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HOUSE THAT GREW

ISSUE 72

B OA N C B E E S

Paul Eagle MP Member of Parliament for Rongotai (incl. the Chatham Islands)

+64 4 389 0989 paul.eagle@parliament.govt.nz

Authorised by Paul Eagle, 172 Riddiford Street, Newtown, Wellington

NEW ZEALAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ENGAGE@HOME

JASMINE 23 JULY TOGO-BRISBY 15 AUG 2020

DEAR MRS WUNDERLICH PAGE GALLERIES 42 Victoria St Wellington 6011

Monday – Friday: 10am – 5:30pm Saturday: 10am – 4pm

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What’s the shape of our city tomorrow?

Wellington will be home to 50,000 to 80,000 more people in the next 30 years.

People have told us they want to see growth happen around the central city and suburban centres. It’s an amazing opportunity for vibrancy and opportunity, but there will be trade-offs.

Exciting plans are happening now that will affect the way we live, for decades.

Help shape our city tomorrow Have your say on the draft Spatial Plan.

Submissions open 10 August planningforgrowth.wcc.govt.nz

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Contact Us Phone +64 4 385 1426 Email editor@capitalmag.co.nz Website www.capitalmag.co.nz Facebook facebook.com/CapitalMagazineWellington Twitter @CapitalMagWelly Instagram @capitalmag Post Box 9202, Marion Square, Wellington 6141 Deliveries 31–41 Pirie St, Mt Victoria, Wellington, 6011 ISSN 2324-4836 Produced by Capital Publishing Ltd

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elcome to our Growth issue.

As we emerge into an uncertain future, it has been fun to focus on simple growth, be it the sprawling landmark Athfield house in Khandallah, or family growth by uncommonly large increments.

Twenty-nine sets of triplets were born in New Zealand last year.

We have talked to three triplet families who are well past the baby stage of coping times three. And we are sure that although the photoshoot was delightful, for those families family growth hasn’t always been a simple tale. A gratifying side benefit of our story was the sets of triplets’ interest in meeting each other and chatting, because of course triplets don’t come your way every day.

A number of other articles also look at growth loosely speaking: there is planting to aid the growth of bees, and the kind of collecting that can grow wildly out of control.

Writer Jonathan King chats to journalist Sarah Lang about the vicissitudes of life as a filmmaker and his latest book in a growth genre, the graphic novel.

The Athfield house is so well known in Wellington that a nineyear-old who lives on the other side of town saw our cover image on our screens and said “Oh, I know that house.” Meanwhile photographer Anna Briggs took one surprised look at the establishment and told our art director, “This job will take me two weeks.” Sarah Catherall visited the house and talked to the family about living and growing in the splendid sprawl. My thanks to Zac and Clare Athfield for their willing assistance with this story.

We have an election coming up and as new leaders appear, it is growing more and more interesting. As always I exhort you all to turn out and vote. Pathologist and author Dr Cynric Temple-Camp offers his opinion on difficulties he foresees with the euthanasia referendum proposal that deals with life when growth has ceased.

Working from home has become routine. We asked Harriet Palmer and Tom Fitzsimmons for their views on the new normal.

Lawyer and economist Andreas Heuser asks us to consider financial policy and planning changes to achieve growth and a better normal.

Our crossword this month celebrates Māori language week and the growth of te reo.

And of course much much more.

Thank you for all the encouragement to continue publishing and support we have received. Normal is still evolving for all of us; and may be for a long time.

Let’s just all enjoy Spring, get out and vote, and look forward.

Alison Franks Editor

Copyright ©. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Capital Publishing Ltd.

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hello! nice to meet you.

N AT U R E B A BY W E L L I N G TO N 2 1 J E S S I E S T, T E A R O

www.naturebaby.co.nz

O R G A N I C / E T H I C A L / S U S TA I N A B L E

Staff Managing editor Alison Franks

Featured contributors

editor@capitalmag.co.nz

Campaign coordinators Haleigh Trower haleigh@capitalmag.co.nz Emily Wakeling emily@capitalmag.co.nz Ava Gerard ava@capitalmag.co.nz Factotum John Bristed

john@capitalmag.co.nz

Art director Shalee Fitzsimmons shalee@capitalmag.co.nz Designer Luke Browne

design@capitalmag.co.nz

Writer Francesca Emms

journalism@capitalmag.co.nz

Editorial assistant Benn Jeffries

hello@capitalmag.co.nz

Accounts Tod Harfield

accounts@capitalmag.co.nz

Contributors

A VA G E R A R D C amp ai g n c o- ordi n ator

ANNA BRIGGS Ph oto g r aph er

After a four year stint overseas, Ava has returned to her favourite city and joined the Capital team as a campaign coordinator. Ava is an avid art collector, seasoned traveller, radio DJ “extordinare”, and fashion stylist.

Anna is a young freelance photographer. She has a love for photographing her surroundings showcasing their natural beauty in a stylish and tasteful way. You can check out her work at annabriggsphoto.com

R AC H E L H E LY E R D ONALDSON Journ a li st

LUKE BROWNE D e si g n er

Melody Thomas, Janet Hughes, John Bishop, Anna Briggs, Sarah Lang, Deirdre Tarrant, Craig Beardsworth, Griff Bristed, Dan Poynton, Sarah Catherall, Chris Tse, Claire Orchard, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Harriet Palmer, Sharon Greally, Jess Scott, Claire O’Loughlin, Annie Keig, Chev Hassett, Joram Adams, Sanne Van Ginkel, Rachel Helyer Donaldson, Matthew Plumber, Fairooz Samy, Lucy Wormald

Stockists Pick up your Capital in New World, Countdown and Pak‘n’Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Commonsense Organics, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Whitcoulls, Wellington Airport, Interislander and other discerning region-wide outlets.

Distribution: john@capitalmag.co.nz.

Submissions We welcome freelance art, photo, and story submissions. However we cannot reply personally to unsuccessful pitches.

Originally from Te Waipounamu, Rachel spent 16 years in London. In 2014 she sensibly settled in Wellington to set up as a freelance feature writer and filmmaker.

Taking part in her first-ever Round the Bays in February made her feel like a true Wellingtonian.

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Luke is a Capital designer by day and owner of skateboard brand Daylight, by night. Originally from Hastings, England, he immigrated to Hastings, New Zealand as a wee lad. He now lives in Lyall Bay with his girlfriend and cat Chewy.

Wines of Distinction

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C O N T E N T S

12 LETTERS 14 CHATTER 16 NEWS BRIEFS 18 NEW PRODUCTS 20 TALES OF THE CITY 23 CULTURE

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T R I P L E T H R E AT S Three sets of triplets join us in the studio

Bonus bee fr i e n d l y f l owe r guide

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HOME WOR K

B O TA N I C BEES

Now that we can work from home, do we really want to?

John Burnett and his busy bees

DOLLARS AND SENSE Economist Andreas Heuser calls for sustainable economic growth

H O L I S T I C T H E R A P I E S , O R G A N I C H E R B A L T E A , N AT U R A L S K I N C A R E , A R O M AT H E R A P Y, B E S P O K E B L E N D S & W O R K S H O P S OPEN

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SHEARERS’ TA B L E

THE HOUSE T H AT G R E W

Black rice breakfast with prunes, fruit and yoghurt

The Athfield house forever in flux

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53 LIFESTYLE BRIEFS 54 BUG ME 56 EDIBLES 60 BY THE BOOK 63 RE-VERSE

88 POINT MAN

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KILL ME NOW

KING C OUNTRY Jonathan King has a novel approach to comics

GOOD SPORT

Pathologist Dr Cynric Temple-Camp discusses the euthanasia referendum

Jackson GardenBachop on being a ‘cane and a caregiver

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L E T T E R S

CONFIDENCE A N D E A SE

FIX THE L I B R A RY

Settling in to a new home, new job, new city is never easy.

Especially if your previous home was a very traditional, small, and parochial New Zealand town. Roll up Capital: Tales of the City. I studied your interesting, appealing and informative mag and traversed my way through understanding the heartbeat, principles, inspirations ,and bones of my new home. I think I understand what makes this beautiful city tick now. Thank you Capital, I want to stand out, I don’t want to blend into invisibility, I want that confidence and ease and if I’ve read your mag right Te Whanganui a Tara is the place where you’re encouraged to be like that, outstanding.

Theresa Thorndon, Wellington

The Wellington City Council clearly has delusions of grandeur.

Architect Ken Davis’ article in Capital’s Winter issue discussed the “earthquake risk” closure of the library and its possible replacement.

He was far too polite.

The council does not and will never have the money to build all the Rolls Royce buildings every pessimistic engineer tells it we need. They’ve got buildings closed all over town.

We need buildings we can use now, not in some distant time in the future.

Fix the library as the man suggests for $10m and use it in a few months. It was one of the most used public buildings in the city. “Everybody” wants it.

Why would we want to wait for another four years or so and spend at least three times that much for a new library?

Let’s stop dreaming. It’s the ratepayers paying for it, councillors.

Ok, there have been a (relatively) few deaths in earthquake building collapses in New Zealand in the past 150 years.

But that risk of being killed in a building collapse is relatively very very low when you compare it to the chance of a death or injury on the road. We’re happily travelling on the roads.

And in the recent big Wellington earthquake a few well rated buildings were damaged while many lower rated buildings survived unscathed.

Fix the library now, and stop the endless Wellington City Council “the sky is going to fall in” gloom.

J Jamieson, Wellington

CITY P R O F L IG AT E S Thanks for your wonderful magazine!

In the Winter 2020 edition p 54 you have an excellent article by Architect Ken Davis concerning an economical method of strengthening our beloved library.

I think that if more of the general public were aware of Ken Davis' article then increased public pressure could be brought to bear on the WCC's profligacy with ratepayers money. Then with minimal cost we could have our library reopened within a year.

David Nisbet, Island Bay D E M O A N D R E BU I L D U N I M AG I NAT I V E M E N TA L I T Y Ken Davis’s opinion piece in your excellent publication, issue #71, p 54, was very timely. Heritage New Zealand is considering listing the building, which if successful will pretty much ensure the building’s long term survival.

As an architect who has lived in our wonderful city for over 40 years, the prevailing mentality of demolition and rebuild rather than adaptive re-use should change.

One of Sir Ian’s other significant buildings at Arlington Court is sadly being demolished even as we speak, which in addition to being personally depressing and resource retention irresponsible, is hopefully the last example of unimaginative “let’s start again” mentality.

Saving the library will at least retain an example of Sir Ian’s fertile imagination which is a unique and irreplaceable example of the marriage of function and beauty.

Roger Walker, Wellington

Send letters to editor@captalmag.co.nz with the subject line Letters to Ed

The photo credited to Tamahou McGarvey in the contributors section of issue #71, page 6 was incorrectly attributed. The error is regretted. Editor.

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S E C TCI HO AN T TH EE RA D E R

One Large hear t Originally from Auckland, Adrian Hardingham – who has worked at bookshops in New Zealand and Australia – is replacing the inimitable Tilly Lloyd (Cap#44) as Unity Books’ manager.

“Adrian’s swotting up on Wellington authors and publishing from Melbourne until he can fly in,” Tilly says. But, fear not, Tilly isn’t disappearing altogether. She’ll remain a director with the other two co-owners, and do occasional stints on the floor. “Unity will be just as large in my heart.”

Two We’ l l t o a s t t h a t

S n a ke p l a n t

Wine, food, and music festival Toast Martinborough has confirmed they’re going ahead this year – with a particular focus on food. A change for this year’s event on 15 November is the cheaper “Early Bird” tickets (which used to be only for larger groups) are now available for everyone. They’re on sale from 3 August.

Our plant of the month has been chosen by James Cameron from Twiglands.

What’s the best thing about this plant?

Sansevieria is one of the best plants to have in the bedroom. They are mainly active at night.

NASA tells us they are wonderful air purifiers and will provide fresh oxygen while you are sleeping.

Where should I put it?

These plants can grow almost anywhere in the home that gets bright, indirect light. They can grow in rooms with less light too, just more slowly.

Tell me something I don’t know Sansevieria fibres used to be harvested and used to make bowstrings for hunting, so it is also known as “Bowstring Hemp”.

This plant would suit…

Neglectful parents – they're very sturdy, resilient, and almost impossible to kill.

If this plant were a person…

Sansevieria are commonly known as “Mother In Law’s Tongue” plants, but “Black Coral” is an even scarier variety, so if it were a person, perhaps a Gothic Mother in Law?

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We l l y w o r d s Spotted – A sausage dog off for a walk on an extension cord. Dogs must be kept on-leash at all times when they’re in the central city, so we’re guessing this dachshund’s human is either a Neville (forgetful) or a MacGyver (handy).

Whatever the case, the pair looked quite the power couple.

