it on! ⚡️
The lead character and setup suggested I'd enjoy The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: A swashbuckling, seafaring romp by Shannon Chakraborty. 📚
when she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse, she jumps at the chance for one final adventure with her old crew that will make her a legend and offers a fortune that will secure her and her family’s future forever.
Unfortunately the many mystical horror aspects just aren't my thing, so I skipped chunks of descriptions of fantastical stuff and ground my way through many chapters.
This 15 minute video was very informative and useful. 3 Warning Signs Your Sleep Is Harming Your Health (Doctor Explains Why):
Poor sleep doesn’t just make you feel tired. It disrupts blood sugar, blood pressure, hormones, brain function, and long-term disease risk, often years before obvious symptoms appear.
I've been working for years on improving my sleep and have seen noticeable benefits.
We watched and I enjoyed Prime Minister about our former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern:
The 102-minute film documents the five years of Ardern's tenure, including both her political and private life. … The film includes information on the Christchurch mosque shootings, the 2019 Whakaari / White Island eruption and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The load she carried was huge and the personal vitriol and abuse she endured was horrendous.
My only real criticism is the movie should have reminded us how in early Covid times we just didn't know anything about the virus.
This morning's music was a nice find, with a women's choir: Venetian Splendors: Sacred Baroque Music with Women's Choirs.
I especially enjoyed the Vivaldi: so bright and compelling. 🎶
Hah hah. It's been a while since I've noticed a nice Timeline adjacency.
My now traditional New Year's Day selfie. 😀 I take a selfie every single day but almost never post them anywhere.
Playing Monopoly Northland with friends on New Years Eve. We own Northport, Ninety Mile Beach and Marsden Cove Marina among others.
The Ruakākā River is literally a 3 minute walk from our front door — a contributing factor to our buying in this location. It's pleasant to walk beside it.
I'd forgotten that I enjoy madrigals, like these: The Book of Madrigals: Amarcord performing Renaissance songs. 🎶
We did a little 1.2km loop walk at Limeburners Creek Wetland in Whangārei. We saw a few birds, including this probably leucistic Mallard. Note the tiny duckling behind the small duck at bottom right. 🐦
Our perceptions are skewed by the news media that outrages us for profit, but there is much much more going on in the world. This essay is the single most interesting and most important thing I've read all year. Here's just one quote:
We have built the safest civilisation in human history while convincing ourselves that we live in the most dangerous. Billions of people experienced measurable improvements in health, safety, and material conditions in 2025. That progress didn’t make the news. But it happened anyway, one vaccine, one school meal, one kilowatt-hour at a time.
This is what the beginnings of a 250,000 solar panel installation looks like.
I've suffered from Gastric Reflux for years, though it's getting better now. This PDF from The Centre for Strong Medicine in Australia provides a lot of useful and detailed information, including explaining which gym exercises can make reflux worse, and why.
This is interesting — Fix The News 321: Brain epochs 🧠 🌟:
In one of the world’s most comprehensive studies of how neural wiring changes from infancy to old age, scientists in Cambridge have identified the five major “epochs” of human brain development. Analysis of almost 4,000 MRI scans shows the brain shifts through five distinct wiring phases, with major transitions at the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83.
I have one more shift ahead of me …
Today, with a new bird-watching friend, H, I visited the Waipū Bird Sanctuary. We saw lots of Oystercatchers, Godwits, gulls, NZ Dotterels, ducks and a few other birds, but of particular note was a bird new to me — the Ruddy turnstone 🐦 :
An annual circumpolar breeder on Arctic and subarctic tundra, the ruddy turnstone is one of around 40 Arctic breeding wading bird species that migrate south and reach New Zealand.
I mainly enjoyed The Complete Detective Siv Drummond Mysteries: by Gretta Mulrooney. 📚
I'd already read another series by this author, and the first of the books in this series. Book 5 didn't grab me so much for some reason.
A fellow down the road breeds and protects rare Cape Barren geese. 🐦
Today I spotted half a dozen of them near the river and was struck by how very big they are:
Length: 85 cm
Weight: 5.3 kg (male), 3.8 kg (female)
Such a delight, listening to Handel's Messiah - Lausanne Cathedral 2025, all 2 hours 20 of it. 😁 🎶
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Home. 📷
