“While socks last”.
The Kindle book ‘Lethal Suds (Abigail Kinsman Mysteries Book 1)’ has taught me that every author needs someone to take a look at their book before publishing. Dumb characters, fairly dumb investigation process. Bored now. I ended up returning it and getting my $1 back. 📚
Last week I read The Crossing Places: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 1. I was ambivalent about it as I read, but really didn’t get on with the ending. I very much disliked the several creepy characters. I won’t be buying more of this series. 📚
Hmmm, Scared to Death was a book I read to the end, but I’m not sure I’ll buy any others in the series. The murder mystery was fine, but some moderately graphic scenes of torture and terror of a young woman from the bad-guy’s point of view, aren’t something I like to read. 📚
Volume down for the annoying wind noise. Southerly sand storm at the beach today. The dogs still had fun. 🐶
I absolutely adore the massive vocabulary of the English language. I love words in general. So sometimes a word in a book trips me up. Twice an author referred to ‘clouds scuttling’ across the sky. Took a bit of effort to dredge from my brain: scudding is the word she wanted.
Well the good thing about having to get up to let Sasha out at 1 am is that I was able to load more wood into the wood burner. With a freezing southerly storm outside it’s good to be toasty.
I need to be careful what I read in the hours before bed. Scared to Death (Detective Kay Hunter murder mystery series Book 1) is a thriller with too many (for my taste) overly detailed descriptions of terror and torture of a young woman. I found a nice Cozy for night reading. 📚
Today I learned that Quiet parks are a thing.
Wilderness Quiet Parks are large pristine areas offering exceptional sonic beauty and opportunities for extended periods of pure natural quiet.
As with Dark Skies, I’m in favour of Quiet Places.
I watched the first 40 minutes (the lecture) of this. Its fascinating stuff: Kelly Wright: Raciolinguistic profiling: Passing for American means speaking without an accent. Sounding ‘non-standard’ has real consequences.
5 years ago this basic Westinghouse Saturn electric oven with spiral elements was brand new. Today we’ve replaced it with a Belling dual oven with induction hob — the same oven we used to have in Wellington. My partner, who enjoys cooking, is thrilled.
Today I spent an hour watching the front yard as my part in the Aotearoa New Zealand Garden Bird Survey. Something happens each year when I do this — all the birds go somewhere else for a nap or something. I hardly saw any birds today. 😒
Cold southerly at the beach this morning. For once I took my camera. Photo of Kuaka (Godwits), which usually return to the Arctic for our winter, but these stayed. Oshi and Sasha also enjoyed their outing.
🐦 🐶
This Micro Monday I suggest @jennifermjones , a local reporter who lives with her dog in the deepest darkest Southwest of Scotland and has a dailyish podcast.
[Posted again as I messed up the post yesterday and cant edit.]
We Dig Dinosaurs was great. Host Emily Graslie does a fabulous job and has so much fun.
Cretaceous … T. rex dominated the planet … what happened to these tremendous animals? … how did other life forms survive an apocalyptic asteroid crash into Earth 66 million years ago?
I knew mid-book in Lies to Tell: An utterly gripping Scottish crime thriller (Detective Clare Mackay Book 3) by Marion Todd who the bad guy was. I was so wrong!! Good book, enjoyable series. Love the Scottish setting. 📚
Clare realises too late she has trusted the wrong person.
Turns out Aotearoa New Zealand is just the tippy tops of the lost continent of Zealandia:
only 6% of the continent is above sea level. That part underpins New Zealand’s north and south islands… The rest is underwater
Map: A map of Zealandia, outlined in grey.
We abandoned Ad Astra half way through and switched to Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga which was way more fun. 🎬
Singing, dancing, Iceland, it had a lot going for it.
Our broadband died this morning. After 40 minutes on the phone to a very pleasant person in India Ive been given 100GB free data to hotspot from my phone until the issue is fixed. New modem on its way to replace the 5-year-old model. Indias in lockdown so there are some delays.
27-Jun-20: daily quake. 〰️ 4.9 near Rotorua, but quite deep. Shook us around slightly. I thought it would have been one of the Levin quakes.