A Welly worder attending the NZSO recently was annoyed that the “youth” in front of them clapped loudly between movements. All was forgiven when, at the end, the young man wiped tears from his eyes and declared to his mate that he “didn’t know music could be like that.”

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C H AT T E R

It's cool to kōrero Kātahi rā hoki! Kua tere rawa atu te whakatupu ake o te tama rā!

Heavens! That boy has grown up so fast!

Six Fo l l ow t h e breadcrumbs Since the Middle Ages Catholic countries of Europe have celebrated Fathers’ Day in March on Saint Joseph's Day (which demonstrates that step parents have long been just as important as biological ones).

Other countries celebrate in June, August, and September. We’ve failed to uncover exactly why New Zealand celebrates Fathers’ Day on the first Sunday in September, though we weren’t surprised to hear it was mostly likely for “commercial reasons”– when else are ties and novelty mugs gonna get their time in the spotlight?

Four Riddikulus Daniel Radcliff says we’re still allowed to love Harry Potter, so if you’re looking for a “magical queer parody homage to the beloved, bewitching saga” then A Kid Friendly Potter Drag Show! (19 September, The Fringe Bar) is just what the doctor ordered. It’s hosted by Hugo Grrrl (Cap #57, #58, #65 and #69), the Wellington drag king, comedian, and cabaret producer best known for winning the inaugural season of House of Drag. Hugo says tickets are “disappearing faster than a snitch. So Snape to it.”

This year things might be a bit different. Maybe Dad works from home now and doesn’t need a tie, or maybe funds are too tight for a new BBQ, fishing rod, or All Black autobiography. May we suggest a tradition from St Joseph’s day – breadcrumbs. Traditionally, food containing bread crumbs is served to represent sawdust, since Joseph was a carpenter. Think anything with a crispy crumb: schnitzel, gratin, fish pie, chicken parma.

F i ve G row t h A deep dive into “growth” made for some interesting reading.

Here are three choice facts to pull out at a party. A Manchurian pear tree in China has been growing for more than 460 years.

Ligers – the offspring of a male lion and a tigress – typically grow larger than either parents, reaching lengths of approx 3.6 metres. The oldest person to grow a wisdom tooth is Robert Gray who was aged 94 years 253 days when a wisdom tooth was confirmed to have erupted. You’re welcome.

If all else fails - socks. It sounds like a cliché but a highly scientific survey of Capital staffers’ has revealed that fathers really do love a good pair of socks. See below for some suggestions.

Sock it to Dad 1. Bonne Maison buttercup socks, $28, Mooma 2. Socks and Sandals Club enamel pin, $20, Natty 3. One Giant Leap socks, $26, Museums Wellington 4. French Navy socks, $28, Thunderpants 5. Merino socks, $29, Nisa

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N E W S

DO IT YO U R S E L F Cervical cancer disproportionately affects Māori women, and delays and disparities occur at all stages of the clinical pathway, says Professor Bev Lawton (Ngāti Porou) from the Wellington Faculty of Health. Professor Lawton has received nearly $1.3 million to explore how empowering communities could reduce barriers to screening and treatment. For example, self-testing for HPV, rather than a traditional cervical smear, is effective at detecting pre-cancer “and research has shown that the less invasive option of self-testing is more acceptable for Māori women,” Professor Lawton says.

OPEN BOOK

WIN FOR THE WETLANDS

IC E IC E BA B Y

Te Awe Library, which opened last month, is the largest of the three interim CBD libraries designed for people to use while decisions on the Central Library service are made. Te Awe (meaning white feathers) has plenty of room for a collection of more than 20,000 items, quiet zones, chill areas, and meeting rooms. There is a space for children to read and play, and for the library programmes Baby Rock and Rhyme, Storytimes, and Lego Sundays – which have finally returned to the central city.

Employment, resilience against floods, and better water quality are some of the benefits the Wairarapa will enjoy thanks to a multi-million-dollar investment into wetlands and rivers. Through the post-Covid19 Jobs for Nature programme, the Government is stumping up $6m and the Greater Wellington Regional Council is contributing approximately $4m for the Ruamāhanga catchment and the Wairarapa Moana Wetlands project. The money will go towards riparian activities: buffer and native planting, pest plant and animal control, community programmes, and increasing environmental and cultural research and monitoring.

Wellington’s Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University has received the $500,000 Prime Minister's Science Prize for its research into ice melt from climate change. The team, which includes more than 20 glaciologists, geologists, and social scientists from the university, GNS Science, and NIWA have shown that the contribution to sealevel rise from Antarctic ice melt was underestimated. Their findings will be used to improve the accuracy of predictions and help policy-makers develop robust plans to deal with the effects of the climate crisis.

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N E W S

FREESTYLERS Lifeguards from Capital Coast Surf Life Saving clubs completed 24 rescues, 124 first aid incidents, 11 searches, and 205 patient assists, and 17,209 people were involved in 5,410 preventative actions in a “successful lifeguarding season” says Central Region Lifesaving Manager Jackson Edwards. Surf lifesaving clubs from Palmerston North to Worser Bay were recognised at this year’s Capital Coast Awards of Excellence. Lifeguard of the Year went to Callum McKenzie from Foxton Surf Life Saving Club, and Worser Bay Life Saving Club’s Dave Wells has been named Volunteer of the Year.

CLEANING UP

SO C L O SE

J U ST T RY I T

Upper Hutt has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 30% per person since 2001, according to new AECOM reports. Between 2001 and 2019, Upper Hutt’s overall emissions dropped 15% against a 22% population increase. Transport is the highest-emitting sector, producing 61.9% of the city’s total gross emissions. Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy is positive, but acknowledges that there is still work to be done. He says the reports “help inform council of the best way to continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Te Ara Piko pathway is almost complete. The joint Porirua City/ Plimmerton Rotary project, which involves new boardwalks and enhancements between the Kakaho Stream boardwalk and the existing Camborne Walkway, is just metres away from completing a revamped safe path around the entire northern side of Pāuatahanui Inlet. A small stretch will remain as is because the money has run out. “We are very happy to be able to complete all but a few hundred metres” says Rotary’s Phillip Reidy.

Quick, low-cost improvements on cycleways will soon be trialled in the Hutt Valley. Two projects, a cycleway in central Lower Hutt and temporary changes to make Petone’s Jackson Street more user-friendly, have received funding from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. Urban Mobility Programme Manager Kathryn King says temporary improvements means they can test and assess changes in real time and adapt them during the process. “If the improvements show a positive impact then we are in a better position to work together on a more permanent solution.”

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Kites by Simon Mole, $25, Unity Books Crochet bunny, $28, Trade Aid Baby oil, $19, Wellington Apothecary Mello merino sleep suit in nugget sprinkle, $90, Small Acorns MM Linen blanket, $400, McKenzie Willis Quilted vest in clay, $45, Nature Baby Meri Meri bunny straw bag, $65, Small Acorns Wooden fruit set, $90, Nature Baby McKinlays Hunter junior boots, $139, Gubb’s

APPARTAMENTO + FAUSTINO Pair the Appartamento espresso machine with the Faustino grinder for a compact Rocket set up that doesn’t compromise on quality.

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S E C T I O N

H E A D E R

TA L E S

O F

T H E

C I T Y

Love at first sign

BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G G S

EAT

DRINK

SONG

B O OK

EXERCISE

Cinnamon brioche from Betsy’s

Beers from Parrot Dog

The Heater, The Mutton Birds

Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales

Jazz at Spiritus Dance Company

Primary school teacher Miriam Gaynor can communicate in 3D.

M

iriam Gaynor describes herself as a homebody.

She likes to cook and sew (she’s working on a quilt) and she loves reading. But she’s equally happy to get out and about. She’ll often be spotted walking the local tracks, visiting local cafés with friends, or attending weekly agility classes with her dog, Lulu.

The “super snoozy” golden retriever loves meeting people “and plays fetch like a champ”. Lulu often joins Miriam for Friday beers at Parrot Dog, blustery walks along the South Coast, or a spot of gardening – “There are times where she sees me digging in the garden and thinks it looks fun, so joins in. But she’s not really aware of the purpose of gardening – she’s been known to fall asleep on the flowers I’ve just planted.” When they’re home Lulu is Miriam’s shadow, “in a good way. She’s not needy or demanding, but just wants to be where I am. Dad and I spent so much time building fences on my property for her, but I don't even need them as she never runs away.”

Sometimes Miriam uses sign language to communicate with Lulu. In fact she sometimes finds herself using sign without realising, “generally if I am trying to communicate with someone through a window, or if I can’t find the right word in English for what I need to say.”

About six years ago Miriam had two students in her primary school class who used New Zealand Sign Language as their main form of communication, so she learned to sign as quickly as possible. “The drive to master new phrases and increase my fluency was

largely influenced by the challenge of needing to use it to communicate daily on a range of topics, but also as a way to maintain authentic relationships with the students in my care.” She attended NZSL classes, got online, and the rest she had to pick up “on the job”.

Eventually the whole class became very competent at communicating in sign, “even to the point where I had an email from some confused parents requesting NZSL classes for the whole community as their kids kept signing secretly at the dinner table.”

Miriam fell in love with the language. “I was constantly delighted by the new signs I was learning. Also, it’s unique as a language because it’s 3D! As you sign, you create an entire scene, rather than just a linear sentence – it’s like painting with language.” Miriam says there are many benefits to learning sign. It helps to normalise the language in society, and she says dreaming in sign is pretty cool. “There is a lot of research into the benefits of teaching young children to sign from an early age. My goddaughter regularly requests, via sign, that she would like me to get her some cake.”

Now that she doesn’t need to sign daily, the challenge for Miriam is not to get rusty. “Often when I’m listening to the radio or a podcast, I try to sign what they are saying as a way of practising, but it doesn’t come close to having a proper conversation.” She’d love to have more people to practise with. “NZSL is such a useful and beautiful language and it would be wonderful to see more Kiwi signers.”

New Zealand Sign Language Week is 21–27 September

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ADVERTORIAL

Grow your wealth Investors are reevaluating their portfolios in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Some may be heading for the hills! Perhaps that’s exactly what they should do.

The productive hill country of Wairarapa is 90 minutes from Wellington. There, tens of thousands of hectares of sustainable forestry are grown and tended by New Zealand’s most successful forestry investment manager, Forest Enterprises. For nearly fifty years, the Mastertonbased company has been growing wealth. Literally.

Those who had the foresight to invest in the ‘90s are seeing good returns. Forest Enterprises has paid $56 million in harvest income to its investors in the past three years alone.

Think retirement, a first home, or maybe an education fund. Wood is renewable, natural, and New Zealand excels at producing it. It provides income in the long term, and forestry investment performance is not correlated to the share market.

Here are a couple of typical forest investors.

Paul and Carol from Wellington started investing in forestry in the ‘90s.

“We are big believers in diversity”, says Paul. Forestry makes up about 25% of the couple’s total investments. As well as owning their own home, they invest in KiwiSaver, shares and managed funds, and their own businesses.

“Having survived the 1987 share crash, the 2000 tech crash, the financial crisis of 2007-8 and leaky homes,

we’re now navigating the outcome of Covid-19 and it is important not to have all our investments in one asset.”

When Paul first invested in forestry, retirement income was top of mind; New Zealanders had just voted down a compulsory super scheme. Around the same time, marginal erosion-prone farmland was being planted in trees as superior land use, which for Carol was a no-brainer.

Andrew and Nicola from Carterton first invested in forestry two years ago. Andrew confesses, “we should’ve invested much earlier; we’re approaching 50!”

The couple invest in shares, investment funds, KiwiSaver and have their own home. “Forestry investment appealed because it’s long term and not affected by share market or property performance.”

“We also like that forest ownership is tangible. We can get out and visit ‘our’ forests while we wait for the income.

Our investment is forecast to provide a strong financial return as well as perform ethically and environmentally.”

A Forest Enterprises investment includes land as well as trees. “As a property professional, I consider land ownership an important component of an investment.”

To learn more and for a product disclosure statement, visit Forest Enterprises online forestenterprises.co.nz

C U L T U R E

HOME COMING Gemma New is a born and raised Wellingtonian and an internationally sought-after conductor. Aged 33, Gemma is currently the Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra (in Ontario, Canada) and has conducted the Atlanta Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and many others. She returns to the capital this month to lead the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Shed Series: Cadence, a concert “full of rhythm and dance” performed in a relaxed environment at Shed 6 on 28 August.

ISO ART

B O OTLEG AND BATS

ALMOST FRIENDLY

Artist and designer Stuart Forsyth used correction fluid on black sugar paper to create “I’m not so sure I want to go back to the way it was before.” This work is among the 76 artworks selected as finalists for the 2020 Parkin Drawing Prize (exhibition at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts 4–30 August). Stuart says his piece is a series of personal reflections, observations and thoughts based on his time spent in Lockdown. “As the title suggests, I’m not convinced things were better before.”

