I enjoyed The Sydney Mysteries — three gripping crime thrillers by Jean Bedford. 📚
Anna Southwood never meant to become a private investigator. But after her charming, corrupt ex-husband turns up dead in a locked car on a remote mountain track — and leaves her a small fortune of dirty money — Anna figures she might as well put it to use doing some good.
It's also enjoyable to read books set in the southern hemisphere.
Bream Bay is undoubtedly beautiful, especially on a sunny morning.
I watched the South African movie, Valley of a Thousand Hills, a lesbian story, but didn't get the light, happy, 90 minutes I'd been hoping for.
This reviewer, Blessing Chinwendu Nwankwo, makes a nice point:
Valley of a Thousand Hills … gives a good representation of the queer community—the experimentation, the struggle of coming out, and the societal stigmatisation. The film is a decent watch, and if you are not impressed with the story, you will love the view of the hills.
For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society. 🌊
The 8x optical zoom on the iPhone 17 Pro is quite something. 🐦
The bitterest of teas
While baristas train to make 20 kinds of coffee, 99.9% of the tea available in cafes and restaurants in Aotearoa is prepared by shoving a teabag (or two) or leaves in a pot or cup, adding boiling water and serving.
I've learned to extract the tea strainer or bag very soon after the drink is served. Then I just grit my teeth and swallow an inferior drink.
Today's green tea though was so undrinkable I sent it back.
As tea steeps for longer it becomes more bitter. More leaves make it stronger too. The cup I poured was awful.
Then I looked in the strainer I'd removed from the two-cup pot. There were enough tea leaves for the 15 or 20 people at the table!
You can tell it’s spring. A pukeko family of 2 adults and 3 chicks on the grass not far from our house, and a pair of white-faced herons nesting in the tree closest to us. 🐦
Meanwhile, someone was exercising their horse on the racetrack just behind the entrance to the beach.
This dreadfully terrible photo of the partial eclipse does show a bite out of the sun at top left.
I tried holding my eclipse glasses over the phone's cameras.
I came to the beach anyway even though it’s cloudy.
Woke this morning and remembered: Oh yes. Go to the beach before dawn to see the partial solar eclipse.
Looked out the window: it's cloudy and raining. Sigh.
A pretty plooty part of the area
The Anchorage area of Marsden Cove is where folks pay upwards of $1.8 million just for a bare land section that allows them to berth their yacht outside their back door. 🤑
One house we saw would be at least 10x the size of our 150 m2 house.
There was a tiny beach where you were allowed to swim, not too far from the sand though. I digitally removed a person who was accidentally in shot.
The Anchorage Retirement Village Cafe was a good place to eat
Today, after visiting the rather disappointing Artisan Market at One Tree Point, we had breakfast at The Anchorage Retirement Village Cafe.
Deb enjoyed her coffee and I enjoyed my hot chocolate.
Deb chose soft scrambled eggs with bacon on toast and found it delicious.
I chose fish and chips. The fish itself was tasty but the batter was pale and soggy. I was probably the first person of the day to order that dish and I imagine the fryer wasn't properly heated.
They had good quality cutlery though and our meals totalled less than $50.
Our views were over the lawn bowls area and parts of the marina. In the distance we could see Mt Manaia.
We'd go back again.
Deb and I went to the gym this morning and she took a photo (unposed) of me doing leg extensions.
Got a new phone — iPhone 17 Pro — so I took a photo of the clouds at dawn.
When I bought my Series 9 Apple Watch a while ago I never got around to selling the S7 it replaced. Instead I use the S7 when the S9 is charging.
Last night I left the S7 on the bedside table and when I picked it up this morning it told me I'd tried too often to enter the wrong password and to wait 8 hours to try again.
Turns out this has often happened to people and the solution is to do a full reset.
Resetting …
At yesterday's checkup with the optometrist I discovered this is relevant to me — Dry Eye Disease 👁️ :
Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) is a widespread eye condition and the number one cause of Dry Eye Disease. There are 30-40 glands in each eyelid that produce the oily surface layer of your tears. If the glands get blocked or produce inadequate oil, the eyes feel irritated, sore and tired, and can appear red.
Taking the opportunity before a routine eye test in Whangārei to visit Otuihau | Whangārei Falls.
New space observatory opens in South Wairarapa | RNZ News:
A new observatory in South Wairarapa lets visitors watch exploding stars far away - and take the photos home with them.
The Cretney Observatory, which opened Saturday 13 September, boasts a … 400mm Testar Officina Stellare RiFAST telescope … sourced from Italy. … It sits on an eight tonne slab of concrete to keep the images stable.…
"It's a reflecting telescope, it's a carbon fibre tube and two very high quality mirrors that reflect the light that's travelled all that way through the universe, through the galaxy, into our little telescope in Martinborough."
My iPhone 13 Pro Max is busy updating my Apple Watch so I reached for the tiny iPhone 5 I can't bear to dispose of because it's so cute. I wanted to grab the sunrise.
