Even though the weather’s rotten I’m doing my bit this afternoon for the NZ Garden Bird Survey. There are worse things to do on a cold rainy day than look out the window and hope to spot some birds.
Maybe I’ll spot a ring-necked pheasant like this one from April 2020.
And here we have what seems to have become a daily power cut post. 🤨
Yay. 😒 Winds gusting to almost 80 Kph and the power’s gone out. I presume a line has come down somewhere. Outage looks quite widespread.
So much rain over the weekend localised flooding closed a couple of roads. The Waikawa Beach river’s running very swift — we had 43mm rain (1.6 inches), but up in the hills they surely had a heap more. The river has also managed to breach the sandbar and flow directly to the sea.
Lovely! Loaded up the dishwasher, turned it on and a moment later there was a loud pop and the house went dark. It was just us — the dishwasher seems to have blown up. We had trouble with it recently and tried to buy a new better one but supplies are short… 🦠
Last night we drove to Palmerston North to celebrate Deb’s recent birthday. Arranged Marriage provided delicious meals from the Kerala region of India. I had:
chicken cooked in fresh spinach and cashews ground together then sautéed with roasted garam masala and turmeric.
Yum.
On this cool, grey, rainy day we had our 15th International Breakfast : Churros. Yum! They were light and airy fingerfood. As usual we had to improvise a bit: an icing bag with no special nozzle, milk instead of heavy cream. It’d be interesting to add chilli to the chocolate.
It’s a Big Cuddle day for Oshi. 🐶
Hmmm, coming later in 2021 is NCIS: Hawaii:
NCIS: Hawaii stars Vanessa Lachey as Special Agent in Charge Jane Tennant, Yasmine Al-Bustami as Lucy, Jason Antoon as Ernie, and Noah Mills as Jesse.
I’ve always enjoyed NCIS (original). I mostly sorta like NCIS: LA. NCIS: NO is 🤔.
I check the global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions every morning. Today’s map shows an amazing air stream that flows down from the sub-tropics, across Aotearoa New Zealand and then right down to the Southern Ocean.
What a great short read: Send in the Bugs. The Michelangelos Need Cleaning.
The team washed [Night’s] hair with Pseudomonas stutzeri CONC11, a bacterium isolated from the waste of a tannery near Naples …
The local Canada Geese seem to be stirred up by the full moon. They’re flying around honking mightily. Volume up.
I watched the documentary Lift Like A Girl
On a busy, noisy high-traffic street corner in Alexandria, Egypt, a seemingly vacant corner lot surrounded by chain link fencing is the training site of Egypt’s most elite champions – female weightlifters.
👍 🎬
I can understand why an online film festival like Doc Edge Festival 2021 needs to know my birthdate but why on earth was I required to select a gender? As a matter of principal and as an objection I selected Other.
I thought I’d give Arepa de Queso a try. I had a few glitches, like forgetting the oil till a later step, having the heat too high so it’s a bit burnt / raw, wrong kinds of cheese. Worth a try though. Plus, perhaps I should have flattened them more.
I suspect this is a slightly more distant neighbour’s cat. Such a beauty! A very hasty photo through the window as it turned back for a moment while running away.
Dammit. A Covid+ traveller spent time in Wellington last weekend, so now Wellington region has to move to Alert Level 2. Luckily we live outside the region, but Deb works in Wellington several days per week. Fingers crossed there has been no community transmission.
This 6 minute Tom Scott video is well worth a watch: History forgot these old fireworks. We recreated them.
Around the old mining areas of North Wales, you find rock cannon: old Welsh firework sites. Most of the world has never heard of them: so we recreated them
🧨
A Kiwi Covid shot part 1
Yesterday I was wiped out by the time I got home. I drove to Levin to drop my car off for new tires, a window fix and a few other minor repairs. Then I walked briskly to the vaccination centre.
After my Pfizer Covid–19 shot I walked briskly to Line Dancing where Deb joined me. We danced for 2 hours then drove home. The day had started with a bit of stress too, around a computer sale.
The Covid shot was booked for Monday after I filled in an online form last Thursday and was rung early on Friday to make a time. The vaccinations were taking place at Levin’s Events Centre. I walked in to an overheated room (apparently they hadn’t had time to turn the heaters off). There were probably 100+ people in two seating areas, 5 vaccination stations and 3 tables with at least half a dozen workers. There was a steady stream of new arrivals.
First I checked in with one worker who completed some details on a laptop and filled in my vaccination card. I was directed to sit in the nearby group of seats and wait.
From time to time someone would come and read out names, one by one, until someone replied. That person would then go through behind a screened vaccination station.
Sometimes a woman who had been sitting by me would be called over to assist. When I heard her later speaking a Pacific Island language with some folks behind me I realised she must be a translator.
I’d arrived quite early and was glad my name was called some 20 minutes before my appointed time.
The nurse asked me some questions and had me give verbal assent to the shot, also explaining possible side effects.
I must say, the shot hurt quite a bit, unlike the flu shot I had last month which I barely noticed. Deb had her shots last month and tells me hers didn’t hurt at all. Sure enough, I’ve had a sore arm since, but it’s not bad.
After my shot I was directed towards another staff member who confirmed a couple of things with me then directed me to another staffer to organise my second appointment.
Then I was directed to the other group of chairs where I was to wait to be sent away.
After 20 minutes a staffer called my name, asked how I was feeling, checked the vaccination site on my arm and told me I was free to leave.
By dinner time I was done for. I put myself to bed where I slept intermittently until about 5.30 am. My arm’s still a bit sore, but otherwise I feel fine.
The whole Covid thing is a bit unreal in Aotearoa New Zealand because our borders closed promptly and the country had a very effective shutdown back in April 2020. We have no Covid in the community and most of us go about our daily lives more or less the same as ‘before’. Tourism is slowly starting to open back up, and we’re strongly encouraged to ‘scan in’ when we visit a venue such as a cafe or business, though I’m not sure many people still do that.
Our vaccination programme has also felt quite slow, but it’s probably not easy to obtain supply and of course there were organisational challenges in delivery, such as having trained staff.
Those who needed the shots most — those working at the border or in the quarantine sites where most travellers are required to spend 14 days — were rightly prioritised. Things seem to be picking up now.
OK, COVID vaccine part one ✅ Part 2 on 12 July.