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.
Pretty excited that today when I moved a couple of fabric bags that had been left outside I startled a small dark coloured skink. [No photo.] Hooray for wildlife!
Joined a new group today: The Waipū Cove Walking Group. No joining fees, no committee, just a bunch of people who meet at the same time same place each week to go for a 1 hour walk, then socialise (if they feel like it) in the cafe across the road.
So friendly and welcoming! Such a brilliant idea.
Note to self:
New Zealand one of just a handful of countries to see upcoming partial solar eclipse:
Monday, 22 September [2025], a rare partial solar eclipse should be visible (weather permitting) in the early hours across the country.
Kiwis, or folks who know NZ Birds, give Birdle NZ a try. 🐦
Birdle 🇳🇿 15/09/2025
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
https://birdle.nz
Voting for Bird of the Year closes on 28 September 2025.
A light in the blackout
Among my papers is the (English) Eastern Evening News from 26 June 1940.
Right up there at the top are the blackout times for that day: 9.49 pm to 4.17 am. So precise!
I've kept the paper though for an item on the back page which refers to my father.
SOLDIERS USE RIFLE
AS "DETECTOR"How Black-Out Offender Was Traced
£20 FINE AT YARMOUTH
The story of how a lighting offender was discovered by soldiers, who aimed a rifle at the window to find its direction, was told to Yarmouth magistrates to-day, when Thaddeus Walter Ryan, of White House, Arnott Avenue, Gorleston, was summoned for displaying a light on June 10th. He admitted the offence in a letter.
The chairman (Mr. J. Fisher) said that the magistrates considered the offence very serious. They were determined to stop lights being shown, more especially on the front, and in future cases defendants would be fined very severely.
Ryan was fined £20 and 5s. costs.
Private Leonard Douglas Jordan said that he and his companions laid aim on the window with a rifle and rifle rest, and as soon as it was daylight they found where the light was coming from. The light was on for at least an hour.
Police-sergeant H. Wright said the police had received complaints from the military. There was a covering over the window, but it was of light cloth, and the house was in a very exposed place.
Claude tells me the fine today, 85 years later, would have been about £1,500.