That was a disappointing world cup game for New Zealand. I reckon we should have called it quits at half time when we were only down by a goal, sent in the Witkoff-Kushner dream team to reach a negotiated settlement with Belgium, and we could have spun that as a victory at home. But no...

And therein lies the problem with the use of AI to power the Aotearoa Species Classifier app - had I not known that NZ sea lions are never found this far north, nor in mountain foothills, nor 35 km inland, I'd easily have been fooled by this. A close call.

A literal example of a greyhound with his nose out of joint. We bought Cedric his first proper, expensive, new bed, at considerable bother (35km trip and the store fire alarm going off) and he does not approve. No at all. Well, not yet.

A Kafkaesque circus: to get my long-expired UK passport renewed, they insisted I also prove that I existed BEFORE I got my 1st p/port in 1988. WTF else was I doing all those years - growing in a laboratory? And... antenatal records? Did my UK birth cert did not impress them? The UK is bonkers.

Our latest foster greyhound Lucy who attempted to leap a farm gate in pursuit of a crittur, got stuck, cut her leg, broke a bone, and developed a deep financial relationship with a vet, all in 12 hours. She's gone back to the kennel for 6 weeks to recover. It is VERY quiet here without her.

Three years ago today, we got Art, our first foster greyhound. Nov. 5th (fireworks night in NZ) was possibly the worst day for us newbies to get a dog who was hyper terrified of everything. Still, thanks to Art taking a keen interest in his own social media, he found himself a home in no time.

The toast rack: place your deliciously hot toasted bread in this cooling device so it quickly becomes difficult to spread and unappetising to eat. If there's a dumber invention, I'd like to see it.

An auspicious milestone. We've had Wanda the epileptic greyhound 1 whole year. It's been 7 months since her last seizure. She's still slightly mad but has morphed into the loveliest and funniest of creatures. Best of all... she no longer does vertical take-off when the toaster pops up.

My son's been a coffee roaster in Scotland and Australia but been back in NZ roasting for the two Glens at Rocket coffee for nearly a decade. FWIW Rocket were #62 in world-wide rankings this year, the only NZ coffee outfit on the list. Hah. A great place and great people. I'm well chuffed for them.

Wanda has a drippy nose, and the happier she is, the more it drips. I wasn't able to catch it on camera, but today she had a double drip, meaning she is extra contented. I love it when she gently boops our hand or leg with her wet snoot. Tomorrow tho' is vet day, so no drips are forecast for then.

Summer is here and the cicada and whale nymphs have emerged from the soil and are shedding their skins on the trees.

A life hack: the perfect tool for rescuing your phone from the 1.5m deep septic tank you dropped it in is the hitherto unused 3-pronged garden hoe you inherited a decade ago from your mum's estate. Photo is from my annual skills maintenance session. Tank lid is closed in the interests of propriety.

I really wish I could know what is going on behind those eyes. Wanda is still very complicated, still frightened of us at unpredictable times, her seizure frequencies remain unchanged despite increased meds, but every day she grows a little more brave, a little more loving, funny and cheeky.

A stunning photo of Cedric, our 11-year-old greyhound, accidentally looking remarkably hunky and infinitely Instagramable. He looks deceptively dreamy here, when in real life he’s a bit gormless and goofy. It’s kind of like his dating app profile pic versus...

An underrated aspect of NZ summer is it signals the end of bird strike season. The oily smudge on this window is from a chunky kererū (wood pigeon) that recently hit with wings akimbo. The smudge also revealed it hit with eyes wide open. [insert lame Specsavers joke here]. Bird and glass survived.

Cedric and Wanda. They are a great team, but even though roughly one third of our floor space is covered in dog bedding, the slow-motion battle for THE best spot is always ongoing. And always polite, respectful and deferential. What a wonderful breed of dog greyhounds are.

Our previous foster greyhound Breeze accurately reflecting our (pleasant) surprise and astonishment at the news that New Zealand banned greyhound racing today. I don't think anyone will have seen that coming.

Wanda is the least reactive greyhound we've owned or fostered. She adores Cedric. Cedric on the other hand is constantly pushing the boundaries - in this case pushing his paw into the boundaries of Wanda's face. What could possibly go wrong?

Bought recently from a Te Awamutu charity shop for a whopping $2, I snapped up this magnificent abomination – surely the most cynically unplayable ukulele ever. It's as if it was put together by Salvadore Dali while experiencing a migraine. If there's a worse uke out there, I'd like to see it.

This is Wanda, our new stunning 6-year-old greyhound. We fostered her to start with, but after 3 months, her epilepsy meant she'd never be rehomed and she was to be euthanised. So we kept her ourselves. The future is still uncertain, but she's already repaid us many times over. Best decision ever.

That time in 2011 when the Salvation Army trialled a rebranding of their name by using customers at their Hamilton thrift store as their focus group. It failed to get market traction, for some unknown reason.

I'm guessing this is a tree wētā. Or is it a ground wētā? Sadly, I don't know the difference. Whatever species it is, I can confirm wētā do indeed jump some distance when threatened, but not as much as I did when I nearly grabbed it by accident.

Disclaimer: I have no tech skills, but I do have a gross dog. This is my first attempt at making a Captcha that will outfox AI. Image contains i) a greyhound, ii) a tricky greyhound shadow, and iii) a framed picture of another unknown greyhound. Only one of those three eats its own puke.

You know you are ill prepared for the fight against AI when your socially conditioned politeness means you cringe even just asking a suspected chatbot to confirm it is not a robot.

Just been given a photo from 1989. Four of us kiwis busking at Camden market, London. I remember the poll tax riots, the messy end of Thatcher, IRA bombings and the gradual collapse of communism - never realised the biggest threat was actually the guy in this photo, who clearly hates us.

Growing up, the only way cabbage was eaten in our part of medieval NZ was boiled, and then seasoned with the salty tears of us horrified kids. Grim. Fast forward 50 years... thank god for ethnic cuisine, multiculturalism, and Okonomiyaki- the mighty Japanese cabbage pancake! Who'd have thunk it?

From 2017. The only photo I've ever had published (in the 2022 NZ Greyhounds as Pets calendar). Was meant to be a photo of our new car, but Oona, the elderly greyhound we adopted the same week, had other ideas. We still have the car but not Oona - she was simply THE best. The car? Not so much.

NZ Bird of the Year is upon us. I'm voting for the ONE specific kererū that smashed through our lounge window, sent glass flying for a 5m radius and then skilfully exited via the same treacherously shattered pane leaving only feathers, poop and carnage behind. If that's not award winning then ...