This series keeps me reading well past my going to sleep time! I really enjoyed Extra Dirty (A Ruby Steele Mystery—Book 2) by Mia Gold 📚:
A 40-something female tourist seeks out Ruby, desperate for her help. She was out partying all night with her friend [who now] is missing.
Dog grooming day for Oshi and Sasha 🐶 — before and after.
Today’s dilemma: I have to take the dogs to the groomer very soon. I’m supposed to walk them first. It’s rainy and windy. Take them out and we all get soaked? Or leave it. (I’ll be spending the morning at the Library, hanging out till the dogs are done.)
Tonight I made Roast cod on spiced Puy lentils | delicious. magazine, using Monk Fish as that’s what I could get. Pretty good!
Oh dear. I ate too much chocolate cake.
First time trying this recipe: Six-Minute Vegan Chocolate Cake | Moosewood Restaurant & Recipes.
Super easy. Light and fluffy. Delicious. I decided not to ice it.
Here’s my GPS feature request: give me driving directions but let me choose that they only kick in when I’m ~10Km from my destination. I know my way around near me and can get to roughly my destination. It’s the fine details at the end that I need.
I really enjoyed On the Rocks (A Ruby Steele Mystery—Book 1) by Mia Gold 📚:
Welcome to the Bahamian world of Ruby Steele … her local dive bar, … her major drinking problem, her (way) too many fights, her inability to get herself out of trouble, and her fists made of stone.
There are 5 properties on our little lane. 3 have houses, one has a ramshackle ‘container’ set up to weekend in. The other has today started clearing all the gorse and blackberry so building a house can get underway. It’ll be noisy round here for a bit.
With the thought that my iPhone is my most often used camera I’ve decided to go big and upgrade from iPhone 11 to iPhone 13 Pro Max. Yesterday I ordered a blue one. I may even also sell my underused iPad and Pencil to help fund it. I hope the camera’s worth it!
Canada geese flying at dusk.
Another thing I keep forgetting how to do: How to Save Voice Memos on the Mac as Audio Files:
[drag the voice memo from the left column of the interface] onto the Mac desktop
This Grey Warbler, Riroriro was singing in the Levin dog park today.
I quite like cheese, but just in a casual way. I’m surprised at how interested I am by this excellent 45 minute long video. I’m watching in 5 minute ‘bites’: How to Cut & Serve Every Different Kind of Cheese.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve had a load of rain (even more in the hills), gales and some high seas. This has cut off the access for vehicles to our beach — a sudden 2 metre drop into water. We blocked access with a nearby picnic table. Now the Council have added ‘fences’.
At nearly 15 Oshi now seems to consider himself able to come home alone from the beach. 🐶 The only problem was he forgot to tell me that’s what he was doing… 🥵
Cool, I was hoping for a new Apple Watch. The cycling workout features in Series 7 and other features are very appealing. I’ll be upgrading from my Series 5. 😀 Deb still has a Series 2. I’ll be encouraging her to upgrade too.
Action at the bird feeder. Sparrows and Waxeyes. 🐦
Who knew sparrows had tongues!!!
We really enjoyed the movie Happiest Season 🏳️🌈:
the film follows a woman who struggles to come out to her conservative parents while she and her girlfriend visit them during Christmas.
the film is a semi-autobiographical take on [Duvall’s] own experiences with her family.
I need to remember this: Not to capture but to create
— The Power of Abbreviation in Photography:
A tutorial on why you should abbreviate your scenes and invite your viewer to fill in the blanks and imagine the rest of the story.
We’ve had 20mm rain today down here at Waikawa Beach at the coast. I imagine that up in the hills there’s been a great deal more. There’s a lot of water about in the paddocks and on the sides of the road.
The river is very full and flowing fairly strongly.
There are only about 150-200 Kotuku, White herons in Aotearoa New Zealand and they are rarely seen beyond their breeding ground on the South Island. Miraculously there has been one at Waikawa Beach for a couple of days. Today I took photos of this magnificent bird.