Ed Bats’ art sits within painting, sculpture, and installation. He often incorporates second-hand furniture and household items, such as window blinds and coffee tables, to create “assemblages.” Bootleg Utopia, an exhibition of new work by Bats, opens at Page Galleries on 20 August. The title comes from a note written to himself during Lockdown: “We’ve always wished for a brighter future, a utopia of sorts, but all we got was a bootleg version of it.”

Palmerston North’s Museum of Art, Science and Heritage, Te Manawa, has been officially recognised as “Working to be Dementia Friendly,” which means they’re well on their way to gaining full Dementia Friendly accreditation. Working with Alzheimers New Zealand, Te Manawa has trained staff and made their spaces more accessible so that both their museum and art gallery “are safe, friendly, accepting, and supportive places for people with dementia.” Multiple studies have shown that creating and experiencing art can help people suffering from dementia to express themselves and gain self-confidence.

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Twigland Gardeners World has a superb range of plants and gardening related products, including all your favourites and those not easily procured.

Come visit Wellington’s favourite garden centre and the very popular Café Thyme Only 15 minutes from downtown Wellington 240 Middleton Road, Glenside Open every day from 9am to 5pm

C U L T U R E

F O S T E R’ S F O L LY Sarah Foster-Sproull, the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Choreographer in Residence, is back in the capital this month to rehearse "Ultra Folly", which she created for Venus Rising (Opera House, 21–23 August). She describes the new work as “physically gruelling” for the four dancers who never leave the stage. Sarah usually collaborates with musicians on the score, but this time she has chosen to use an existing piece of music - Folias Criollas from Spanish conductor and viol player Jordi Savall’s album Altre Follie (1500 – 1750). She describes it as “beautiful, stunning, with lots of emotional range”.

PUBLIC EXPOSURE

THAT ’S A WRAP

THREE DECADES OF FACES

A new three-screen digital art gallery has opened in the foyer of the Wellington Railway Station. It’s part of a series of exhibitions run by the Urban Art Foundation, which is committed to making art accessible by getting it out on the streets and into public areas. Urban Art’s exhibitions appear in shopping malls and gateways and on street signage across the country. The art displayed at the railway station includes images of works from the 2020 Adam Portraiture Awards and the City of Sculpture exhibition, presented in association with the Wellington Sculpture Trust.

Filming for Poppy, the first feature film to resume shooting after the lockdown, has now finished.

The drama, about a young woman with Down Syndrome, was filmed on the Kāpiti Coast and involved a predominantly local cast and crew. It’s now in post-production and should be completed late this year. Poppy was written by Kāpiti writer and director Linda Niccol, and stars Whanganui teen Libby Hunsdale as Poppy.

Painter Bill Sutton supported the founding of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata, offering his help to realise such a “good idea.” Now the gallery celebrates their 30th anniversary with Bill Sutton: A Good Idea (until 10 September).

Though he is best known for his Canterbury landscapes, this exhibition highlights Sutton’s work as a portraitist, showcasing more than 100 of his portraiture paintings. Also, time is running out to see the Adam Portraiture Award exhibition (won by Wellington artist Sacha Lees) on show until 9 August.

O L D S T PA U L’ S

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MARTI FRIEDLANDER PORTRAITS of THE ARTISTS 27 August to 8 November 2020

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Len Lye Rainbow Dance, 1936 film still from the exhibition The Absolute Truth of the Happiness Acid 6 Jun – 1 Nov 2020

Marti Friedlander, Fleur Adcock, London,1981, Image copyright Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust

New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata Shed 11, 60 Lady Elizabeth Lane, Wellington Waterfront www.nzportraitgallery.org.nz

new perspective. new plymouth.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s contemporary art museum, and the global home of Len Lye. Exhibitions | Events | Cinema | Shop | Café

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C U L T U R E

D I R E C T O R Y

We have something to say

The Distance Between Us

A Place Apart

Five artists – Elspeth Shannon, Glen Jorna, Jasmine Chalmers, David H Brown and Owie Simpson – combine their bold creative visions and collaborate in the collective exhibition have something to say #2.

A percentage of sales are donated to Vincents Art Workshop, a Wellington arts access institution.

11 exquisite oil paintings by Shelley Masters are currently exhibiting. They explore how we disassociate ourselves from the people we love as a healthy part of asserting our own sense of self. Open Saturdays, and by appointment during the week with Dylan Potocki. Book now.

Through the medium of painting, Christina Pataialii and Ruth Ige traverse abstraction and figuration. The works in A Place Apart consider the shifting terms that define place and embodiment. 11am-5pm, 7 days.

Wed 5–Sat 15 Aug Ground Floor, Te Auaha, 65 Dixon Street havesomethingtosay.nz

Wed 1 Jul–Tue 1 Sep 41 Dixon St (Level 1), Te Aro, Wellington potockipaterson.co.nz

On now until Sun 6 Sep Te Ngākau Civic Square, Wellington citygallery.org.nz

Image: Ruth Ige The slowing down of time 2020.

Mittens – Floofy and Famous

Oracles

Covid Colab

Wellington Museum presents Mittens – Floofy and Famous. A purrfect peek into Mittens’ artistic inspiration, home life and general padding about town. From July, this pawsome mini-exhibition will be on display at the museum. A ‘must-see’ for Mittens lovers of all ages. Free entry.

Pati Solomona Tyrell and Christian Thompson channel historical spirits and consequences through masquerade, photography, video and performance in our exhibition 'Oracles'. 11am - 5pm, 7 days.

During lockdown 33 Pōneke musicians worked together (apart) on this seventrack LP. Funded by Wellington Museum and put together by Programme Developer Benjamin James. 100% of proceeds will go towards local venues and record stores. Available from Bandcamp now.

Sat 4 Jul–Sun 11 Oct 3 Jervois Quay, Wellington wellingtonmuseum.nz

On now until Sun 6 Sep Te Ngākau Civic Square, Wellington citygallery.org.nz

Image: Pati Solomona Tyrell Masculine Me Tender 2014.

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F E AT U R E

Home work Things have changed post Lockdown, particularly when it comes to where, when, and how we work. Capital asked Wellington power couple Harriet Palmer and Tom Fitzsimons, former newspaper reporters turned comitted public servants, how they are finding their new office (a dining-room table in Mornington), and their co-workers (three kids including one still in nappies) now that working from home has become a new norm.

It's not all bad Harriet Palmer

I

’ve lost my hair dryer. It’s somewhere between the bathroom and my bedroom. It might be gathering dust under my bed along with a bag of pantyhose, some black heels, and a leather satchel.

It might be hung in the back of the linen cupboard, resting against the ironing board. I’m not sure – I haven’t needed any of those things for a while.

I don’t miss them. I don’t really need them: I am working from home.

I love the quiet and the fresh air of my home office (a corner of the dining table). I love the short breaks where I water my plants and hang out my washing. I don’t have to stand on the side of the road waiting for a ghost bus, I don’t have to walk through town in wind and drizzle or wait in lines of harassed people hanging out for coffee. I don’t have to use communal loos or smell other people’s leftovers heating up in the kitchen.

These days I make myself fried eggs with chipotle sauce for lunch. I go to the local café after school drop-off and caffeinate while sorting emails or chatting to strangers from my neighbourhood, or I drive to my mum’s house and hand over the toddler when we’re ready for

the day. Sometimes we take a walk along the beach and grin at all the other smug home-workers. I don’t have to rush into town for 8.30am meetings.

I’m still at my computer when people need me. I’m still pulling the same hours.

I’m just doing it differently. I’m mixing it up − it has become part of my day rather than my whole day.

I’m a mother of three. My life is hectic. Lockdown almost destroyed me – all those children and two working parents and pretending to home-school.

Our support system was pulled out from under us.

But post-Lockdown… it’s a liberation not having to nag kids for two hours to get everyone dressed, fed, shod, and out the door at 8am. It’s freedom not having to slap on foundation and blusher and a wobbly eyebrow pencil. I wear sneakers and trackpants. I op-shopped a pile of woollen jerseys. I’m drinking tea from my weird clay mugs. And I’m doing bloody good work.

Us mums always knew we could work from home and continue to kick ass, but people in suits told us it couldn’t be done.

It’s a pity we needed a pandemic to show them it could.

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F E AT U R E

It's quite bad Tom Fitzsimons

I

want to like working from home. But I’ve given it a good shake now and it’s not really for me.

I like it that working from home cuts out commute time, especially time on fogged-up Wellington buses in winter, where the next global pandemic is probably brewing.

It’s great that working from home lowers the bar for getting dressed – think of all those ancient polar-fleece hoodies that have graced video calls over the past few months.

Most of all, I like it that working from home means more kinds of work are possible for more people. In my own team, most of us have some kind of flexi-work going on, with plenty of trust and support from those higher up the tree – and it really does feel like it works for everyone.

And yet – it’s not my cup of tea, not most of the time. When I’m working, I’d generally rather be at the office, with other humans who are doing the same kind of stuff.

At home, I balance my computer on a pile of cookbooks (yes, early Lockdown technology, I know). At work, I lean back on my contoured chair and rotate between two screens like a movie director.

At home, I dial into Zoom calls hoping the wifi will hold at the far end of the house while The Wiggles are streaming at the other. At work, I have a conversation.

At home, domestic life is always pressing in: the half-painted bedroom; the half-dug drain; the half-made dinner; the piles of clothes and lunchboxes and sports gear and nappies that three kids leave in their wake. At work, it’s one great finger painting from the five-year-old pinned neatly to the cubicle.

Maybe most surprising to me, I’ve found since going back that I’m more relaxed about work when I’m at work. At home, the boundaries can blur – there’s always a temptation to feel that you’ve missed something, and check those emails one more time.

Admittedly, one more reason I don’t always love working from home is my obnoxious co-worker: a toddler who plays his kazoo at max volume, sprays food everywhere, and mashes his cheeks against my phone camera during Zoom calls.

Technically, he doesn’t report to me when I’m working from home. But it’s funny how having a wildly cute miniature David Brent charging into your break-out room with no pants on can distract you.

I’m still hoping to keep up a bit of work from the hacienda. It takes some pressure off the family routine, and it has its upsides for work too: the short commute, those sustained periods of concentration. But most of the time, I’d rather be working at the place designed for work.

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C U L T U R E

Covid compilation

Pātaka pots

A “pass the parcel” process saw musicians working together (but apart) through Levels 4 and 3 to create Covid Colab. Benjamin James, Programme Developer at Wellington Museum, directed the album which involves more than 30 collaborators over seven tracks.

Along with Capital cover models Estère Dalton (Cap #2) and Ryan Prebble (Cap #46), there are so many of our favourite Wellington musicians we reckon Ben must be a devoted Capital reader. Each track was passed from one musician to the next, who added their bit and forwarded it to the next collaborator to develop further. For example, the song “Precipice” began with French for Rabbits (Cap # 70) front woman Brooke Singer (Cap #63). She recorded the keys and passed her track on to electronica producer Edie, who passed it to Ben Lemi from Dawn Diver (Cap #68). Deanne Krieg, who wrote and performed the lyrics, was next. Then Grayson Gilmour (Cap #61) got hold of it and “edited it and added a ton of stuff, and made it into what it became.” Finally it went off to “legendary” Wellington engineer Lee Prebble for mixing and mastering. Funds from the album sales will be given to venues and record stores that have supported musicians over the years.

Uku artist Stevei Houkāmau (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau a Apanui, Scotland) loves to make use of materials not normally used in pottery. She lists spray paint, masking tape, linseed oil, and feathers (and clay of course) as integral materials. Another indispensible item in her studio is her UE Boom. “Music is a must. Although I need to keep it pretty lax, as anything upbeat leads to broken uku and tears. But seriously, I find it hard to make work and get into a flow when carving without music playing.”

Born and raised in Porirua, Stevei planned to enter the Tā Moko programme at the Māori visual art and design college, Toihoukura, but then developed a love for uku. The mahi in Stevei’s solo exhibition He Kākano (at Pātaka Art + Museum) draws on both ceramic techniques and the indigenous tattoo practices of Tā moko and Tatau. The carvings on her vessels are used to amplify the curvature of the vessels, and also act as visual languages encoding knowledge and genealogy.

Stevei is inspired by “indigenous artists both here in Aotearoa and overseas,” the “sharing of stories, experiences, and challenges” and the work of uku artists that “break traditions but also honour them.”

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F E AT U R E

Triple threats P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

Is three a magic number or a crowd? Rachel Helyer Donaldson talked to three sets of triplets about sibling rivalry, special bonds, and finding your own identity when you’re identical.

“I

t’s actually quite hard to tell them apart,” one of the three Tu’inukuafe brothers is overheard saying, when they meet another set of identical triplets for the first time at Capital’s photoshoot. The 20-year-old law students are face-to-face with the 22-year-old Pilitati sisters. At first glance, each set of siblings can seem uncannily similar, but there are quickly recognisable differences, too.

