Our little pohutukawa tree is flowering. Looking good, little tree!
The herons do so enjoy hanging out on the fence. This young one is a bit ruffled in the breeze. 🐦
Today's good news: I took my 10 year old car in for its annual Warrant of Fitness check and there were no additional costs because nothing needed to be fixed or replaced.
And then, even better news: they asked me if I have a Gold Card (available to those 65 and over) and gave me a $5 discount.
I really enjoyed After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian. 📚
when [Patrick] takes in a drifter who seems to be hiding something, and his best friend and her newborn move into the apartment upstairs, his life gets turned on its head.
Thanks to @KimberlyHirsh for the recommendation.
At the river were two shags on a branch in the water. One is a Pied Shag but a clearly smaller shag was nearby. I think the smaller one is a Kawau tūī | Little black shag 🐦 :
Little black shags are similar in size to little shags, but they lack any white plumage and have a relatively short tail. They are much smaller than black shags.
A fellow down the road has a very large property by the river mouth and is happy for respectful folks to ride their bikes or walk there. He breeds the rare Cape Barren goose 🐦 :
Cape Barren geese are almost wholly terrestrial, inhabiting open grassland, including planted pastures, on the fringes of wetlands; they avoid scrub-encroached grasslands.
Comfy pukeko. 🐦
We drove to Warkworth today for breakfast with friends A & M at So French (FB link).
Warkworth is quite pretty really and is one of the filming locations for the NZ series The Brokenwood Mysteries.
I'm eating carefully today as my digestion seems a bit wobbly, so had a croissant.
On Netflix I really enjoyed the Spanish series Old Dog, New Tricks 📺 :
As the bills pile up and his farmer neighbors start paying him in eggs, Antón swallows his pride and considers a job at his niece's fancy pet store.
It was fun and funny. I use English subtitles, but love listening to the Spanish where I can understand the occasional word.
This is a very interesting 24 minute video — The English words nobody can explain:
Some of the most ordinary words in English have origins that no one can explain. Among them: "dog", "big", "bird", "donkey", "boy", "girl" and "puzzle".
The gay girl
and knave girl
caught my attention as older words for "girl" and "boy" at a time when "girl" meant child.
The neighbour's fence was the place for all the cool birds to hang out this morning. 🐦
Ahhh, on a hot day a little after-dinner beach stroll. Very pleasant.
Something for me to experiment with on these hot days — Three ways to make cold tea this summer | The Tea Curator:
Cold brewed 'still' tea
A super-simple, set and forget method. Add dry tea leaves into a teapot, glass, jar or pitcher - any vessel works. Use roughly 2 grams of tea to 100mls of water. Pour in cold, ideally filtered, water and leave in the fridge overnight. Aim for at least eight hours.
Summer hack: after you’ve made a hot cup of tea, reuse the wet leaves for an overnight cold brew.
This morning, through the slightly open door, I watched one of the baby herons (who have now left home) hang out on next door's roof. Then a couple of Pukeko strolled around the garden. 🐦
I really like the effect caused by the very narrow view I had between the doorframe and the edge of the door.
In this rather picaresque novel Blue takes a couple of decades to find herself — Finding the Grain by Wynn Malone. 📚
The tornado that ripped through Blue Riley’s family farm tore her teenage life apart, killing her parents in her last month of high school, forcing her to abandon her home in Alabama and face an uncertain future.
Not my usual genre, I found it a bit long but enjoyed it well enough.
That little doohickey in the middle of the shower head is a flow limiter thingy. The other day the plumber removed it and now my shower has more satisfactory pressure. 😁
I removed the disk from the other shower head too.
wrote:
After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian 📚
Cat Sebastian’s work unfailingly delights me …
I found the book on Amazon.com on my iPad where I'm not logged in. OK, $6.99 …
I switched to my Mac, where I am logged in, and now it costs $8.11. What the heck!
The paperback is the same cost in both cases. If it was an exchange rate thing between US$ and NZ$ the higher price would be around $12.
Update: Ohhh, wait a minute — Amazon collect 15% GST (Goods and Services Tax). That would bring it to $8.04. Close to $8.11. So maybe that's it! 💡
My special glass teacup is a slippery thing, especially when being washed. It also explodes into many shards when it bursts from my wet and soapy hands. 😢 The explosion was very musical though.
We had low flow shower heads installed when we built our house — great for water conservation, but after 3 months of showers being frustratingly not quite strong enough I asked about it.
The plumber removed a tiny plastic flow restrictor from inside the shower head. I have yet to test it …
Not just a smart watch! Smart watches give family violence victims 'a sense of protection' | RNZ News:
A smart watch that doubles as an alarm for women at risk of family violence is helping to reduce police callouts.…
It looks like any other smart watch but this one comes with a discreet SOS button which silently connects to a monitoring team who can listen to what is happening and if needed, call the police.