Yesterday in the supermarket I walked past a stand of Hot Cross Buns. Folks, Easter isn't until mid-April! That's 70 days away!
Good to know — I've just discovered the Frankie Drake Mysteries Wiki. 🔗
I love the way Frankie Drake Mysteries manages to include snippets of Toronto / Canadian history in its episodes.
DOC 'cautiously optimistic' for New Zealand's rarest bird, the fairy tern | RNZ News 🐦 :
With fewer than 40 tara iti left, every nest, egg, and chick was critical to the survival of the species. …
Tara iti bred at only four locations in New Zealand … [including] the Waipū and Mangawhai sandspits in Northland.
Waipū and Mangawhai are just a few kilometres away from our new home at Ruakākā.
Oops, carelessly fell asleep while reading out in the midday sun. Maybe only 15 minutes, so fingers crossed no harm done. Siri tells me the current UV reading is 6 …
Things have been so busy I haven't done a dawn beach walk for a while. Rectified this morning. 5.5 Km.
Around high tide, waves driving into the river mouth. For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society. 🌊
The video looked terrible. Here's another version.
Annie makes a lot of sense, as always — I’m gonna keep making shit and I hope you will too:
every single tiny little unimportant thing we make is one more thing that is not terrible.
Random bit of fun spotted in a parked car at the cafe where I met a good friend for brunch this morning.
The photographer has been and gone and now it's a couple of weeks till the first open home. We can relax for a while, thank goodness.
I enjoy this series by Anne Shillolo, and Murder at Hay River (An Elk Ridge Murder Mystery Book 4) was another enjoyable read. 📚:
A photographer is killed and abandoned in a macabre display on the banks of the Hay River. Constable Ezra McCann’s home is nearby and his celebrity family feel like they're targets. McCann is on the alert. He also has a strong suspicion that the new nanny is not who she seems, and that’s one more thing keeping him awake at night.
Tomorrow the photographer will take pretty pictures of our house so we can advertise it for sale. Today I'm transforming our home into a house someone else should want to buy.
Gone are the pet photos, the piles of our clutter, the smudge on the doorway I should have cleaned weeks ago.
Sanitised. 😒
We were near Whanganui yesterday when three large military aircraft flew low and slow in a sweeping arc ahead of us. I was slow to take a photo. 😒
Turns out it was part of a farewell tour:
To mark the [official retirement] of the [RNZAF C-130H Hercules] fleet it has recently carried out flypasts over Northland and the central North Island.
Via RNZAF C-130H Hercules fleet retires after 60 years of service - New Zealand Defence Force.
We stopped at Main Street Cafe in Waverley for lunch. They had a pleasant garden area.
Next door, on the street was a life-size statue of a racing horse and jockey. It turns out the horse Kiwi was reared in Waverley and made racing history:
At the turn of the Flemington track, with 500 metres remaining, Kiwi was positioned as the second last horse. …
Upon approaching the final straight, Kiwi began to advance through the field. At the finish line, Kiwi won the race by just over a length.
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. 📚