“Oh! You’re the Westlake triplets, we’ve heard about you!” says Tearii Pilitati, referring to the Tu’inukuafes’ old high school. The six are all talented sportspeople and chat about basketball and rugby.

The third set of triplets in this feature, the 10-yearold non-identical Snelling siblings, are keen to meet the adult triplets. Interestingly, everyone automatically lines up in birth order when asked for a photo. The triplets in each set were born a minute apart from each other, and it seems that those 60 seconds make an important difference, sometimes more than they care to admit.

Other commonalities: growing up, the Tu’inukuafes and the Pilitatis wore colour-coded clothing to help teachers. Being mistaken for each other was frustrating, but confusing the opposition in sports had its advantages. All are competitive, and have a unique connection on the sports field. But don’t ever call any of them “the triplets.” As Jackson Tu’inukuafe says, “I guess we look the same, but we are still each our own person.”

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F E AT U R E

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F E AT U R E

Band of brothers

L

ike many first-year students, Auckland brothers Cale, Jackson and Max Tu’inukuafe left home to start university. But for the identical triplets, shifting to Wellington in 2018 was “a shock”, says Cale.

Growing up on the North Shore, they shared the same friends, were prefects at Westlake Boys High School, played in the second XV North Harbour rugby team, participated in the school’s Pasifika group, and jointly coached a basketball team.

At Victoria University, the close-knit trio were split up from each other for the first time, living in different halls of residence. “We’d never really felt alone before,” says Cale.

Cale was keen to get out of Auckland. An open day convinced all three that Victoria was the right move, says Jackson. “Mum and Dad pushed for separate halls.

But we wanted that, too.” The experience helped them grow as individuals. “It was like we needed it,” says Max. “We had different experiences, we developed a lot more confidence in ourselves and we became way less reliant on each other.”

Now third-years, the brothers, who are half-Tongan, half-Pakeha, are all studying law alongside another degree. They sit together in law lectures, and they all play for Old Boys University Colts (Under-21s). All Blacks prop Karl Tu’inukuafe is Dad Andrew’s cousin.

But they also have their own interests and want to follow their own paths. Max is doing a Bachelor of Commerce, Cale is majoring in Film for a Bachelor of Arts, and Jackson’s BA major is Development Studies.

Since second year, they’ve been flatting together in Kelburn. After striking out on their own, what prompted that? “We work so well together, and you need that in a flat,” says Max. Their flatmate, Finn, has been their best friend since primary and fits in naturally, says Jackson. “He’s pretty much our brother, he’s like the quadruplet!”.

Disputes between the brothers are “interesting.

We’re equally close to each other. But either someone

has to take a side or someone in the middle might mediate.”

The best thing about being a triplet, says Cale, is “always having your two best mates around, two people who will always get you, who you know you can always count on.”

The worst thing is constantly being compared, says Max. “It’s understandable, we’re identical. But everyone is always trying to put us in a box: the sporty one, the smart one. We appreciate when people take the time to get to know us as individuals, rather than grouping us as a whole.”

The brothers have always been competitive. Mum Rebecca believes this is because they are “pretty much the same sportwise and academically. There’s not much between them at all.”

Does birth order make a difference? It’s hard to know, she says. Sometimes, they do fit the stereotypes asssociated with oldest, middle, and youngest. “Cale takes responsibility for things, for example. I don’t know whether that’s birth order or whether it’s the way we’ve unconsciously raised them.”

It was “really, really important” to treat them as individuals. “Sometimes people think it’s like having one child, but it is actually three separate human beings, with three separate needs and demands on your time.”

The brothers turn 21 in February. Big celebrations are planned. As they get older, they feel more individual, says Max. All three have striking hazel eyes and a calm demeanour. But differences in their facial shape and mannerisms are soon apparent. “We probably do look more different as we get older,” says Cale. “We were pretty identical back in the day,” adds Max. Their connection remains as strong as ever. “In sport, we have this understanding of each other, we just kind of know,” says Max. “If we weren’t triplets, we’d still be best friends,” adds Jackson. “Our bond is one of the most important things in my life,” says Cale.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Cale, Jackson, and Max Tu’inukuafe

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F E AT U R E

A family hat-trick

“I

t was not exactly expected,” says Geo Snelling carefully, as he’s asked to explain, in front of his three children, how he and his wife discovered they were having triplets. “We just wanted one.”

“Oh?!” say Pyrenees, Octavia, and Caspian in unison. “But we didn’t realise how amazing you guys would be,” Geo replies. “If we’d known in advance we totally would have said three!”

Annette Snelling was seven weeks pregnant after undergoing fertility treatment when the couple, who are American and were then living in Los Angeles, found out they were having two. “At nine weeks, we were told that it was three.”

The shock was seismic. “We were just getting our heads round having two,” says Geo. “I didn’t go to any more appointments because I didn’t want four.”

The Snellings have lived in Wellington since 2013, when they came here for Geo’s job as a lead software engineer with Weta Digital. En route, the family lived in Vancouver for two and a half years while the kids were toddlers, moving to Aotearoa as they turned four.

Routines are important, says Annette, who parents full time. Born at 30 weeks, Caspian (weighing 1,200 grams) and Octavia (1,400 grams) spent six weeks in the neonatal care unit. Pyrenees (1,100 grams) was there for three months due to feeding issues. It was a nerve-wracking time, but “kind of a blessing, too”, says Annette, as the nurses trained the babies to feed and sleep on schedule.

The Snelling kids, who are in Year 6 at Worser Bay School, turn 11 in September. They are all keen footballers and the proud joint owners of pet mice Cernel and Domino. Octavia and Pyrenees are a dynamic duo on the netball court. They have their own hobbies, too: Pyrenees designs intricate toy clothes, Caspian’s favourite video games include Minecraft, and Octavia likes diving.

The best thing about being a triplet is “never being lonely,” says Pyrenees. “You always have someone to

annoy,” says Caspian. They all get on but take turns at ganging up on each other. “Sometimes it’s me and Caspian picking on Pyrenees, and sometimes we gang up on Caspian!” says Octavia. “They capture me in blankets!” he says.

They were born one minute apart. Pyrenees was out first. “We say she got the party started,” says Annette.

Octavia is the middle child, but the tallest. “People usually think Octavia’s the eldest,” says Pyrenees. Does birth order make a difference? “No!” say the kids. “Not all the time.”

If you’re a triplet, or parents of triplets, you can expect a range of annoying questions. “Are they natural?” is one which surprised Geo. “Acquaintances made it the basis for small talk.”

“Are they identical?” is another, despite Octavia’s long red tresses, Pyrenees’s white-blonde waves and Caspian’s dark-brown curls. “We call them the Irish one, the Danish one, and the German one,” says Geo. “It’s as if all of our recessive North European genes passed through a prism.”

The kids dislike classmates thinking they’re responsible for each other. “I don’t know if Octavia’s free for a playdate and it’s not my problem if Caspian’s being annoying,” says Pyrenees. Sometimes people mix up the girls. They all hate being called “the triplets”.

There’s a special bond, says Geo. “We’re not telepathic!” says Caspian. “No you’re not,” says Geo, “but you do have a certain need to be around each other, which is pretty unique.”

Will they be friends when older? “Mmm-hmm,” they reply warily. “I’ll still be friends with my siblings,” adds Pyrenees. “I think they’ll get tighter as time goes on,” says Annette. “There will be more connection together.”

Parenting triplets can be “bittersweet”, says Geo. “Kids go through beautiful phases and you know you’re not going to get it again.”

Octavia, Caspian and Pyrenees Snelling

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F E AT U R E

The power of three

“P

ure instinct” is how Robert Pilitati describes the way his daughters Dalen, Natasha, and Tearii – who are identical triplets – would play sports at Newlands College. Robert was their basketball coach.

The sisters represented New Zealand in under-16s basketball. “You could see the connection they had on court. They could throw the ball anywhere and the other one would be there.”

Now 22, the Pilitatis all live separate lives – Natasha in Karori, Dalen in Porirua, and Tearii studying Communications at Massey in Palmerston North – with their respective partners, Tommy, Taisson, and Tahana.

Dalen represents the Cook Islands in basketball, Tearii plays basketball for Massey and premier league netball for Palmerson North, while Natasha plays netball for Wellington East’s top team.

The only games they play together now are social, says Dalen. “I miss that full strength. When we’re on the court together we feel really powerful!”

Natasha says sport drove their competitive streak.

“I never wanted to compete against my sisters, I wanted to compete alongside them, as a tactic, so it would be even better.”

The sisters were born a minute apart: Natasha first, then Tearii, and then Dalen. “It’s a very, very important minute and there’s a definite rank,” says mum Rikki. Those precious seconds separating them were all-important growing up.

“I’d have to do something because I was the youngest or Natasha got her own room first all because she was older by two minutes!” says Dalen. “I’d have to push a little bit more, just to get a bit more attention!”

Individuality was encouraged, says Rikki. The girls were never dressed the same and they had different jobs around the house. They always trialled for different positions in sport so they were never competing against each other.

Older sister Aysha, 26, is very much the eldest, adds Rikki. “She tells them straight what she thinks.

But the four of them together, it’s so loud but it’s just great, seeing how happy they are together.”

Rikki was 11 weeks pregnant when Aysha came home from kindy announcing she wanted three sisters.

But it was still “out of the blue” to be told she was expecting triplets.

Rikki’s mum, Tearii, was “really excited” and quit work to help. She died unexpectedly, at 51, on Boxing Day 1997. They buried her on New Year’s Eve, and the babies were born on New Year’s Day. Robert, who is a Samoan New Zealander, and Rikki, whose heritage is Cook Islands, come from large families and they all pitched in, as did neighbours. “We had a great support system.”

Rikki says the girls had a secret language when young. “Tearii was mega-shy. If someone asked her something at school, she’d look at her sisters. They’d say exactly what she wanted them to.”

The sisters still pick up on each other’s feelings, says Tearii. “If someone’s down, we don’t need to ask them if they’re okay. We might change the subject and bring it up later.”

Once, Natasha got concussed during a basketball game and had a seizure. “It felt like we were all in pain,” says Dalen.

Leaving home was a big deal, says Natasha, who moved out first. Tearii went flatting and loved “the challenge” of meeting new people. Dalen headed to Fiji on a gap year, and then to the US on a freshman basketball scholarship. “That was really big for me, being overseas.”

Being apart has made the sisters realise how special their relationship is. “Now that we’re older, we’ve become a lot closer,” says Natasha. “We realise that we need each other.” “Three is the perfect number,” says Tearii. “It’s never a crowd, it’s always fun.”

Dalen, Natasha and Tearii Pilitati

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S E C T I O N

Collector’s addition

BY J E S S S COT T

Fashion designer Julia Palm owns so many chairs she’s been forced to spread her collection around Wellington, stashed in the workrooms, bedrooms, studios, offices and lounges of her friends.

Julia’s penchant for chairs began with a vintage dental chair: “blue vinyl, a broken hydraulic system, the coolest old wheels and a weird single armrest that extended a little too far. That’s when I realised my love for chairs was more about collecting than functionality”.

Julia scours the internet daily for new additions, specifically searching for black leather chairs with chrome accents. She says her ever-growing collection reflects her personal style: “monochrome, sombre, and interesting.” When asked what the “holy grail” find would be she says, “Literally any Bauhausstyle chair will have me drooling”.

Julia says she loves each of her 21 chairs equally. “It’s hard to pick a favourite, as they all have such a different purpose. Not all of them are exactly practical, but amazing objects nonetheless”.

Despite her lack of storage, Julia said she won’t stop collecting until she has “maybe 30 to 40 chairs, there is nowhere to put them, and my friends stage an intervention”.

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F E AT U R E

Botanic bees Just like us, bees love living in Wellington. Beekeeper John Burnet explains to Annie Keig why bees love a city buffet and what we can do to keep their options open.

I

n any sunny flowering garden, the busy hum of bees is audible to anyone who listens. If you sit above the succulent garden in Wellington Botanic Garden, you’ll see them flitting between flowers and back to one of three beehive sites maintained

by John Burnet: one on Forman’s Landing at the end of the herb garden, one above the succulent garden, and another by Glenmore Meadow, which recently became a wildflower meadow.

A beekeeper for 30 years, founder of Capital Beekeeping Supplies, apiary consultant, and treasurer of Wellington Beekeepers Association, John has always been “environmentally focused”; he’s also involved with Zealandia and restoration projects, and beekeeping was an extension of those interests.

“It wasn’t for the honey, that’s more of a by-product I suppose. It was more just a passion of keeping an insect if you’d like, and it’s so vital and critical to the environment,” he says.

