Thanks for a touching piece of writing about a day in the life of Auckland and of an Aucklander. It was especially poignant for those of us who are sons and fathers.

I was taken by the uneasy mix of Auckland's natural beauty, which we often take for granted, and the sadness of two deaths.

Each of those beaches along Tamaki Drive has its own flavour and I noticed the last time I was there how many new migrant families learn of, and enjoy, them.

That wasn't an old secondhand bookstall: it was Waiheke's newsagent.