Spotted ‘the’ Kingfisher today — perching on top of the tunnelhouse. Managed a photo through the window, but when I went outside it flew away.
Damn good read, so well put together! The Case of the Fond Farewell (Ellie Tappet Cruise Ship Mysteries Book 6) by Cheri Baker. 📚
When tragedy strikes in the dark of night, Ellie and her friends investigate. The trail of deception leads to a shocking revelation…
// @cheri
Niue reaches herd immunity, with 97% of eligible population vaccinated:
Niue … vaccinated almost 100% of its eligible population.
The Pacific Island nation, population ~2000, reached the milestone within two months.
A national celebration was held … to mark … milestone.
A big storm is forecast for this weekend — gales and loads of rain. Plus it’s midwinter and we’ve had some solid frosts and we’re going away soon for a holiday. Today I moved my two quail into the garage, using the dog crate to hold them. They’ll be warm, dry, out of the wind. 🐦
The forecast rainfall for this weekend has already reduced by ~20 mm, thank goodness. Still way high though.
According to this crazy forecast we might get 144 mm (about 5.7 inches) of rain over 4 days this coming weekend! I imagine in the end we’ll actually get more like 15 mm, but if we do get all that’s forecast, things could be a bit wet!
Knockout (A Holly Hands Mystery—Book 1) by Mia Gold had a very strong start. 📚 A new and original character and compelling premise. I found it strained credulity overall though and sometimes just annoyed me. Not sure I’ll read the next one.
Vaccinating a load of people in a city is one thing. But how do you vaccinate a handful of people on a tiny tropical atoll 500 Km from the nearest island? NZ Navy ship delivers Covid-19 vaccine to remote Tokelau, northern Cook Islands
And … ✔️
Just waiting for COVID vaccine shot #2. It’s busy but we get to sit while we wait.
This week for our International Breakfast Deb cooked New Orleans-Style Beignets. Very yummy!
Today Deb and I attended a Stacking Rings Workshop in Wellington. We made textured or twisted rings from copper or silver. It was quite interesting but my interest has now been sated. I made a twisted copper and a textured silver ring in the 3 hours.
The best thing ever! We Are Lady Parts 📺 We ended up bingeing. Hilarious! Excellent!
Nida Manzoor’s anarchic and irreverent music comedy about a Muslim female punk band - called Lady Parts - who are on a mission to find a lead guitarist and maybe, just maybe, get a proper gig
After our Rakiura Cruise later this month we’ll visit The Catlins, New Zealand for a few days. We’ve already booked a Royal Albatross Tour at the Royal Albatross Centre:
visit the only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatross in the world.
We’re heading later this month to Rakiura, a Dark Sky Sanctuary so now I need to discover how to take photos of the Aurora Australis. These may help:
🤞🏼📷
This was a pretty good read: Old Sins, Long Memories by Angela Arney. 📚
Meet Dr Lizzie Browne. After her divorce she moves to a small coastal town for a quieter life. Now her patients are turning up dead.
I forget I have a 27mm prime lens for my Fuji X-T2. I also have a wriggly dog and a dog who refused to open his eyes. 🐶 Nevertheless, Sasha (x3) and Oshi. I should have used this lens more often with the pets.
Heh, the telephoto lens makes Kāpiti Island look like you could wade out to it — it’s actually 20Km away. A shot of birds in the estuary at Waikawa Beach this morning.
I’m getting quite excited: at the end of the month the Milford Wanderer will be our home for 6 nights as we sail round Rakiura.
Designed along the lines of a traditional sailing scow, she has old-world charm combined with modern facilities and the latest in safety equipment.
How to maintain your speaking voice
As I get older I’ve become a little concerned about my voice. Sometimes when I try to call the dogs on the beach my voice ‘cracks’ and even disappears. Sometimes when I talk with people I think my voice isn’t reliable and can be a bit creaky.
I went in search of helpful videos and found a whole swag on YouTube from County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. Unfortunately they hadn’t made a playlist, but I worked through the videos yesterday, ignoring a couple of duplicates and ended up with this wonderful list of 28.
Some videos are slightly longer; some are less than 60 seconds. Most are just a couple of minutes.
One hilarious thing for me is that I just can’t do something most babies probably do without effort: a lip trill, where you put your lips together and blow through them to vibrate the lips: Bbbbb. Nope, no can do!
I hope by practicing these various warmups and techniques I can strengthen my voice, making it smoother and more reliable.
Have fun!
- Warm Up Exercises
- Dynamic Stretches
- Vocal Function Exercises
- Pitch
- Resonant Voice
- Breathing Exercises
- Lax Vox
- Silent Laugh
- Whine
- Sob
- Creak
- Stifled Yawn
- Yawn Sigh
- Volume and Projection
- Accent Method
- Silent Inspiration
- Tongue Trill
- Tongue Roll
- Lip Trill 2
- Voiced Fricatives
- Glides
- Hmmm
- Pops
- Plosive Consonant Closure
- Smooth Onset
- Breath Before Tone
- Glottal Onset
- Siren 2