This puriri tree at Pukekura Park is about 2,000 years old!
We visited the gorgeous and popular Pukekura Park in New Plymouth:
Pukekura Park is an idyllic, inner-city botanical wonder that was first opened in 1876. Once swamp land, the 52-hectare park is both a garden and a public recreation ground.
While Aotearoa is in the South Pacific, I guess technically both Waikawa Beach and New Plymouth are actually on the Tasman Sea, and South and North Taranaki Bight respectively.
Nevertheless for the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society, the following video from Autere / East End Beach, New Plymouth. 🌊
Two minutes walk from the Devon Hotel in New Plymouth is the coastal walkway and beach. Looking southish.
Our friends J & H, keen motorcyclists, have ridden their bikes 510 Km from Whangārei to meet us in New Plymouth — a 280 km drive for us.
The Devon Hotel is comfortable and has free EV charging.
It's good to get away for a day or two from the ongoing house cleaning, tidying and readying for sale.
You’re never in any doubt where you are when stopping at Bulls for lunch.
I enjoy the Detective Clare Mackay series by Marion Todd. Dead Man's Shoes (Detective Clare Mackay Book 9) was another good read 📚:
A young man is found dead near a nightclub. He has marks on his neck, the signature of the Choker, a killer who has been targeting gay men across the country.
A couple of years ago I didn't care for one of Tannis Laidlaw's books, but I thought I'd give a different series a try. It didn't work: I can't stand the characters in Darkwater Lake Mysteries: Box-Set - a complete series of 5 psychological suspense mysteries. Abandoned. 📚
I usually take my Waikawa Beach photos from across the estuary, somewhere south of the river throat. That's several hundred metres south of the river throat where a groyne is.
Standing at the groyne looking south on a particularly high tide gives quite a different impression.
This was such an interesting podcast episode! Lingthusiasm Episode 99: A politeness episode (1 hour):
…different uses of “please” in UK vs US English, levels of indirectness, email etiquette across generations and subcultures, rudeness and pointing … and how a small number of politeness ingredients can combine in so many different ways that are culturally different.
For my own future reference — Hawaiian Language:
Hawaiian diacritical marks, ʻokina (ʻ) and kahakō (macron) are not just symbols but essential components of the Hawaiian language. The ʻokina represents a glottal stop, a pause in speech, and is typographically represented as a reversed apostrophe. The kahakō, on the other hand, is a bar above a vowel that indicates a prolonged sound. These marks are crucial for accurate pronunciation and meaning in the Hawaiian language.
// @hawaiiboy
Hah, a potential buyer is coming to look at our house this afternoon, in the single hour today when the 100% cloud cover drops to 27%. 😀
Ugh. Looks like creepy spam. Blocked!
It turned out today was floor washing day — prompted in part by the full cup of coffee that started the process in the lounge.
Our floors are all vinyl: we learned while building that houses close to the beach shouldn't have carpet because of all the sand that appears.
Wiped myself out today sorting stuff in the grounds and garage, carting stuff around and loading a skip. Even used both chainsaw and weedeater, as well as a spade. Whew!
It's amazing how much stuff you can clear out when you're moving …
I apologised to this rather chubby Green and Golden Frog for making it homeless. I'd just removed a pile of stuff it was sheltering under on the property.
Glad to see the frog at all though — we're concerned there seem to be fewer around these days.
What hope does a non-American have when the answer to a puzzle is that 4 words with 3 different vowel sounds have the 'same' vowel sound:
From Conlextions #505.
Post delayed to reduce spoilers.
Quite a rattle to wake us at 1130 at night. 〜
Magnitude 5.2, 33 Km deep, not very distant.
No harm done; just a rattle.
Not the most gripping, but an easy read — An Unfortunate Christmas Murder (The Dinner Lady Detectives Book 2) by Hannah Hendy. 📚
Margery [and] her wife, Clementine … are caught in the crossfire when the stage lights collapse at the first [Christmas concert] practice, killing Mrs Large, the music teacher.
Yay. Our building company uses a service called BuilderTrend. They started sharing photos of our new build with us. 🏡
All the empty land behind and beside our new place will eventually have houses on it, but until then we get a bit of a view.