'I'm always looking for the Hows and the Whys and the Whats,' said Muskrat, 'That is why I speak as I do. You've heard of Muskrat's Much-in-Little, of course?'
'No,' said the child. 'What is it?'
- The Mouse and his Child. Russell Hoban.

Go here to find out more.

Saturday 7 April 2018

Clunking Along


I have become very attached to this dear laptop of mine.  I refuse to write 'dear old laptop', because it still feels very new to me. However, that's what it is.  Bought in mid 2010, it is now the ripe old age of nearly 8 years old, and will no longer do what it should do.  In fact, despite, or, possibly because my son installed the latest operating system on it, it has become very very slow.  It took 3 minutes simply to open its own information.

Oh dear.

Apparently I could do three things.
1. see if it has room inside for a bigger hard-drive to be installed, and if so, for about $400 get one put in.  Which still may not solve the problem.
2. remove my 10,000 photos from iPhoto and see if that makes it happier.
3. buy a new one.

I'm working on #2 but due to the  s l o w n e s s, I may reach senility (or be driven into it by the plodding pace) by the time it gets done.  It's a lovely way to waste time however.  Happy visual memories.

Sketching Kea feather colours at the Back of House at the Auckland Museum last year.
A Piwakawaka (Fantail) in my garden - one of my next painting subjects

Parrotfish while snorkelling in Tahiti

Sunset on Guam

Looking for insect pests in a market garden on Pohnpei

Tang at the Palau Aquarium

My first scarab sighted - Taiwan


Nice veggies from the garden.



Friday 6 April 2018

Terribly Important

This is the most important blog I have every written, and although I hold with only some aspects of the Gaia philosophy, the rest is very important.

It contains only two things. A request that you watch this movie.
And this link.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EB-6VjvGdvw

Tuesday 3 April 2018

The Apple

Since I stopped blogging regularly, my eldest son and his wife have had my first grandchild who is about one and a half years old and is the apple of my eye and the arrow to my bow, the sun and the moon and stars and every other like metaphor you care to quote.