Every couple of years I get a free mammogram with BreastScreen Aotearoa. It’s 10 minutes of having my breasts squished and squashed uncomfortably. Could be lifesaving though, so it’s a small price to pay. Simple delicious eggs on toast breakfast beforehand.

Fried eggs on toast.
BreastScreen Aotearoa mobile screening unit.

Today workers scraped off the bottom part of our driveway and started spreading fresh shingle from the garage to the gate area. Tomorrow they finish adding shingle and then compact it.

Tractor with grading blade, digger and trucks work on the driveway.
A fresh layer of shingle on the driveway, showing digger tread tracks.

Lone kowhai flower.

Small yellow flower on an otherwise bare looking twig.

These are ‘before’ shots from today of the road end of our private lane. Tomorrow a contractor will scrape off the top, add fresh base coarse shingle and compact it. Maybe then I won’t have to clench my teeth while cycling along it in case of biting my tongue!

Lane with rough surface.
Digger tread marks on the lane surface.
Close up of the lane rough surface.

Hah! Hands off our Hairy Maclary! (wonderful kids book):

this mistake has been calcifying for … 40 years. The Scots have thought Hairy’s theirs for as long as we in Aotearoa have known he’s most indubitably ours. It’s… as entrenched as Hairy’s… hustling and also bustling.

Spammers don’t discriminate. Here’s the latest ‘Nigerian princess’ email, this time in Te Reo Māori.

Screenshot of spam email written in Māori.

This 5 minute video was intriguing — I thought the Schmid Peoplemover was impossible:

An elevator that can go smoothly from horizontal to vertical isn’t possible… right? Turns out the conventional wisdom is wrong, and the Schmid Peoplemover has been doing that for many years.

After much fruitless messing about trying to crop photos to a circle in Acorn I checked Help and found: Acorn: Clipping to a Shape Layer. Brilliant. A couple of clicks and it’s done. Test image.

Test image.

Oh, the New York Times Acrostic for April 1, 2018 was excellent fun and a joy to solve. So clever!

I’m far from a frog expert, but my Internet searches suggest this is a Green and Golden Bell Frog that was in our long grass.

Small bright green frog with golden stripes and bumps, on grass.
Small bright green frog with golden stripes and bumps, on grass. Better view of its back.
Small bright green frog with golden stripes and bumps, on grass. View of its face and feet.

Excellent! Sexual violence prevention programme:

Minister for the prevention of family and sexual violence… said one of the first priorities would be promoting respect and consent in relationships.

The programme would also address “underlying drivers that lead to violence.”

I really enjoyed Cold Deal (Kina McKevie Private Detective Book 1) by Lisa Ambrose. 📚 It kept me reading past bedtime. I hope the next in the series comes soon.

Kina McKevie is back in East London more than a decade after killing her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend.

Update 03 October 2022: when I first noted this on my blog on 03 October 2021 the author was Lisa Ambrose. Now the book’s at a new URL with Laurence Moore listed as author.

Cold Deal book cover.

Good grief! USPS won’t carry mail to NZ for a while:

… “unavailability of transportation”.

“refrain from mailing items … until further notice”.

Disrupted USPS services to NZ include … airmail and surface mail.

Source: United States Postal Service suspends mail to NZ

Glee and Fliss, the Japanese Quail, are now back in their outdoor run. 🐦 They don’t care for change much so were very cautious and fluffed up to start with.

Two small birds amongst vegetation.
Two small birds, in a wider context.

The quail have been living in our garage since mid-July when we went away for two weeks. 🐦 Now the worst of the winter and spring weather is over it’s time for them to go back into their outdoor run. Today I added a transparent roof over the open end and tidied the inside.

Transparent roof panel.
QUail run interior.

Earthquake prone building.

Earthquake prone building. Information sign.

Woohoo! Wowee!

‘Babylon 5’ Reboot in Development at The CW From Original Series Creator J. Michael Straczynski

Source: Variety

Thanks @alexsavin for the news.

Photo

It was a chilly morning with a cool wind from the south. Then when I took the dogs to the beach I got the full force of the southerly, and it was bitterly cold! I was so glad of my down jacket. The southerly has brought more snow to the peaks of the Tararuas.

Snowy mountain peaks.
Snowy mountain peaks.

On this day in 2015, 25 September, we were in Morocco, trekking through the desert by camel to stay overnight in a Berber camp. That was an amazing experience.

Me on a camel in Morocco.
Camel closeup.
In a Berber camp.
Camel train in Morocco.
Sunrise in the desert with camel train.

Noooo! When you finish Full Bodied (A Ruby Steele Mystery—Book 3) by Mia Gold 📚, knowing there’s a Book 4, so you go straight to buy it and see:

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on December 14, 2021.

Full Bodied book cover.