I like to do my beach walks at dawn, when the sun just catches the tips of the waves.
We see some excellent sights from our lounge window, like the two Air Force Hercules aircraft that just flew past really low. Air Force marks 85 years of service to New Zealand.
Another in a series I enjoy: Close to Death by Elizabeth Gunn 📚.
Detective Sarah Burke is called out to a mass shooting in a quiet residential street … it’s nothing she can’t handle.
That’s until one of the ‘dead’ bodies wakes up. At least now Sarah has a suspect.
Scenes from this morning’s dawn walk.
A hard but powerful read: This is How You Died | The Order of the Good Death:
A physician who worked on the frontline during the Covid-19 pandemic addresses an auditorium she imagines is full of her patients who died.
My first attempt at a Chocolate Mini Loaf Cake, which thought it was maybe a volcano! Tasted good though!
I can’t believe how many times I need to correct a Post or Reply after publishing. Thank you so much @manton for making it easy to do that! 🙌🏼
A big walk for Sasha 🐶 these days is to go all the way to the speedsigns, 500 metres away. On our early morning walk today we rounded a bend in the road to see this beautifully lit scene. Behind those dunes is the sea.
Ready for some feelgood, with dogs?
the dogs had to learn about 80 new behaviors before they [could] get their paws on the wheel of an actual car. … little things … like desensitising them to seatbelts …
The day the dogs drove. Video: Driving Dogs. Skip to 3 mins on vid 2. 🐶
An even better morning display today at 0644: low in the eastern sky a crescent Moon, right beside mighty Jupiter. Arrayed above them, Venus, Saturn and Mars. My photos don’t do them justice. ☽🪐
To keep an eye on the sky, Stellarium Web Online Star Map is very useful.
This is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s smallest birds, often heard but seldom seen. I got lucky a few months back. Riroriro, Grey Warbler 🐦 :
Length: 11 cm; Weight: 5.5 - 6.5 grams
I had Keen shoes that were new many years ago, were demoted to dog walking several years ago and finally to gardening. This year they fell to bits. For gardening I’ve now replaced them with Hard Yakka Women’s 3056 work boots. They should be great, but I don’t want to dirty them!
This is bizarre: it’s not quite 5 am, pitch dark and I’ve been hearing a loud motorbike roaring around for 5 minutes or more. They may be on the beach — we hear it clearly from here — but why would someone be hooning on the beach in the dark? I guess dawn will reveal all. 🏍
I had low expectations for what turned out to be an excellent book. Murder on Port Meadow (Oxford Dog Walker Crime Thrillers Book 1) by Annie Dalton with Maria Dalton 📚 drew me in immediately and held me engrossed to the end. I’ve bought Book 2.
Has Apple Maps always had this? Just today I discovered Guides, and that I can add places to a Guide I’ve created. Very handy for a trip to Palmerston North. It syncs from my Mac to my iPhone too. Now, if only it would sync to the car’s GPS…
At 6 am I remembered Mars, Venus and Saturn were to be close together in the morning sky. I popped outside and found the Moon hanging out too. Handheld Phone photo, plus Milky Way by Scorpio and Southern Cross. 🌌 Bonus sighting of ISS. 👍
I’ve been listening to and enjoying @Matti’s excellent podcasts, The Early Riser and The Puppycast. That’s probably why I found myself speaking into Voice Memos on my phone as I set off for my beach walk this morning. Drafts app transcribed it for me, with not too many mistakes:
It’s 7 am on Monday the 28th of March 2022. I’m walking down the lane with Venus and the crescent Moon as my companions. The air’s cool but pretty enjoyable. It’s not really light yet but it’s getting there. The sun is just thinking about rising over in the east. I can see a bit of a glow and some shadows of the clouds. I’m on my way to walk past the lakes and down to the beach, down to the Waiorongomai Stream.
Hardly world-shattering stuff, but I wasn’t actually thinking of publishing when I started.
When I reached Waikawa river I stopped for a moment to record the Pied Stilts, with the noise of the sea as background.
Just experimented with Drafts transcribing a brief Voice Memo I made. Not bad at all. The hardest thing was getting the Voice Memo into Drafts. Sharing it did nothing. Voice Memos files, BTW, are stored at: ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.voicememos/Recordings/ .
I suppose articles like Escape from Kyiv are ten a penny just now. It moved me deeply though. And made me think about how NZ is so remote I can’t even begin to imagine invading bombers flying overhead. We’re so sheltered here.
I’m not given to sharing Wordle results, but today’s was very unusual:
Wordle 281 3/6
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