Variety

Today started with a walk along a newly-opened cycle/ pedestrian path that starts not far from where we live.  It’s rather good, but we need many more of them for cyclists to be safe and encourage more people to get out cycling. 

In the evening, we attended a talk on Giant Squids, which was entertaining and fascinating.  The presenter was an associate professor from Auckland University and she was very enthusiastic about her subject. A few of her students also attended, known as the Squid Squad. She brought along a soft toy interpretation of a giant squid, which was rather impressive. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo when it was “opened up” to show the insides. One fun/interesting fact about giant squids, which the presenter admitted might need updating to the current day, is that the number of giant squid required to provide food for the sperm whale population in a year exceeded the mass of the entire human population at the time the calculation was made. That’s a lot of giant squid!

The main blip is of the new cycle/pedestrian path and the extra of the giant squid interpretation.

There are 8,150 new community cases today, and the seven-day rolling average is 7,308 compared to 8,924  last Wednesdsy. The number of people in hospital is 327, including 10 in ICU. Another 15 deaths have been reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,079 and the seven-day rolling average to 13.