Ryan

“When I was 21 I took a leap of faith and followed a girl to Berlin, I moved there with 400 dollars in my pocket and my guitar. I managed to land a self contained apartment through a friend and started busking. I lived off playing music on the street for like two years, it […]

Melanie

“I didn’t get taken to funerals as a child, I got left behind. As a result I had no healthy death experiences to draw from. I became a funeral-avoidant death-phobic scaredy-cat. I was so bad at dealing with loss, terrible at supporting friends. I didn’t know what to say and often for fear of saying […]

A.K. part two

“She just started at school last week, you know? It’s a really big change and challenge for us as parents because she never been to school.  For almost four years they were stuck in Sri Lanka. It was a bit tough for them. They were in a restricted area, they were really stuck at the […]

A.K. part one

I have reached so many stages in my life. I work full time in a retail store and I got couple of days off duty, So during that time, I spend my valuable time with community and volunteering work. Funny thing is, Some people see me at my workplace. Then suddenly they see me in […]

Knit & yarn group – Susan and Karla

“I’ve been knitting for 55 years. When grandmother taught me to knit she started with a fairisle jersey! I have a lot of knitting tee-shirts. One of them is: ‘knitting is a bit like the mafia. You know too much so you can’t get out of it. And you can’t get out of it because […]

Knit & yarn group – Leslie, Marjorie, Judith and Jillian

“Well, I never thought about joining a group, I saw Marjorie at the wool shop, and she was wearing something that she had knitted and I said ‘hey, I like your bolero’. And she said ‘I’m starting a knitting group’, and so that’s when I started going because I live in the country, out towards […]

Jonathon

“I’ve been growing my hair as long as I can remember, I do usually have hair cuts in the front.  But the back of it hasn’t been cut for years. It’s been well maintained  and long. Very long. Currently longest in my family apart from my mum. Just because why not? It keeps my ears […]

George

“I came here in 2020, post first lockdown and got a plot here with Mary Croft. We turned the grass over and planted a few beds of carrots and cauliflower in the middle of winter.   We were both quite concerned about where we are we gonna get our food post the COVID crisis. I […]

Deborah

“I’ve been doing genealogy. I’m just an amateur but fanatical. I’m a member of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists and the local Canterbury Society. I’ve been doing other people’s trees for them, just for fun. I just love it. It’s so intriguing and to find these bits of history that I’m connected to is […]

Mary

“I had my daughter when I was a teen. When my daughter was nine months old, my Dad said “it’s time you do something for yourself”. A lady was selling her Baby Shop, so went home to Dad and said “how about this?” We organised it all, I worked nine till three, I made items […]