A highlight for today: panfried fresh Gurnard with handcut fries at Jolt Cafe in Maunu. Truly delicious!

Plate of fish and chips, with tomato and Bearnaise sauces.

For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society two videos. The first from Waipu Cove about 40 Km south of Whangārei. The second, an hour later, from north Ruakākā Beach just a few Km north of Waipu. 🌊

At Ruakākā North Beach. Look at that white sand!

A white sand beach beneath a blue sky with scattered clouds. The sea is dark green.

An excellent reason for banning dogs from Whangārei Quarry Gardens: there are kiwi in the hills.

Sign below garden greenery: No Dogs, we have kiwi in here.

Deb and I visited Quail Cafe in Whangārei Quarry Gardens. The food, beverages, ambience and service were excellent. I look forward to visiting again and enjoying a long walk round the gardens themselves.

Lush vegetation seen through large windos in the cafe.
Cop of hot chocolate with a leaf pattern in the foam.
A mushroom dish on a hot black iron plate, with toast on a separate plate nearby.

I rather like this blend of hearsay and heresy. Nicely combines the idea of incorrectness and dissidence.

Screenshot shows: Contact the council to get the correct information as well as any water - flood issues otherwise it'll be heresay.

We're in charge of Boo and Rush for a few days as their family members have a holiday. The dogs enjoyed their walk at the park this morning. 🐶

Small black furry dog with sparkly eyes.
Large black Malinois dog.

Off to a good start on our travels today with Air NZ letting us know before we'd left home for the hour's drive to the airport that our flights were moved around. 🛩️

All packed up and ready to go, we now have an extra 2 hours at home. And our 1 hour at Auckland Airport converts to a 4.5 hour wait.

A pair of Paradise Ducks announced their arrival in the paddock next door. Meanwhile a blackbird serenades me from the railing of our deck. (Volume up; apologies for the shaky cam.) 🐦

Paradise ducks in a paddock.

An excellent quote from Moira on Schitt's Creek S05E06, Rock On! 🤣 :

Oh, Jocelyn, you'll soon learn that we aging mortals are blessed with weakening eyes and memories so we don't have to really see ourselves.

We learned of a new cafe in Levin, opened just a month ago, so we visited today for lunch: Old Courthouse Eatery.

Deb's coffee was apparently good; my hot chocolate was good. We both had bagels — in my case with halloumi, pesto and mushrooms. All very enjoyable.

We'll definitely be back.

Bagel loaded with lettuce, mushroom, pesto and halloumi.

Having just finished Book 7 in the series by Melissa Good, I moved on to Storm Surge: Part 1: Book 8 in the Dar & Kerry Series (Dar and Kerry Series 10) where I kept thinking I must have missed something …

It's right there in the link: even though it's named Book 8 it's actually Book 10.

Book cover: Storm Surge Part 1.

A large part of the book deals with Dar and Kerry's part in assisting after the events of September 11, 2001. Frenetic! But also interesting.

Yesterday there were visitors at the place across the lane — it's a bit higher than our house. Around 10.15 pm their headlights as they left lit up my bedroom wall, with shadows from the cabbage trees outside dancing in the breeze.

A square of light on the wall, with cabbage tree shadows.

First, we're all good, no damage etc. Second: shaken awake by a fierce 5.8 quake this morning. That was quite something! 〰️

5.8 quake on 2024-10-06 at 05.10.43. 33 Km deep, 25 Km west of Wellington.
5.8 quake on 2024-10-06 at 05.10.43. 33 Km deep, 25 Km west of Wellington.

A few highlights from today: Deb made delicious pikelets; I wore my shorts for the first time this season and did my weight training on the deck.

My outdoor temperature sensor has died, but a neighbour's unit, about 1 Km away, says it's currently 19.3C and earlier reached 20C. Summery.

AppleScript to save a post selected in MarsEdit

An AppleScript to save a post selected in MarsEdit to a file in the Downloads folder. Use at your own risk. Let me know if you improve on it. 😁

-- very rough starter; use at your own risk
-- 04 October 2024
-- takes details from a post selected in MarsEdit and saves the post to a file in the Downloads folder

tell application “MarsEdit” set newLink to "" set newTitle to "" set myPost to "" set myDate to ""

set newLink to (permalink of selected post) as text
set myDate to (published date of selected post)

set newTitle to (title of selected post) as text
set myPost to (body of selected post) as text

set the clipboard to newLink & return & newTitle & return & myPost & return & "Published on: " & myDate

end tell

– thanks to Claude.io for the file saving portion below

set fileName to newTitle & “.txt” – Change this to your desired file name

tell application “Finder” set downloadsFolder to (path to downloads folder) as text set filePath to downloadsFolder & fileName end tell

try set clipboardContent to the clipboard

set fileRef to open for access file filePath with write permission
write clipboardContent to fileRef
close access fileRef

display dialog "Clipboard content saved to " & fileName & " in Downloads folder." buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"

on error errMsg display dialog “Error: " & errMsg buttons {“OK”} default button “OK” with icon stop end try

Four, with water droplet. 🐦

Pied stilt with leg lifted, water dripping off one foot, and legs seeming to make the shape of a 4.
Pied stilt with leg lifted, water dripping off one foot, and legs seeming to make the shape of a 4.

Ages ago I watched the first episode of Schitt's Creek and immediately saw it wasn't for me. After about 10 different people, over the years, said how brilliant it was I relented. The first season was definitely iffy, but now, I'm loving it. So funny! All the characters and actors are so good.

Schitt's Creek logo.

On 03 June 2024 the Beach Access post by the north track off Reay Mackay Grove is gradually disappearing. Note how the sand comes up to just below the bottom S.

Blue post with the words Beach Access written from top to bottom.

On 01 October 2024 that bottom S has almost been buried.

Beach access sign is slowly disappearing.

Here it was on 15 July 2020 when it was installed.

Beach access post shows text down the pole with a metre or so of clear space below.

Census data has revealed one in 20 New Zealand adults identify as LGBTIQ+ - or part of the rainbow communities.

For the first time ever, the 2023 Census collected data about gender, sexual identity and variations of sex characteristics.

The LGBTIQ+ or rainbow population includes people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, intersex, or have other "minority genders or sexual identities", StatsNZ said.

Via: Census 2023: First-ever Census data on NZ's rainbow communities released.