In this post-wild world, urban environments often have more resources for bees than rural environments – and Wellington is a great city for bees, says John. “There’s something flowering all year round, and city bees generally do much better than rural bees.” Urban areas typically have a higher plant diversity, which means more food sources – and the Botanic bees are collecting from trees and flowers from all around the city. Beside the Botanic gardens, the Town Belt and nature reserves all contribute to bee health. Rural bees can be restricted to mono-crops like manuka and clover, and Burnet says that this leaves them vulnerable to crop failure. “A storm at the height of manuka flowering and suddenly it all ends up on the ground. The bees can actually starve.”

Bees will forage up to five kilometres from their hives depending on the terrain. In most cases, the Botanic bees forage within the Kelburn area and around Salamanca Road. They’re not just collecting from the gardens, though: “They’ll go wherever they need to go to get what they like.”

Bees have preferences. “It’s only when the good stuff is no longer available that they switch to a lesspreferred tree or shrub.” Manuka for example, isn’t actually a bee’s favourite meal: “they will go over the top of flowering manuka to a pohutukawa.”

Other favourite flowers include kamahi, rewarewa, and lavender.

We’re still learning about the importance of bees in ecosystems. And this awareness is being translated into action. “For example, it is well known now that sprays can be fatal to bees, and we encourage people to not spray or to spray after sunset when bees have finished for the day – or even better still, to use a product that will not be fatal to bees.”

Bee Aware Month, held every September, is an Apiculture New Zealand campaign to generate awareness of the importance of bees to our biodiversity and economy. Supporting events are being planned by the WCC. Details were not available at press time.

John notes that bees are becoming more central to environmental curriculums in schools.

Wellingtonians don’t need to become beekeepers to help bees. “Its not necessary to have a hive,” he says. He recommends using your space – whether it’s a garden or a planter box in your window – to grow nectar and pollen sources for bees. See our guide on the following page.

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1.

Shasta daisy Chrysanthemum maxi White

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Snapdragon Penstemon palmeri Pink

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Baby’s breath Gypsophila elegans White

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Tufted poppy Eschscholzia caespitosa Yellow

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Cornflower Centaura cyanus (tall) Blue

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Queen Ann’s lace Ammi majus White

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Delphinium Delphinium ajacis Pink

6.

Mountain phlox Linanthus grandiflorus Purple

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Delphinium Delphinium ajacis Blue

10. Purple coneflower Echiinacea purpurea Purple

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O P I N I O N

Dollars and sense Our (mostly) COVID-free country is doing better than almost everywhere else.

But what has it cost us, what new challenges await us, and how can we make our money grow in this brave new world? Economist Andreas Heuser explains why sustainable economic growth is so important right now.

Y

ou don't have to be an economist to know that the COVID crisis has set back economic growth in Wellington and throughout New Zealand. But as we emerge from crisis mode, there are great opportunities we can take advantage of to promote sustainable economic growth.

New Zealand is mostly free of COVID (touch wood) and we can now interact freely. We are one of the few advanced economies where people can live, work, and play without restriction. We all know how lucky we are, and that we need to protect this valuable platform, but we also need to seize the moment and make more fundamental changes.

Enormous challenges still remain. Borders are closed; short and long-term visitors (and their dollars) are largely absent. Businesses shut down during Level 4 Lockdown have reopened to find that today’s normal looks very different. Jobs have been and probably will be lost before we are through. The published GDP figures to March and forecasts from the IMF and the major banks are grim: a fall of between 2 and 10 percent is expected this year. The short-term priority, evidenced by the wage subsidy and policies to sustain small business cashflow, is simply to preserve the status quo. In Wellington, the short-term pain may be tempered by the large government sector, which has remained in work, and by a regional economy less reliant on tourism than most.

The Government has a big borrowing programme to fund COVID-related social measures, infrastructure, and other investment. The obligation to repay this debt falls on young people and subsequent generations. It also reduces the government’s financial buffer against future adversity, although we are far better off than other countries in this respect.

Maximising sustainable economic growth should become our singular focus as we emerge from the crisis.

The best way to avoid leaving coming generations with a high burden of debt is to grow wealth sustainably.

But New Zealand has had a poor record of sustainable

economic growth for decades. We have increased GDP by producing more stuff and extracting more from our existing capital stocks – for example, increasing farm stocking rates and inflows of international students and tourists. This may have generated some complacency – remember the “rock star economy”? But when this GDP growth is measured on a per capita basis, a disturbing picture emerges. New Zealand’s productivity growth is poor. We have produced and consumed more overall, but growth per person has not changed much. Australia and most other OECD countries have made greater productivity gains.

In the Wellington region, productivity growth has been even lower than the national average for the past 20 years.

So, what should we do? There are many academic opinions on the causes and solutions for New Zealand’s productivity problem, size and distance being often cited.

But one cause is plain to see: poor infrastructure investment and planning. We just do not build enough or as fast as we should in New Zealand. The rate of building (consents per 1,000 population) was double what it is now back in the 1970s, and is only now getting back to 1990s levels. We can compare overseas examples and examples from our history to highlight our problem. It took one year from 1998 to 1999 to build housing and infrastructure in Shenzen, China to absorb one million additional people. In Lower Hutt, a recent plan change to allow modest additional density and housing development around rail stations took over four years and hours of hearings, paid commissioners, and appeals. The private developers of the original Kelburn subdivision first proposed the Cable Car in 1898 and opened to passengers in February 1902 (during the steam era no less). In 2020, we are decades into debating how to resolve the Basin Reserve/tunnel bottleneck.

At national and regional levels, better infrastructure would stimulate growth. High quality infrastructure investment can provide benefits that compound significantly for long periods. Infrastructure (and better

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O P I N I O N

urban planning) are the keys to increasing the supply of housing and improving its affordability. Reducing New Zealand’s globally high housing costs would boost growth by leaving households with more income for consumption or even investing in new skills, children’s education, or business.

The post-COVID recovery is a good opportunity to resolve these issues. The Government has acknowledged that a problem in planning and funding infrastructure exists. In order to get some projects moving, it has fast-tracked eleven “shovel ready” projects via an Act of Parliament. A further 150 projects worth $2.6 billion have received in-principle support. Two of the fast-tracked projects are in the Wellington region: upgrading the Kāpiti and Wairarapa railway lines, and the Te Ara Tupuna cycleway/walkway alongside the Hutt motorway.

The fact it has taken a global pandemic to get some action on infrastructure highlights a deeper problem. In the middle of an economic crisis, having Cabinet-level negotiations to select projects and waive some requirements of the Resource Management Act might be justified, but will not be viable in the long-term. To unlock economic growth, more fundamental reform is needed to how we select and fund projects, and how consenting (to manage environmental and other impacts) is handled.

Currently transport projects are selected on the basis of the short-term revenues available in local budgets and the National Land Transport Fund. This incentivises local government to minimise their own contribution, setting them in competition with other councils, and central government periodically rides in to the rescue with additional funds (the City Rail Link in Auckland being a good example). Other jurisdictions first create a master plan, determine which projects will deliver the greatest benefits, then raise the funds to deliver them at the level (local, regional or national) where the projects’ benefits will accrue; we would do well to model this approach.

Water-sector investment varies greatly between New Zealand’s 78 local authorities and almost all the assets are owned and managed directly by councils

and funded from the general council budget. Many councillors have limited experience in governing complex, high-value, long-lived assets. It is no surprise that shorter-term budgetary and political demands can capture attention – until major failures occur because of decisions made years ago, like deferring upgrades to sewer pipes. As a result, water and wastewater systems are not resilient and cannot easily accommodate growth. Overseas, water utilities are often separate corporate entities with professional governance and management, and a direct customer relationship between the utility and the customer (although ownership often remains public).

Reforming the Resource Management Act is a topic outside the scope of this column. However, it is noteworthy that before the last election, even the environmental sector (represented by the Environmental Defence Society) which usually opposes reform joined forces with Infrastructure NZ and the business community (Employers and Manufacturers Association) to highlight failings in the legislation and move for change.

COVID has given us a pause for thought, and disrupted the economy so profoundly that some fundamental rethinking about economic growth is plainly necessary. Otherwise we risk leaving a legacy of debt, without the means for future generations to repay it. The Government has taken a good first step in acknowledging a problem exists. The exciting next step will be unlocking New Zealand’s potential.

Andreas Heuser is an economic and strategy consultant with the Wellington office of Castalia, a global advisory firm. He advises governments and investors on infrastructure in New Zealand, the Pacific and Asia. He is President of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand. A born and bred Wellingtonian, he lives in Lower Hutt with his wife Georgia and two children.

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L O V E L O C A L S E C T I O N H E A D E R

Love local Whether you’re looking for food, drinks, flowers, jewellery or whatever – wouldn’t you rather love local? Yeah, that’s what we thought. In the Love Local directory cool people doing cool stuff tell us what they’re up to.

New look, same great coffee. Mojo coffee packaging is now made from natural compostable materials that are suitable for home composting. Coffee is freshly roasted every morning in Wellington and delivered directly to cafes for the freshest coffee available. www.mojo.coffee

Organics. People. Planet.

Hustle for the muscle

Commonsense’s purpose is to connect you with shopping you can trust in order to create a kinder, more ethical future for everyone.

All products are well researched before being offered for sale, to ensure they reflect their longstanding values. www.commonsenseorganics.co.nz

Wheels fallen off over COVID? Made a post-lockdown resolution to get back in the gym? Get in touch with Vanu from VH Fitness for a free fitness consultation today! vharfield.fitness@gmail.com

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Frank’s Coffee

The Big Picture is a local printing and signage company who take the hard part out of printing. With years of experience and top shelf technology on offer, they are the one stop place for all your printing needs. www.thebigpic.co.nz

City life can be busy. If you found yourself in need of a respite, you’ll be pleased to hear Frank’s offers exactly that. A modern minimalist escape offering award-winning coffee, freshly baked goods, delicious brunch menu, and neat retail goods. www.frankscoffee.co.nz

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I GOT YO U BA B E When Georgia Faull had her first baby twenty-odd years ago she wanted to find natural and organic alternatives for her children, rather than “rely on synthetic products.” This led to the creation of Nature Baby, which she opened with her partner Jacob in Auckland in 1998. Now the shop, which specialises in organic clothing and natural products for babies, has a new home in Wellington. Find them on Jessie St near fellow organic clothing brand Kowtow, and Capital’s local grocery store, Moore Wilsons.

WEAVER BEAVER

DIGI-MALL

SAY MY NAME

Wall hangings, rugs, jewellery, and fabrics are on display in Angles of Perception, an exhibition of work by the Professional Weavers Network of New Zealand (Pātaka Art + Museum until 6 September). Exploring angles, patterns, and perspectives, the works include both 2D and 3D construction, and incorporate techniques from origami and tapestry.

The artists say weaving is both an organic and mathematical process – “The placing of the weft over the warp in various sequences produces angles and forms throughout the web of fabric.”

Hokohoko, a new Māori e-Mall, is a bit like a digital harbourside market, offering all sorts of items, such as poi and piupiu, hand-crafted uku and jewellery, homewares, and kombucha.

The idea first began during weekly online meetings of the Māori business network Te Rōpū Pakihi, during the COVID-19 Lockdown as they looked for ways to support Māori businesses safely. Based on the concept “by Māori, for Māori, of Māori”, it connects customers directly with Māori creators. hokohoko.maori.nz/

Heritage tiles uncovered on the façade of the former Farmers Building, built in 1914, have revealed the original name and owner of the building – C. Smith Ltd, Clothiers & Drapers.

Restoration work on the building is part of the Cuba Precinct regeneration project undertaken by Willis Bond, LT McGuinness, and Athfield Architects.

The Willis Bond team told us the restored cast iron columns, beautiful matai flooring and heritage pressed-tin ceiling tiles make it “a pretty special place to be.”

稀攀戀爀愀渀漀

䴀漀礀甀爀甀

䌀栀漀挀漀氀愀琀

伀䈀䤀

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Glowworm Name: New Zealand Glowworm

Habitat: Titiwai need damp places where the air is humid and still to build their snares, and they need access to prey. They’re often found in old mining tunnels and caves (Waitomo, Waipu, and Te Anau) but also commonly line damp banks in native bush.

Māori name: Titiwai (meaning “lights reflected in water”) Status: Endemic Scientific name: Arachnocampa luminosa Description: The New Zealand glowworm isn’t actually a worm, but the larva of a fungus gnat (as Forest & Bird pointed out to us on Twitter, they’re actually more like “glow maggots”).

Adult fungus gnats looks like mosquitos, and there are more than 300 species of them in Aotearoa, only one of which glows. While most of them feed on fungi (hence the name), a small number are carnivorous − including Titiwai, which actually use their light to attract prey.

Suspended from small transclucent tubes of their own making, attached to the bank or cave wall, Titiwai dangle silken threads covered in beads of mucus, and then use their bioluminescent light to attract prey into this snare.

