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One of the great things about getting older is you move through some of the nonsense faster – you’ve been around long enough to recognise your old mates Anxiety and Perfectionism when they show up, and recognise the critical voices.

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2025 was the year I discovered the air fryer. I still marvel at its ability to cook salmon better than my oven - worth knowing now salmon is almost affordable in comparison to mince.

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Think of me as Switzerland when it comes to Seasonal Glee – unaligned but with plenty of chocolate.

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It is nuts, isn’t it? This thing we do in Aotearoa of doing everything all at once – attend school breakups and office dos and finish work projects and shut up shop while also shopping for gifts, basting a ham and packing the car for a road trip.

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I have pondered what Te Tiriti signatories – Māori and Pākehā - had in mind.

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This is the time of the year when my favourite skirt won’t do up…

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Cal once told us, “I’ve never left things unsaid. I think it’s so important that everybody knows how you feel about them. I never want any of the people I love to be in any doubt how much they matter to me.”

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A step-stool for starters, but another small thing with a big impact has been opening up a conversation with friends and whānau about bringing more kupu – more Māori words – into our everyday lives…

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It’s a thing Pākehā can be nervous of, right? That we look like we’re dropping in a bit of te reo to earn a Good Girl Biscuit, for approval from “woke” friends, to make ourselves look… superior somehow?

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A fancy biscuit tin was found – RSA red poppies, collectors edition – and filled with Tim’s signature shortbread …

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I’ve reframed how of think about donating to local op-shops. It’s not only about me “getting rid of what I don’t want”, it’s about “gifting” things to someone else.

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Canvas a decent-sized Facebook group and you’ll discover many of us live in a world of pre-loved treasures…

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Most of us would like to do good things for the planet, but don’t know where to start. Here’s somewhere…

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If anyone in the family deserves a movie, it’s my great-great-grandmother on my father’s mother’s side. Seabee Adelaide Tomkins was born at sea on the ship, the “Bee”, off the coast of Adelaide in 1857.

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The ancient Greeks inscribed “A Healing Place For The Soul” above the door to the library of Thebes and I have to say, this intense period of reading has done excellent things for my spirits.

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The night before, I gave Holly a letter which she read aloud to me and her godmothers…

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Top prize in the 2024 World of Wearable Art featured a headpiece made of road cones and a dress in high-vis orange. Photo by Stephen A’Court.

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While everyone else is looking forward to the Easter Bunny this weekend, I will be celebrating the Tooth Fairy.

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They were all mates, called Dave-oh or Biff-oh or Muzza, representing a range of views from centre to right, rugby to league, Holden to Ford.

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Each year as Daylight Saving comes to an end – our clocks go back this Sunday – the big question is, “What shall I do with that extra hour?”

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There is a shift, we’re hearing, in corporate America towards encouraging ladies to dress more like… well, “ladies”. Think traditionally feminine – skirts and dresses with high heels, rather than trousers with flats.

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There is, we agree amongst us before Saturday night’s show time, a particular smell to a theatre. Not just this one – the Levin Little Theatre – but possibly to each of them dotted around our country in the towns that have been careful enough to keep them…

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Knowing where you come from can be a tricky thing for some of us. I grew up, for example, in a town my family settled into shortly before I was born, and then left once I’d flown the coop – which makes it my hometown, but not where my wider family is from.

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Whenever I hear anyone talking disparagingly of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, it reminds me of that time I spent in a war zone.

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International Women’s Day is one of my favourite lady-celebrations. Low-key as it – and increasingly observed via offers of retail discounts for things women are supposed to adore, like small appliances and lingerie – it has a proud history.

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Don’t get me wrong, this is one of the things I love about us, that we are less jingoistic that our neighbours (Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi) and way less than the noisiest nation on the world stage currently, the United States of America, oft described by its citizenry as “the greatest country in the world” and currently being made great again.

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When my uncle had his DNA done and reported evidence of Romani genes, it made sense. I feel ancestral travellers over my shoulder, itching to move on and equally keen to take their treasures with them into the next place.

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Some people can afford art in their houses, but all of us deserve fascinating things to look at in shared spaces …

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“This is a mother/daughter thing?” she asks us. We confirm that it is, this whole day of hot pools and spa treatments and cocktails. And then to be helpful I add, pointing at myself, “I’m the mother”.

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I love my freelance life. You celebrate when they choose you, try to be philosophical when they don’t, evolve, and embrace the challenge of making a calendar of random events work together. There is magic and wonder when it all falls into place.