A little about me . . .

My husband Bruce and I have been previously married so we have a blended family of three children and four grandchildren aged 3 to 16 years, with another one on the way. We also have an adopted family, (they adopted us) so that gives us another two teenagers to be proud of. 

We live on a small farm, just 50 acres, and breed Belted Galloway cattle. We also have 3 pigs, 10 chickens and a very mischievous 12 year old Jack Russel named Finney. We named our farm Waingaro as it means hidden water. The Selwyn river goes underground beside us for most of the year - hence the name.

I retired last year after teaching for 46 years. Originally I trained as a Kindergarten teacher, but 29 years ago I fell in love with the Montessori philosophy and retrained to gain my Montessori diploma. Apparently, I love collecting pieces of paper as I have many strings to my bow in education. Even taking on tutoring new teachers for a while. 

Initially, escaping the daily commitments was a bit of a relief, but like many retirees the novelty of being on ‘permanent holiday’ started to wear off. I missed the sense of identity, meaning and purpose that came with my job. Having been surrounded by happy, active and vocal children for so long, I began to feel quite isolated without that constant chatter around me and began to grieve for the loss of my old life. I remember a time when I could hardly catch my breath as I was so busy. Where did all of those demands go? It made me think why doesn’t anyone need me? I realised that I needed to do more than my craft, woodwork and farm chores. So as well as my weekly woodturning Thursdays, I joined in with pen making and pyrography classes at the club rooms so I had people who shared my love of wood to communicate with. I am also very blessed that the wonderful group of women that are part of the support group we formed while I was teaching, are still a very big part of my life. 

1st May 2024