Fungus gnat larvae viewed in the light of day might look like nothing more than small, translucent worms − but turn off the lights and the effect is magic.

Look/listen: Head to the Botanic Gardens after dark and look for glowworms along the path from the Duck Pond up to Glen Road along Pukatea Stream; or else book a night tour of Zealandia and as well as glowworms you might see wētā, tuatara, and maybe even little spotted kiwi! Other spots we’ve heard about include Central Park, Old Karori Road, Otari Bush, and by the first bridge on the Kaitawa Road track in York Bay. Tell me a story: Anyone who has seen glowworms will have noticed that occasionally, when they are disturbed, a light will appear to suddenly “go out”. Actually, it takes several minutes for titiwai to turn off its light, and the larva has likely slithered into a crevice or behind a rock to hide.

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rambunctious garden

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E D I B L E S

H OW D O E S YO U R GARDEN GROW? Students from “Garden to Table” schools in the Wellington region planted veggies in Parliament’s Dig for Victory garden last month. Some of those veggies will be used

by Parliamentary restaurant Bellamys by Logan Brown, in their Wellington On a Plate burger offering – The General Election. “A portion of the sale of each burger will be donated to Garden to Table to help them keep up their work getting New Zealand’s school children to grow, harvest, prepare, and share fresh vegetables,” says Bellamys’ Head Chef, Joshua Ross.

GOLD STANDARD

THIS PIGGY STAYED HOME

WET YOUR WHISTLE

We know echinacea is said to be good for the immune system. Fresh juice aficionados Brothers Coldpress have taken their winter staples of lemon, ginger, honey, and apple cider vinegar and added liquid echinacea to their Gold Wellness Shot. You can either mix it with hot water and sip gently, or go hard-core and do shots.

During Lockdown, Eketahuna Country Meats moved from market stalls to home deliveries. Even though the markets are now back up and running, owner Steve Olds is continuing to deliver his grass-fed, free-range produce (including pork, lamb, beef, and eggs) directly to our doors. He says he’ll miss the yarns and laughs at the Riverside and Harbourside markets, but he’s excited for the extra family time that this new business model allows.

Our annual beer tasting – Capital’s Beer Necessities – is under way this month and the highly anticipated results will be out in our October “Food” issue. Last year our convenor Steph Coutts noted a large contingent of “hazies” and an increase in the lager-style entries.

She’s back again with her usual high standards, looking for faultfree beers she can recommend to you, dear reader.

33 mins from Featherston A traditional Butchery in a modern funky setting.

True gate to plate where Dion and Ali showcase their own Homegrown Beef, Lamb and Pork.

437B Queen Street, Kuripuni Village, Masterton online at www.homegrownbutchery.online

E D I B L E S

PUNS OF PURPOSE Composting is eggcellent and takes very little thyme – that’s the word from the Wellington City Council as they launch a food compost trial in Miramar. They’re aiming to demonstrate that food waste is no yolk, squash wasteful habits, and reduce the amount of food going to landfill. Later this month Miramar residents will be invited to get involved and the trial will start in October.

FRESH FROTH

NAME GAVE IT AWAY

EELY EXCITING

Expressions Whirinaki hosts the 2020 Meadow Fresh NZ Barista Championship this Spring, with the national heats on 5 September and the finals the next day. Both events are free for spectators.

Competitors will have to use machines provided by the competition – La Marzocco two group Linea, with standard 17-gram precision La Marzocco baskets.

The winner will represent New Zealand at the World Barista Championship in Athens, Greece in June next year.

Straws made of straw are now available in New Zealand. Surprisingly, while they’re made from the wheat plant, “hay straws” are gluten free. Gluten is found in wheat grains, but these straws are made from wheat stems which don’t usually contain gluten – but just to be safe the straws are batch tested. We haven’t tried them yet, but apparently straw straws (unlike paper straws), don’t get soggy.

Patricia Grace’s story of a magical tuna who brings gifts to the children of Champion St is the inspiration for Hiakai’s new menu. Watercress Tuna and the children of Champion Street was first published in 1984, and chef Monique Fiso says the themes of “identity, community, and kotahitanga ring truer than ever”. She describes the new menu as her “most creatively ambitious work.”

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Black rice breakfast with prunes, fruit and yoghurt

BY N I K K I & J O R DA N S H E A R E R

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s we emerge from our cocoons, shaking off the winter blues and looking forward to the growth of Spring, we long for freshness, and maybe new beginnings. What a few months we have had! Growth has taken on a whole new meaning – growing and adapting as individuals, uniting as a country, “growing up” in a whole new world.

Growth can be painful, pushing our limits, but ultimately it makes us better. Start the

½ cup black rice 1 cup cold water 1 vanilla pod, sliced lengthwise ⅓ cup freshly squeezed orange juice 1 orange, peeled and segmented then diced 4 prunes, diced 2–3 tsp honey (or to your taste) 6 strawberries, sliced 16 blueberries ½ cup passionfruit yoghurt 1 Tbsp sliced pistachio nuts 4–6 pieces freeze-dried mandarin

day as you mean to continue – feed the body well and you are better equipped to face any challenges ahead.

The black rice is best left overnight combined with the prunes, orange juice, honey and diced orange. It can be stored in the fridge for brekkie at a moment's notice.

Add the fresh fruit, yoghurt, nuts, and freeze dried fruit just before serving.

Serves 2

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Rinse the black rice in a sieve under cold running water for a couple of minutes.

Combine black rice, water, and vanilla pod in a small pot and bring to the boil.

Simmer for approximately 35 minutes until the water has been absorbed.

Remove vanilla pod and place cooked rice in a bowl and allow to cool.

Add orange juice, segmented orange, prunes and honey, cover and refrigerate (preferably overnight if you have the time).

Place 2–3 Tbsp of the black rice mixture into the bottom of each serving plate.

Just before serving, divide the fresh fruit between bowls on top of the black rice, top with half the yoghurt, and sprinkle with pistachios and freeze-dried mandarins.

S E C T I O N

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ON HOLD During Level 4 Lockdown, many of us read e-books, by preference or from necessity. A Publishers Association of NZ report found the required closure of physical and online bookshops during Lockdown caused a 20% decline in sales. But since Level 2, New Zealanders have had an enthusiastic reunion with bookstores, with sales shooting back up. The report also found that, during 2019, sales of physical books increased by 7.1% and digital books declined by 4.5%. And sales of books written in te reo Māori (directly or in translation) are rising.

HER HERITAGE

NEW PLOT FOR SCOT T

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Book publicist and publishing consultant/tutor Elizabeth Heritage found Lockdown “weirdly comforting,” she says. “I have chronic migraine and managing my own health feels like a full-time job. But now managing our collective health has become everyone’s full-time job.” In her essay All Shall Be Well, Elizabeth writes about time feeling suspended during Lockdown, pain experienced by her ancestors, and a medieval anchorite (someone who withdraws from society). Read it at verbwellington.nz

Charles Hazlitt Upham was a slightly built farm valuer from Christchurch.

How he came to be the only combat soldier ever to win the Victoria Cross twice is the subject of writer and cartoonist Tom Scott’s new book Searching for Charlie (August, Upstart Press). “I wanted to write something my children and their children could read and gain a better appreciation of the sacrifices their grandparents and great-grandparents made and the hardships they endured to rescue the world from a monstrous evil,” says Tom.

A new bookshop in the Moore Wilson’s/cafe precinct is filling the gap left when Ekor bookshop on College St closed. Good Books, next to Prefab and Hamish McKay Gallery on Jessie St, is being set up by Jane Arthur (a poet, and founder of children’s books website The Sapling), and bestselling novelist Catherine Robertson (pictured, Cap#34). They’ll open in late September. “It’s exciting to create something from scratch!” says Catherine.

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Sara McIntyre, Alan Taumata in the Kākahi church, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Miles Gallery.

Winter exhibitions at the Sarjeant:

Comprehensive eye care and advice you can depend on

Observations of a Rural Nurse Sara McIntyre 27 June — 18 Oct 2020 An exhibition of over fifty photographs that brings together McIntyre’s remarkable photographic exploration — her ‘observation’ of Kākahi and the sparsely populated King Country.

mgoptometrist.co.nz 77 Customhouse Quay

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Also showing: Together Alone: Works from the Collection Exploring Human Connections in a Postlockdown World 27 June — 8 Nov 2020 Lighting the Fire: Whanganui Potters from the Sarjeant Collection 4 July — 4 Oct 2020

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R E V E R S E

Re-verse I N T R O D U C E D BY C H R I S T S E

About the poet: Jackson Niuewland is a genderqueer writer, editor, and librarian living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. They co-founded the reading/ zine series Food Court. I Am a Human Being is their first book.

I AM AN EGG I am an egg. There is something growing inside me. It is a tree. Its branches and roots push up against the inside of my shell like bone shards. The tree is not the only thing inside of me. There are jars and fish and clocks and skyscrapers. There are robots and bears and riddles and things I can’t define. It is too much for me to hold inside. I am cracking from the pressure. Soon I will shatter and everything will scatter like ashes. Soon I will be a broken thing

In brief: Each poem in I Am a Human Being

reimagines the speaker as a different person or object.

Some are familiar – like a photographer, a wheel and a river, others are more metaphorical or surreal (“I am a cone of blue light positioned over a snowy beach”). Taken as a whole, the book is like a puzzle where the final image is constantly shifting.

Why read it: As the opening poem, “I am an egg” sets

up the transformative and questioning nature of I Am a Human Being. However, Jackson subverts the reader’s expectations of the egg being an embryonic object that produces something newborn and whole.

Instead, by the end of the poem, what emerges is “a broken thing.” This subversion is a recurring theme in the collection, of both the reader’s understanding of each object and how writing can be used to express identity. For Jackson, it’s figuring out a way to express their gender identity with a label that feels true and comfortable. As they note in another poem, “The human condition can be defined as etcetera.” In many ways it's the “etcetera” of lived experience that forms the foundation of one’s identity.

By Jackson Nieuwland from I Am a Human Being, Compound Press, 2020

Why I like it: There’s a lot of playfulness and humour

in Jackson’s poetry, from the deadpan to the downright silly. Puns are scattered throughout the book, acting as poetic palate cleansers between the more cerebral and exploratory poems. “I am an egg” succinctly describes the internal conflict between the different versions of ourselves. I Am a Human Being reinforces the idea that our understanding of who we are never stops – we continue to learn and evolve as we gather experiences and shapeshift in our own small ways. Leaving out a full-stop at the end of each poem in the book is a small but crucial detail – to me it suggests possibility and an open ending.

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King country P H OTO G R A P H BY A N N A B R I G G S

Sarah Lang talks to “film and comics maker” Jonathan King about his graphic novel, Tintin, and being the son of the late historian Michael King.

M

ore than a decade on, Jonathan King still feels “bruised” from his 2009 feature film Under The Mountain, an adaptation of Maurice Gee’s sci-fi classic about telepathic twins who battle against alien creatures stirring from centuries of sleep. The film didn’t run for long (partly because blockbuster Avatar opened) and didn’t get great reviews. As its writer, director, and producer, Jonathan was gutted.

“It was a very expensive, very challenging film. A bit of a disaster, really – a nightmare to make – and it did disappointingly for how much it cost.” He winces at the recollection. “Being disappointed by what you achieve is horrible. It left me demoralised about making films.”

Jonathan turned to his other great love: comics.

Whether they’re classified as comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels, comics are formed from panels that present sequential scenes in a story, often with text in speech bubbles. Jonathan started drawing comics aged six: “They were all about superheroes at that stage.” The comics he’s written in adulthood have largely been “surreal and oblique mysteries.” He’s published them on his Facebook page and his website, and some have ended up in anthologies. “I’d always storyboarded my films.

After film, comics let me be creative without anyone breathing down my neck. They weren’t expensive, literally or mentally. I could make something up, draw it, and put it into the world.”

In 2016, he discussed a proposed graphic novel with Wellington publisher Gecko Press, something involving adventure and mystery, and “slightly fantastical”. Demonstrating a film-maker’s skill for dramatic narrative, The Inkberg Enigma sees Miro, a bespectacled, book-obsessed teenage boy in a small town, get swept up in an adventure involving mysterious fishermen. Gecko publishes it in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK in August, and in

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the USA and Canada in September. It’s targeting readers aged eight to 10, but my six-year-old and I both enjoyed it. Expect humour: a man tells his pooping dog “I’m not angry, Kenny, just disappointed”, and a scientist who sees a serpent says “I think I just got my research grant’”.

The book’s easy to read, but Jonathan isn’t.

Somehow, he seems chatty and cheerful, but also introverted and intense. We’re talking at the Kilbirnie home he shares with wife Rebecca Priestley (a science writer/academic), their “sniffy beagle,” and their 13-year-old twins (a girl and a boy). Their 18-year-old daughter is away at university.

