Today I looked up when I started going to the gym: around July 2024.
In the last 18 months I've made enormous progress, gradually increasing both the weights I work with and the variety of exercises I do.
I hadn't planned for 2025 to have a focus on health but it seems to have worked out that way. 👍
Cat Caliban delves into the events and culture of the 60s in this cold case — Eleven Hours to Murder (The Cat Caliban Mysteries Book 11): by D.B. Borton. 📚
Back in the summer of ’69, rebellious teen Leila Perle secretly boarded a bus to Woodstock, and never came home.
What really happened at the legendary music festival — if the missing girl even made it there at all?
Another good read.
Huge commotion at the heron nest just now as the adult chased off a potentially marauding hawk! 🐦
Pleased to see a hawk, but not if it's going after baby herons!
I was checking out the baby White-faced Herons. 🐦 …
… when one took off …
… and flew …
… a short distance.
Well done baby heron!
Yesterday I took a different route on the way home from the gym: via One Tree Point Road and McEwan Road before heading back down Marsden Point Road. 🚵🏽♀️
That ride was about 9Km and was blissfully free of trucks roaring past.
When I visit Fitness on my iPhone I can see a map of my route.
Hey, all you North Americans, please stop eating so many hamburgers! We Kiwis want to be able to afford to eat NZ grown beef too! price of beef mince soars by 18%:
"New Zealand exports most of our beef, 80-odd percent, and … the most volume is going over to the United States, where their cattle herd is at sort of multi-decade lows.
"… they're short of this lean trim product, … so our local retailers are having to pay more to get hold of that product because they're competing against global buyers and that's really pushing those mince prices up.
I've enjoyed this author's murder mysteries, but this time there's no murder. The hunt is on for a book and a family member. An unusual read, with a tinge of My Fair Lady about it in the friendship between Griff and Lina. The Mystery of the Missing Book (The Antique Shop Mysteries Book 1) by Judith Cutler. 📚
Lina is finding her feet in the antiques trade, working alongside her eccentric mentor Griff. Attending a bustling local fair, Lina makes a thrilling discovery: a single page from a rare medieval manuscript.
Our new landscaping is almost done. The guys add final touches today.
Today I incorporated an approx 13 Km bike ride into my trip to the gym. Port Marsden Road (SH15) was OK, apart from the backwash from the dozen or so mainly logging trucks that roared past relatively close.
Next time I'll try avoiding SH15 by going along One Tree Point Road and McEwan Road.
Old bike: AHHH SHIIIINGGGLE ROADDDD!
New bike: Shingle, what shingle? 🚵🏻♀️ 😁
Hello to the new family member: Gepida Berig. Sadly, my beloved Gepida Reptila was excellent for tarseal and concrete but the new Berig gravel bike will give me a better ride on the many very rough shingle and potholey paths around here and further afield. 🚵🏽♀️
Big day: at least one of the two baby white-faced Herons will fly today. Calisthenics have been underway. 🐦
There's a mysterious little lake (or two) on the corner between McEwan Road and the intersection where Port Marsden Highway meets Point Marsden Road. (Who came up with these confusing names!?)
There was a black swan pair with two young on the grass. 🐦
Moody Mt Manaia.
Hah, I got Royal We-ed: “Would we like anything else?”
I found Sappho Farms by Alex Washoe interesting and a positive read, with a view into aspects of life (trans and ADHD) I'm not very familiar with. 📚
MC Molina is a rising star in PR, living in a sleek Seattle townhouse with her brilliant, comic-obsessed wife, Elsa. But when MC’s career crashes and she inherits her grandfather’s crumbling farm … she’s ready to trade deadlines for dirt.
🤯 Well, fellow females, today I've learned about the (historical) Bourdaloue:
a boat-shaped vessel with a raised lip at one end and handle at the other, a bit like a gravy boat and the maid would be expected to carry this for her mistress and likewise empty it after use. If you didn’t have a maid then you dealt with this yourself. Apparently, it was designed to be used standing up …
I was looking back at previous blog entries and found it's exactly 12 months since we signed the contract on this new house. It's also 3 months since we moved in.
And we're loving living here!
I'm sitting here on a warm Saturday morning listening to frogs croak, birds call, and a random distant dog.
I've been expecting the White-faced Heron babies to launch themselves from the tree any minute, but zooming in, I can see there's still a bit of fluff on the top of the head. The parents are leaving the babies alone for longer and longer now. 🐦
Yesterday while chatting outside in full sun with our landscape designer I noticed the ground beside me kind of shimmering. I looked up to see a very large flock of birds (perhaps godwits?) flying directly overhead, casting shimmering shadows.
That was delightfully, splendidly weird! 🐦