My 🐈 buddy Leo has an excellent view from his spot on the sofa. This was taken yesterday.

View from a hill across grassy land and dunes to the sea.

My 🐈 buddy Leo’s family have a spa pool they urged me to use. That’s a nice way to begin a cool and grey Sunday. Ahhhh.

Spa pool in a garden.

I really enjoy this writer. Goodbye Sea Angel: A Port Alma Murder Mystery by Anne Shillolo 📚 was another great read:

DC Holly Towns takes an extra paid shift on board the Sea Angel party boat … But before the night is out … a body is found on the lower deck.

Goodbye Sea Angel book cover.

My buddy Leo was relaxing in the play loft today. 🐈 I enticed him down the steps though.

Cat on a ladder.

It was high tide when I took the dogs to the beach, so we had to negotiate our way through driftwood.

Beach with driftwood.

I’m visiting my buddy Leo today. 🐈

Burmese cat.

Finally, yesterday, the part of our shared private lane closest to the road was resurfaced. The existing surface was scraped off, shingle laid and graded, then rolled. At last now the sun has come out, and as the shingle dries out it will harden. Now for the $$$.

Scraped off lane surface.
A fresh coast of shingle.
The shingle is graded.
The surface is rolled.
Resurfacing complete, and yet to dry out.

By the time I came home this morning the part of our driveway from the garage out past the gate had been completed. Thanks to the rain it’s all a bit sticky right now, but once it dries out it’ll be a good solid surface.

Our resurfaced driveway section.
Our resurfaced driveway section from another angle.

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.