“A lawn clipping sandwich please”

It was the early 60s and Noeline Thomas’s three children, Grant, Jackie and Brent were entering their teens.  She wondered what new interest she might take up now they were more independent.   Noel, in the way of husbands in those days, had his own views on this.   He told her she could “ have another baby, get a poodle on a string, take up golf, or start a business.”   He was suitably surprised when Noeline opted for the business.

Given her cooking skills a café seemed a logical option. There’d already been milk bars in Martinborough and a teashop in Pain and Kershaw’s so she decided on something different and certainly not common at the time.   A coffee bar.

Noel’s family owned several colonial buildings on Jellicoe Street and Noeline chose the former shoe repair shop.   It has since been demolished but you can still see its twin, The Heritage Shop at No.35.    It needed a major renovation but luckily Noeline had married a builder and Noel did all the work himself.  … Continue Reading

An electric car anyone?

At the end of 2017, the average emissions of light vehicles registered in New Zealand was 179.3g CO2/km. Compare this with the average emissions level of a new car sold in 2017 in the European Union of 118.5g CO2/km. It’s a big difference.

Things are slowly changing. At the end of June 2018, New Zealand had 8,696 plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) – or 0.2% of the country’s vehicle fleet. So how can we change the other 99.8% of vehicles? For once, there are many other countries we can look to for guidance.  … Continue Reading

Another Clarinet Donated to the Martinborough Music Festival 

Martinborough Music Festival 27 – 28 September 2019

Readers may remember the article (Star/December/18) about Martinborough School pupil Dion Luimaihetau being taught, by Euan Huggett, to play a clarinet donated by Mark Walton, a participant in last year’s Festival. Now Maree Roy whose daughter, Melyssa, learned to play the clarinet from the age of 7 is donating her clarinet to the Festival team.

Euan Huggett received the clarinet from Maree. Euan says “this clarinet is a good quality learner’s model”. It was made by the Beuscher Manufacturing Company whose owner, USA born Ferdinand August Beuscher, began manufacturing a variety of wind instruments in 1893. … Continue Reading

The Blue Bell Club

What do you get when you combine a bach at Riversdale and a couple of craft-loving friends?  If you go the corner of Cambridge Terrace and the Square on Fair Days you’ll find out.   That where friends Ramona McDowell And Pip Hermansson sell their eye-catching Pacific themed homewares.

  Their business started small, selling crafts from the front lawn of the bach during the summer holidays.   They had no plans to do more than that.  They just enjoyed making things.  

The idea to do Pacific designs came from Pip.  She’d been on a holiday to Fiji and found herself wanting to “bring her holiday home again”.  She made some cushions to brighten up her own house, visitors admired them and soon the two friends found they were running a small business.  Pip took some samples down to Wellington and was amazing at the enthusiastic response from retailers there.  

They both share in the design process. Ramona, who got her love of sewing from an inspiring home economics teacher at school, does a lot of the assembly of their applique based items.   This is a painstaking process with the colourful flowers individually cut out, stitched onto the base fabric and then embroidered.   … Continue Reading