Woke to the unusual but welcome sound of rain on the roof this morning. Real, proper rain. 💦
Our new house now has a roof, as the photos from the builder show. 🏡
Physiotherapist Will Harlow makes excellent videos on strength and mobility for the over-50s so signing up for his special Lifelong Mobility course was a quick decision:
To help people just like you – active, health-conscious individuals over the age of fifty – to regain their strength, mobility and independence...
...then KEEP it that way, no matter your age!
A visualisation requirement led me to abandon a Mandarin course
My efforts with the free Mandarin Blueprint Challenge! ran into problems early on.
For one thing we're engaged in all this stuff around selling our house, which has been pretty distracting.
But the bigger reason is twofold:
- The free course is a very high-pressure sales funnel to the expensive course. Such high pressure is something I do not respond well to.
- The method demands extensive visualisation to help with learning the Chinese characters: create a scene, a person who does something, props they use, an action. These all connect to the Chinese character as an aide memoire.
I'm sure that technique works well for lots of people, but I just can't visualise things: people, places, scenery, things.
You know when you've had a dream and you can sort of remember it in the morning — but not quite? That's what my visualisations are like. Asking me to recall my childhood home, or imagine Sean Connery standing in my kitchen with a stick : nope. "See" a samurai chopping the top off a vegetable with a sword : nope.
So, I've reverted to the Udemy course I signed up for at the same time, and the Learn A Chinese Word A Day website.
We'll see how that goes …
There was a beautiful light at 10 minutes to sunset tonight.
I watched Still Alice — a very moving and powerful film that I wish I had seen before my mother's dementia diagnosis a couple of decades ago:
Dr. Alice Howland, a linguistics professor at Columbia University, celebrates her 50th birthday …. After she forgets a word during a lecture and becomes lost during a jog on campus, Alice's doctor diagnoses her with early onset familial Alzheimer's disease.
So well done!
It's pretty standard stuff, but Deb and I are enjoying watching the TV show Return to Paradise. Set in Australia, it features a quirky but brilliant detective whose impeccable eye for detail and ability to connect clues allows her to solve seemingly impossible crimes.
Such an interesting 9 minute video: Successful season for rare New Zealand fairy tern! 🐦 :
Follow along as we incubate, hatch and hand-rear tara iti (New Zealand fairy tern) for release into the wild. First, they head to a purpose-built predator-proof area on the beach. It’s here that the chicks perfect their flying and fishing skills before joining the wild population.
Tara iti are Aotearoa New Zealand’s most endangered bird as there are just 35 adults existing today. Every successful chick that reaches breeding age is a massive win for the future of the species.
One of my go-to sources for how to do stuff on my Mac, iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices has always been Take Control Books. I've learned so much over the last couple of decades …
If you want to boost your knowledge then check out the catalogue today as they have a brief sale:
Pi Day+ Sale! Save 31.4% on all books (including upgrades)! Sale runs through Monday, March 17 at 11:59 PM CST.
Really interesting 22 minute interview video: How Ibtihaj Muhammad made Olympic history.
This was a particularly interesting moment 😵💫:
Q: While you were competing you also wore your hijab. Again, it was a huge talking point but did you receive any backlash for being visibly Muslim and representing Team USA?
A: To be honest I thought that death threats and hate and those type of things were really common for public figures but apparently it's not. It doesn't happen to everyone.
Interviewer: Samantha Johnson.
This was a lightweight and rather enjoyable read which took us as readers in unusual directions. Cat relies on her skills honed as a mother of three to help solve the case. One Deadly Take (The Cat Caliban Mysteries Book 1) by D.B. Borton. 📚
Armed with nothing but a library card and a stack of well-thumbed mystery novels, Cat’s ready for her first case as a sleuth-in-training
Yesterday I picked 8 Kg apples off my Granny Smith tree — that's about $35 worth. I also left some on the tree as they didn't really seem willing to leave home yet.
Now I have to peel and chop them all, stew and freeze them!
As expected, there were no bids on our house for sale at the auction. Now folks who wanted a firm price and who will make conditional offers will emerge from the woodwork.
Tomorrow is the auction where our Waikawa Beach house may not sell.
We met with the auctioneer and estate agent to discuss the reserve price and what happens next.
We can expect offers though within the next two weeks. Apparently this is normal — Selling a house at auction:
If the property fails to sell it is “passed in”. The sale can continue through negotiation with a buyer either on the day or in the following days with many sales completed within 24-48 hours.
All a bit nerve-wracking …
This morning I pulled a fresh T-shirt from the drawer. I don't generally have black clothes so I expected this to be my Presentation Zen T-shirt.
It was not. It was a black T-shirt with a white heron on the front. 🐦
Perhaps someone gave me this? I didn't recall I had it …
This book was not only a good read, but the team of detectives were all people I was happy to spend time with. Murder in the New Forest (The DI Callum MacLean mysteries Book 1) by Carol Cole. 📚
I stayed up too late reading this and will definitely read the next book too. 😀
Our new house passed another inspection today. 🏡
I'm not quite sure what these builders photos show, but they were working on roof trusses. One seems to show some lengths of the long run Colorsteel that will cover the building.
Next steps are roofing cladding and building wrap.
On this morning's rather brief walk I spotted a Royal Spoonbill at the lake, then two more, with a Dotterel, at the beach. 🐦
Also at the beach were a small flock of White-fronted Terns (only a few of them in this photo — I liked that group of four) and a Pied Stilt with unusual black eye patch.
5 light links 10-Mar-2025
The world seems dark and grim. These 5 links aim to bring a little light. 💡
Via: — The world’s first Fish Doorbell is live again in Utrecht 🙂 🐟🐟
Every spring, thousands of fish swim through the Oudegracht in Utrecht, searching for a place upstream to lay their eggs. But the Weerdsluis is often closed. You can help the fish continue their journey! If you see a fish, press the doorbell. This alerts the lock operator to open the lock.
The flightless takahē, an "extinct" bird found wild in a hidden valley:
Believed extinct … the flightless takahē [was] rediscovered … in 1948.
Since then, the Takahē Recovery Programme on New Zealand’s South Island has helped grow its population from just 130 birds found surviving in the wild to around 500 protected birds in 2023.
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New kākāriki karaka population helping to bring bird back from extinction | RNZ News
A new wild kākāriki karaka/orange-fronted parakeet population is being established on Pukenui/Anchor Island, with 34 of the critically endangered birds being released. …
Critically endangered means less than 1000 birds self-sustaining. Currently there are around 400 kākāriki karaka in the wild, and the population on Anchor Island is helping to move the bird off the critically endangered list.
Air Pollution Is Falling Worldwide:
Global emissions of several harmful pollutants are falling — meaning, according to a story shared by RTBC Contributing Editor Michaela Haas from Our World in Data, that the planet as a whole has likely passed “peak air pollution.” Of course, that doesn’t mean emissions have peaked in every part of the world, but it’s an encouraging overall trend.
Rare white weka spotted at West Coast campground | RNZ News.
We also visited the gym where we were alone for a while so I had some fun trying out the various machines. Made a pleasant change from dumbbells.
I was disturbed to find I just couldn't do lying leg curls, even with only a 5 Kg weight. 😳