Jonathan and Rebecca met as children, as their parents were friends. “We didn’t meet again until we were 29, when I visited Wellington for a function.”

Jonathan moved here to live with Rebecca at 30, and he’s now 52. He had previously lived in Auckland since he was 10, mostly with his mother and stepfather – publishers Ros Henry and David Elworthy – but also seeing a lot of his famous father.

Jonathan is the son of late historian Michael King, and the brother of novelist/literary-festival director Rachael King. In 2004, Michael and second wife Maria Jungowska died in a car crash. Jonathan doesn’t want to talk about that, but he was always aware of his father’s mana. “As kids, wherever we went, someone would stop and talk to Dad, and he was interested in other people, so we just stood there.” After his father died, Jonathan was often called “Michael King’s son”. On top of the loss of a parent, he found the public attention “tiring.”

His family gravitated to creative pursuits. There was never any expectation to be creative, but nature and nurture intermingled predictably. “As kids we made comics, and put on plays. I always wanted to be a film-maker, Rachael always wanted to be a novelist, and no one ever said ‘don’t be ridiculous’.”

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There was no film school then. Jonathan’s first job was as a graphic designer at a publishing company.

He co-founded the short-lived Stamp magazine, as co-editor, designer and writer, and then worked at Rip It Up magazine.

Music videos came next. He’s made over 100, for bands including Stellar, Head Like a Hole, and Fur Patrol. “That taught me skills like editing, shooting, direction, and working with actors.” Meanwhile, he was writing feature-film screenplays. The first five were, he says, “unproduceable.”

Then came his feature-film debut (as screenwriter and director): comedy-horror hit the award-winning, globetrotting film Black Sheep (2007), about genetically-engineered sheep running amok. In 2009, Under the Mountain bombed. Five years later, Jonathan made Realiti, a well-received low-budget sci-fi thriller, and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

When asked what his job is, Jonathan says “I make comics and films.” But it’s been six years since Realiti – is he done with films? “I’d like to make one or two more on my own terms. Films I believe in.

Films where I can pay collaborators, but don’t lie awake worrying about money.” Last year he wrote a screenplay for his MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters.

“It’s a folk-horror about communal living in the 1970s.” He hopes it’ll be his next film.

But Inkberg has been his priority. A Creative NZ grant (“half the minimum wage for a year”) kickstarted it. He drew by hand on an i-Pad Pro, using an industry-favourite drawing app, Clip Studio Paint. The last push to finish the book involved six coffees a day.

“Doing the book meant three years of doing not much else,” Jonathan says. What? Over that time he’s done his MA, made short films for Toi Whakaari NZ Drama School, and taught filmmaking at Massey University. Still, he hasn’t earned much. “What did I have to pay the bills? A very, very supportive wife.”

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“Rebecca and I are kind of workaholics, always grabbing time to chip away at projects, and sometimes we feel like bad parents!” He quotes a saying that being a writer is “like having homework every night for the rest of your life.” But with comics, it’s hard to do an hour here and there – “I need to get in the zone.”

Yes, Inkberg has a tinge of Tintin. In a timehonoured debate as polarising as Marmite versus Vegemite, Jonathan prefers Tintin to Asterix. “I got two Tintin books for my fourth birthday! But Tintin travels halfway round the world, whereas my book creates a more finite world with ‘mysterious corners’.”

As a character in Inkberg says, stories aren’t just things you read about in books. “It’s all about unearthing secrets in your own world,” says Jonathan.

Graphic novels are currently proving popular.

In December, Forbes magazine ranked 2019’s best graphic novels, unable to choose just 10 because of the explosion of the genre. The rise of graphic novels, Jonathan says, is anything but a dumbing-down of language. “Words and pictures working together can tell sophisticated stories in an accessible way. Comics have been a legitimate art form for 130-odd years.”

First came newspaper and magazine comic strips, then Tintin (born 1929) and Asterix (born 1959) in book-length stories. You could argue that precursors include Trajan’s Column in Rome, Greek friezes, and the medieval Bayeux Tapestry, all using their sequential images to tell a story.

Will there be an Inkberg sequel? It depends on the book’s reception, and Jonathan’s finances. “I’d probably put it online in instalments, otherwise you’re kind of disappearing from the world, slugging away at this thing, feeling you’re doing nothing.” Creatively, he needs connections with others. He says New Zealand’s small community of comic-makers support and encourage each other, no matter how many or few copies their books sells. “For us, just making the thing is the triumph.”

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O P I N I O N

Kill me now Nothing is more certain to cause heat but little light than a debate at a dinner table of doctors on euthanasia. There will be strong and diverse opinions and you will leave stimulated but probably no wiser, says pathologist and The Quick and the Dead author Dr Cynric Temple-Camp, commenting on the euthanasia referendum to be held with this year’s General Election.

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s a pathologist dealing often with the already dead, and with no personal experience regarding assisted death, I am no better informed and my opinion is no more valuable than anyone else’s. But together we, the New Zealand public, or more precisely the 50% of us who turn out on voting day, soon have to decide in a referendum whether to support the introduction of the End of Life Choice Act 2019. I would not presume to lobby on this issue, but a fundamental question about the probable outcome bothers me: will there be enough doctors willing to actually administer the overdose?

You would have to be without compassion to fail to understand the motive for euthanasia under some circumstances. There are the stories from the trenches of WWI of hideously injured men, screaming in pain with no hope of help, shot by their own. No-one who has not been in comparable circumstances can fairly criticise such an action.

It is not a big step, then, to see mentally competent patients at the end of prolonged suffering that is without hope of medical alleviation having a prescription to hand so they can choose their own moment. The evidence from countries where such a remedy is provided is that it is surprisingly rarely used. Palliative care these days is a robust and well understood discipline, and there are now very few who are

truly beyond help to live a comfortable dignified life until an inevitable death. There are support networks available and no-one need suffer needlessly before succumbing. Families who have used them have high praise for modern palliative services.

It is also true that although medicine is good at beating death back, in many patients it is too often only a holding action. You smack it down for a bit but it soon bursts out elsewhere, like an Aussie bushfire. Many clinicians who would never administer a lethal drug to their patients are comfortable with stopping antibiotics, fluids, and other life-prolonging support to allow nature to take its course. This is common practice, and although it has some similar aspects it is perceived as quite different from the assisted euthanasia policy on which we are now to decide.

The referendum choice says, in part, that assisted dying involves –“a person’s doctor or nurse practitioner giving them medication to relieve their suffering by bringing on death.”

The death in this definition is essentially physically caused by the doctor or nurse. It is certainly a “physician assisted death” and a stringent procedure is clearly laid out.

The question is, who will actually carry out this action? A contact list of willing doctors is proposed: but how many will be prepared to appear on it? It is quite something to toss

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aside the 2,400 year old Hippocratic Oath, which underpins our ethical approach to medicine. We swear in the traditional version of the oath that “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.” Modern versions depart from this concept somewhat, but they do not carry the same historical mana. The newer version uses wording along the lines of “Do your utmost for the patient,” which could be interpreted as providing for a drug-assisted death. Changing the wording, though, doesn’t change the tradition and teaching or professional beliefs that still underpin the profession and are held by the majority. And it is proposed now in 2021 that on the strength of a probably minority poll we discard this ancient tradition.

Pathologists of course will not be involved by the very nature of our work; but I cannot easily envisage my surgical, medical, paediatric or other specialist colleagues doing so either. Will GPs be prepared to do it? Some perhaps, but I suspect many, maybe even most, would not willingly. The palliative care doctors are obviously in the best position to carry out this sombre duty, but I sense they are devoted to helping patients live a good and dignified end of life, rather than helping them to an earlier death.

Some years ago a doctor visiting New Zealand from Belgium talked about his experience of euthanasia. Belgium, the Netherlands and a few others have legislation allowing euthanasia, and it has become an increasingly common way to die there. He showed us a video of a young woman wasted by disseminated cancer being administered a lethal injection. It was a horrible thing to have to watch though it was peaceful enough and she was surrounded by her loving family. All of us who were there felt uneasy about it, perhaps because we

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are not used to seeing a person put to death. A straw poll conducted recently among my colleagues did not find anybody eager for this law change.

Perhaps I am wrong, and we will become accustomed to it and eventually accept the policy and method of implementation.

The Act seems to take as a given medical willingness to act upon its provisions. I wonder if this is soundly based. You will certainly find some doctors prepared to reach for the needle and to speed you over the River Styx, as the ancient Greeks might have put it. There are always some, also passionately convinced that they do good.

But the doctor you choose to trust with your life may not be prepared to end it. You would then have to contact the New Zealand Support and Consultation for End of Life Group to get another doctor to administer that final injection. The law would require the signoff of two independent and willing doctors to satisfy requirements.

Is there any certainty they will be there?

I wonder.

Dr Cynric Temple-Camp is one of New Zealand’s leading pathologists. In his new book The Quick and the Dead, published last month, Temple-Camp exposes the world of a pathologist. Through a series of stories and cases he’s been involved with, from early in his career in Africa through his time in New Zealand, he leads the reader into a world of disease and death as he seeks answers for those who were unlucky, and those still alive to tell the tale. His first book, a #1 bestseller The Cause of Death was published in 2017.

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F E AT U R E

The house that grew P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

We’ve all looked up at the Athfield home and office, perched on the hillside above the motorway. Those who’ve been in Wellington a wee while may remember what it once was, and perhaps they’ve watched it grow over the years. Sarah Catherall catches up with the Athfields who are there now and is shown around the ever evolving ediface.

“I

t would never be anything else but ongoing,’’ Lady Clare Athfield laughs, talking about her iconic home which cascades down a Khandallah hillside.

Ever since the soil was first turned in 1964, a builder or tradie has typically been on site, building or renovating the ever-evolving Athfield Home and Office, as it is known. Son Zac has taken over the company − and the ongoing house project − since his father, Ian, passed away in 2015, soon after being knighted for his services to architecture. The iconic white village spilling down a hillside is a living tribute to Sir Ian’s architecture. Books have been written about it, and it recently received an NZIA Enduring Architecture Medal. It also is heritage listed, and one of the requirements is that it should be constantly evolving. “The house has been a lot of fun, but there are constant, endless jobs to be done,’’ Zac says.

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The house was Sir Ian’s first project, and it consumed him throughout his life. Even when he was unwell with prostate cancer, he kept drawing plans for its future.

The couple bought the land in the mid-sixties, and the design of the house was inspired by visiting Mediterranean villages such as Todi, in Italy, not long after. Says Lady Clare: “When we were in Todi, all the little villages were huddled down the hillside, and it made us feel we wanted to huddle down the hillside too, so that was how the rest of the house evolved.’’

Ian, or “Ath’’, as he was known, didn’t have a job when they bought the land, and the house had to be built on a shoestring budget.

Many pieces − including the iconic towers and portholes made from stormwater pipes − came from demolition sites. “We explored New Zealand and we’d find things along the way.

We were always interested in anything that was being pulled down, and we either got it free or didn’t pay much,’’ says Lady Clare.

Ian both designed the house and helped build it. Zac points to a three-metre-square shed, visible from the kitchen, at the bottom of the hair-raising driveway. That was the first building to go up, and the rest of the village gradually grew and sprawled above and below it.

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To make more space on the steep site, the architect and his team went up and down, rather than out.

According to commentary on Sir Ian’s work, the design was also inspired by Greek architecture, with its continuous plaster and small windows. It was the first to embody Sir Ian’s signature residential architectural style: homes cascading down hills, often comprising numerous linked volumes, to give a place the feel of a village.

Wanting to accommodate a community rather than a nuclear family, Sir Ian followed Aldo van Eyck’s idea that a house could be a small city.

Today, the “village” is home to 22 people, and the workplace of 35.

Zac has also helped with the building over the years. From a young age, he and his brother Jesse played with rusty nails and concrete as their parents worked on the growing house. Zac laughs that his bedroom constantly moved, depending where his parents were living, or whether he wanted to get further away from them.

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From 1968, Ian ran his architectural practice from the house, proving his belief that home life and work could happen under one roof. Inside, the house is connected by walkways and openings leading to unexpected spaces. The main house has ceiling heights which vary, with the feeling of an airy cathedral in parts, and a cosy nook in others.

The entry stairs lead down into a double-height living space, flanked by a mezzanine dining room and den. A nook behind the living room boasts a platform behind two portholes open to the outside, where Zac and Jesse often used to sleep on mattresses when they were young.

Last Christmas, Zac and his family − wife Sarah, and children Isla, Tommy, Greta, and Sylvie − moved into one wing of the main house. Isla, 14, pounced on the iconic tower room with its distinctive Athfield porthole window.

She accesses her bedroom via a spiral staircase which her grandparents retrieved from the old Bank of New Zealand when it was being pulled down.

