Imagine...

A concours car show in a Great Exhibition era building.


Intrigued?

First Dip

Toby's first swim of the year.


Apparently just the thing on a warm day after a run.

How to eat a cookie

It has come to our notice that some people don't know how to eat a cookie* properly.

Thanks to Australian-New Yorker Ella Morton, we are lucky enough to have the expert, the Cookie Monster to teach us the correct technique.



Cookies are very important, and correct technique and vocabulary and crumbing crucial. What would we do without the Cookie Monster's expertise? We are, of course, most appreciative, but letters from the Cookie Monster's Attorney will not be acted upon.

This one, is, of course for Zach, and his appropriate vocabulary.

James
(Occasional Cookie Monster understudy).

*'Biscuit' outside N America, of course.

Reflections, light and water in Wellington

I don't think this café was always a café, you know. And how 'HB' can be the initial letters for 'Clothing Factory' beats me.

Mermaid in the Museum of Wellington City & Sea

Keep right in the cablecar.

Blue skies and the observatory

Maori carvings awaiting erection

I think the market will crash soon.

...

Pretentious architecture and blue lights.

Cause sunbathing later

Restaurant & fishing boat

Hooked on Scotland.

The light in the old cathedral.

And the words on the University Bookshop.

amam Wag.

Wake.

Beached boat.

Beached whale?

Protected stream.

Gordian knot.

And more on the wonders of windy Wellington soon.

James

Mythic Scale Degrees of Soil Contamination

Worst:
Still comes up Godzilla.

Pretty near worst:
Still comes up Dragons.

Not much better:
Still comes up Battling Skeletons.

Not good:
Still comes up Triffids.

OK:
Still comes up Roses.

Cost effective:
Works on the smell of an oily rag.

Remarkable:
Soil comes up Jimmy Hoffa.

Really remarkable:
Comes up Tibetan Monks.

(For Tam)

Kestrel

Although not much chop as a photo, here's a shot of 'our' local kestrel, as it was buzzed by another smaller bird who was obviously not impressed at the turf the kestrel had chosen.


I'd been watching it as it hovered, in a stiffish breeze, and for seconds at a time, it didn't flap the wings at all. That's an amazing effort, balancing the four forces* so perfectly. (It's equivalent to a person walking on a medicine ball while it rolls down a bumpy hill - blindfold (you can't 'see' air, remember?).) Despite all the much vaunted capability of modern aircraft, fly-by-wire computers, variable geometry et al, we don't have anything that can do this without a lot of pilot skill or using a lot of energy - a lot more than muscle power for certain.

James

*Lift, Thrust, Weight & Drag - here.