I had errands in Palmerston North today so treated myself to a Chicken Teriyaki lunch at Mr Choi’s. As always, it was utterly delicious! It comes with rice, seaweed and miso soup.
Tomorrow brings us Winter Solstice. The good news is daylight hours start increasing. The bad news is now the weather will be stink till something like October, November or even December.
Storms like the ones that filled the first couple of weeks of June for us bring loads of stuff onto the beach: driftwood, weed from the river, but also rubbish: plastic, food wrappers, glass bottles, drink cans and more. Luckily locals pick up bags of it when they walk.
Yesterday’s excellent movie — Whina:
Dame Whina Cooper was a Māori matriarch who worked tirelessly to improve the rights of her people, especially women. Known as Te Whaea o te Motu (Mother of the Nation), she changed the course of Aotearoa New Zealand for the better. 🎥
This Eastern Rosella announced herself and then stuck around long enough for me to take some photos. 🐦
Updated with better quality photo.
This little Piwakawaka was flitting round me, then landed close enough for me to be able to take a couple of iPhone photos. 🐦
To celebrate Deb’s upcoming birthday we went with friends to Soprano Ristorante. Pricey but delicious food. We all had different dishes and each was excellent. I really enjoyed the Fettucine with chicken, red capsicum and mushroom.
The river mouth was looking pretty good at dawn today.
I cooked Quick Vanilla Rice Pudding while Deb was driving home. Yummm! She’d better hurry up and get here or there won’t be any left. 🤩
In a quest for variety and expanding horizons I’m listening to new-to-me music each day. I go to YouTube and search for ‘traditional music [name of country or ethnic group]’. It gives interesting results and I’ve found a few gems. The Random Country website is helpful.
Our new Matariki national holiday, the country's first public holiday centred on Māori culture, is being celebrated on Friday 24 June this year.
The three themes of [every] Matariki:
- A chance to reflect: remembering those we have lost and acknowledging our own journey over the last year.
- A time to celebrate: reconnecting with whānau, friends and food
- A reset: preparing for the year ahead with a focus on wellbeing and life balance.
My Merrell Siren Traveller 3 Women’s Trail Shoes are my favourites, but only 7 months after purchase the stitching on the seam near the toe is coming adrift. I’ve emailed the company and the store to see what they can do about it. NZ law says such goods must be durable.
I must say, 1Password has always worked brilliantly and easily for me … until the latest version (8). Now it’s an utter pain in the bum and I have to dance around all over the show, manually opening it, searching for passwords, copying them etc (not all sites). What the heck? 😡
Goodnight Moon.
Hooray for web searches. This solved my Quick Look ‘gone wrong’ problem: macOS 12 Monterey Quick Look preview not working? Try this workaround — Force Quit Quick Look in Activity Monitor. Before and After screenshots.
Whew. After 18.75 hours power has been restored. Now charging all the things. 😀 And looking into @jean’s suggestion of a portable power station like this one: YETI 200X Portable Power Station - Goal Zero New Zealand
The power didn’t come back on overnight so that’s 15 hours now and counting. At least the thunderstorms have stopped and the gales have died down. I’ve lit the wood burner to boil water for tea, and because it’s cold.
4 hours ago in mid afternoon we had yet another big thunderstorm. That’s when the power went off. Still in the dark… I sure would like a cup of tea!
I was a bit surprised to find I really enjoyed listening to Tatar Folk Music, especially the track at 14:53 — Kirfiklere.
Tatarstan … traditional music is a mixture of Turkic and Finno-Ugric elements, reportedly bridging Mongolian and Hungarian music.
We get maybe two thunderstorms a year round here. Except for this month where intermittent storms have been rolling through for 5 days and nights now. I’ve never known such thundery weather. It’s 3.30 am and the house is shaking with the wind and thunder. ⛈