Many of the pieces in the original house have stories behind them: the long wooden dining-room table came from a shearer’s cottage in the Wairarapa, complete with knife carvings in the wood; the kitchen stove uses both

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electricity and gas power, the first in New Zealand to offer both, and a test of the technology at the time. Lady Clare, who worked as an interior and industrial designer, designed the industrial rack and steel kitchen stools in the kitchen nook.

Over the years, the old kitchen has been added to. It has floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the concrete swimming pool, into which the village residents recently plunged for a midwinter swim. The office sits beyond it, along with a residence occupied by another family. Lady Clare designed the mosaic seat in the garden, which has an image of Sir Ian lying down.

During their years there, Sir Ian and Lady Clare bought neighbouring properties to add to their village. When they bought the adjacent house in 1987, they began creating a link between the two properties, which has never been finished. Zac says, “The hardest bit was Ath would be threequarters finished and he would be off on the next thing, and sometimes it took a long time to get things working.’’

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Did they ever intend the place to grow so large? Lady Clare, who turns 80 in August, says, “All of it was experimental. Ath didn’t not experiment.’’

Over more than 50 years, since the first brick was laid, the sprawling white home has been controversial. Neighbours have obstructed consents, and Ath was constantly at war with the Wellington City Council as he tried to get permissions for the ever-expanding building.

Says Lady Clare: “We have always had issues. The biggest challenges were not getting permissions. It was very difficult in those days.’’ Zac says that Ath was never afraid of testing ideas: “The house that grew was Ath working against the Building Act.” And the project isn’t over. The kitchen is about to be renovated, and there are plans to install a cable car all the way down the section from Onslow Road to the flat ground below.

Zac sees the family continuing the legacy intergenerationally: “We’re hoping to power up the next generation. Ath spent his life on it, and I’ll be spent by it, so the next generation will have to keep going.’’

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This is the house

builders and their families to think of, Zac began to prepare for the worst. Facing uncertainty, he sought advice.

Part of the $15-million Government support package for businesses was Covid-19 Voucher Funding distributed by WellingtonNZ’s Business Response Team. The voucher could be used for services like cashflow and forecasting from an accountant, HR and employment advice, and marketing and sales services. Over nine weeks WellingtonNZ issued $1.3 million worth of vouchers to over 600 businesses in the region. Maple Build was one of them.

Originally from Taranaki, Zac spent a decade in Wellington before settling in Featherston four years ago. He says lockdown was quite nice. He could spend time with his children and wife Sadie, he got into the garden and played “nerdy boardgames”, and there was time for business development – and recruitment. Post Lockdown, he has now employed two more builders to cope with the work he has lined up. In the past he’s struggled to find qualified, experienced builders and feels fortunate to have found “great builders” to join his team. Zac thinks he’ll need to take on even more staff before the end of the year.

that Zac built

BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S

Not all the Covid stories are about problems. Zac Prestidge, owner of Featherston building company Maple Build, has been surprised by a post-Lockdown boom. “We had an influx of enquiries and I thought ‘Oh heck! Can we do all this?’”

Zac guesses “Lucky timing?” is behind the rush. And he suggests that enquiries were deferred until after lockdown, or people spending more time in their homes began to think “We really need to get that reno done.” Not wanting to turn down work, Zac changed his focus from survival to forecasting and financial planning.

When Covid broke out, the jobs were scaled back, or pulled altogether. With three young children, and two other

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S P O R T

COMPUTER JOCKS Computer gaming is now part of Wellington secondary schools’ sports competition. Students battled it out on the popular computer game League of Legends to determine the first ever Wellington champions. In the junior final Onslow College beat Wellington College 2–0 while in the senior final St Patrick’s Town beat Wainuiomata High School 2–0. The competition was run by VictoryUp, an online service which aims to grow online sports. With 67% of Kiwis playing video games, this inaugural competition recognises the popularity of one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

SLEEPY SAINTS

ONE RO OF

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Wellington Saints has opted out of the makeshift 2020 NBL season.

The eleven-time champion club said they were concerned about the players’ welfare as the season only allowed for five days of preseason before games began. The club also prides itself on being entrenched in the Wellington community, but as the recovered NBL season has located all the games in Auckland, the club ruled out participating.

A repurposing of the old Central Institute of Technology premises in Upper Hutt will bring several of Wellington’s sporting institutions under one roof. Sports Hub NZ will be the new home of the Wellington Phoenix, Wellington Rugby, and Baseball New Zealand in 2021 when development of the site is finished. It will feature facilities including altitude-controlled cycling studios, cryotherapy chambers, and hydrotherapy pools.

The first wave of the government’s $265-million sports recovery package in the wake of Covid-19 is being distributed to community sport, national leagues, and clubs that have been financially hit. Spending will include $7.3 million to upgrade toilet and changing room facilities at major venues. Grant Robertson has pointed out that many sports grounds lacked female facilities, and that investment was needed as the women’s rugby and cricket world cups both approached.

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Point man P H OTO G R A P H BY A N N A B R I G G S

Jackson Garden-Bachop stepped up to take the position of arguably the best player in the world when Beauden Barrett left the Hurricanes in 2019. The proud Wellingtonian has kept a low profile. So who is the team’s new point man? He talks to Benn Jeffries about the new rugby format, and fatherhood.

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here is an elderly woman squeezed into the corner of a busy Newtown cafe. She is enjoying a cup of tea and wears a bemused look as she glances around a room full of giants. It’s lunchtime and at least half the Hurricanes squad have wandered down from their training ground to wolf down plates of protein before the afternoon training session. “I didn’t know half the team would be here,” says Jackson Garden-Bachop as we sit down at the last remaining table.

Like the others, Jackson orders a plate full of eggs. For a man who’s slotting into some seriously big boots, Jackson doesn’t show any sign of feeling a weight on his shoulders. He has an untroubled demeanour, but he talks with intensity and a passion for what he does. Watch Jackson on the rugby pitch and that same intensity is apparent as he directs the Hurricanes backline. This year, the Super Rugby conference is confined to New Zealand teams due to Covid-19, and Jackson says this has made the competition more physical than ever. “It’s full-on. You go from playing the Crusaders to the Blues to the Chiefs – that’s tough. It’s fun though. It’s the best rugby in the world by far.”

When the Covid outbreak hit New Zealand, Jackson thought the season was over. “They said ‘We’re going to have a week off,’ then halfway through that week it was ‘Super Rugby’s off for the season.’ I spent a bit of time twiddling my thumbs the first few weeks of Lockdown.” It was a frightening prospect for Jackson and his young family.

The silver lining was he spent the break with baby daughter Marley and his partner Rosie. “There were three or four new dads in the team,” Jackson says, “We all got to spend some real good time with our kids.”

Jackson stayed fit over Lockdown and came out with a hunger to prove himself in the role of first five-eighth. After the departure of Beauden Barrett from the Hurricanes, the starting position came up for grabs and Jackson battled it out for the jersey against fellow first-five-eight Fletcher Smith. He says it’s been good fun stepping up to the role.

“I learnt a lot from Beauden – not so much through mentoring, just watching him. He views things differently.

When we review a game, he’ll pick out things that I never would have thought of.”

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Jackson is no stranger to the pressure of legacy. When he was growing up in Porirua, his father, Stephen Bachop, was an All Black and his mother Sue Garden-Bachop was a Black Fern and the first female coach of a men’s premier team in New Zealand. After the Scots College first fifteen, Jackson started playing for his mum’s old team, the Norths. Being a part of a rugby club with such a rich family history has been a point of pride for Jackson. Sue died when he was still at secondary school, but her sporting legacy lives on through her children. Jackson’s brother Connor was recently signed by the Highlanders and his sister Georgia has been playing hockey overseas.

While his parents sporting legacy was unavoidable, he points out there was never any pressure to follow in their footsteps. “It was more I just wanted to do what mum and dad did. I wanted to be like them.”

Jackson still heads home to Porirua and plays the odd game for the Norths when he can. “I get to play with guys I grew up playing with,” he says fondly. From club rugby, Jackson went on to play for the Wellington Lions and was instrumental in their 2017 Championship win. Coming up the Wellington rugby ladder has made representing the city at its highest level mean even more to Jackson.

Away from the rugby pitch, he admits there isn’t much time for relaxing. Spending time with his daughter has become his way of unwinding. Music also plays a big part in his life. “I’ll play anything that has a nice guitar riff,” he says.

Daughter Marley is named after reggae musician Bob Marley and Jackson makes a point of regularly playing his songs to her. “My post-rugby career,” he jokes. Jackson says they are looking to grow their family. “We’re putting in the work at the moment,” he says with a grin. “We’re aiming for seven.”

In his rugby life, Jackson’s mind is firmly set on the super rugby competition and his growth as a player.

“There is no substitute for experience as a first five,” he says. The isolated New Zealand conference is pushing players harder than ever and Jackson is loving every minute of it. In 2017 Jackson pulled on the black jersey for the Māori All Blacks, but like any attacking first-five, he’s looking forward and the next rugby world cup in 2023 is in his sights.

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A N G E L

What would Deirdre do?

A N O I SY I S SU E I have accepted that cars will toot in the Mt Vic tunnel and I wear noise cancelling headphones to protect my hearing, but now there’s a new problem – I can’t hear bikes and scooters coming up behind me.

I’m keeping left, but they often come up very quickly and knock me. It doesn’t always hurt, but it does always give me a little fright. I suppose I could just give up and take the bus but I don’t want to! What can I do?

Bruised, Hataitai

A DV I C E F RO M D E I R D R E TA R R A N T

SI S T E R LY M UM B O J UM B O My Mum passed away a few years ago and my crazy sister has been visiting psychics ever since. She comes trotting back with messages from the “other side” and frankly, I think they’re bullshit and she’s wasting her money. How do I tell her I don’t want any part of her mumbo jumbo?

Spiritually suspicious, Kelburn

Keep walking and keep left! This should work. I must confess to being a tooter in the Welly Tunnel and love it when there are musical responses, but I do keep strictly to tooting hours between 9 and 3, thinking I am missing most commuter walkers and students. Bikes and scooters I totally understand can creep up on you. Visibility is key for safety. Good luck.

Your sister finds comfort in these practices so let her be. You have clearly voiced your opinion so try finding other things to talk about – perhaps some positive memories that are firmly in the past and that relate to you both as sisters. Agree to differ.

SE E K S SE X

S TA M P OU T

I’m an over-50 recent divorcee. Without being too graphic, I’m feeling sexually unsatisfied for the first time in my life. How does one go about a onenight-stand at my ripe old age? And please don’t say those dating apps, my phone doesn’t even have the internet!

Up for it, Karori

My flatmate got a dog without checking with me first. Should I move out?

Cat person, Petone Move out − annoying but if you don’t like dogs, you don’t; or could you get a cat and both be happy? Pets need love and care, a bit like us.

I am not in any way qualified to answer this − joining groups doing things you like is an obvious way to try widening your social circle. Dinner for Six or any similar organised gathering of people keen to meet other people has a track record of success. I have friends who have developed happy and long-lasting relationships from going out for dinner this way. One night stands?

Well it takes two to tango so you need to get the pheromones active but take care. I wish you well, but possibly you need to let time take its course.

SL I P P E RY ST R E E T S Someone is walking their dog on my street and not picking up after it. It’s annoying and gross. But I’m particularly over it since the other night when, in the pouring rain, I stepped and slipped in it. I don’t know who the culprit is so can’t confront them.

What can I do about this?

Stinky feet, Seatoun Disgusting and dangerous but difficult to do anything about unless you stalk the street and all dog walkers.

Watch your step and wear sturdy shoes. If you see a dog owner not picking up, bring out your best civic watchdog manner and point out that dog owners have doggy responsibilities.

If you’ve got a burning question for Deirdre, email angel@capitalmag.co.nz with Capital Angel in the subject line.

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WĀ H I N E

No longer a slave

with big life stuff, relationships strained or crumbling under the weight of new parenthood, fertility issues, and financial pressures; anxiety around ill or ageing parents; career uncertainty; identity crises and the resurgence of unprocessed trauma from experiences we never considered getting therapy for (not that we could have afforded it).

Meanwhile the weight of expectations placed on us by society (and then deeply internalised) can feel crushing. We are the generation of women who were told we could be and do anything, who later read that all we had to do to achieve success was think positively, “lean in”, choose wellness, increase productivity. And so if the societal hallmarks of success evade us − happy marriage, children, career, a house of our own − we can only assume it’s due to some failing within ourselves.

But the deck is stacked. The woman who has it all, who is beautiful and kind and feeds her body nothing but clean, green nutrition, whose children’s lunch boxes contain not a granule of processed sugar, who always texts right back and remembers every birthday and who’s on top of her game at work but never misses a school pick-up, who has a loving, respectful, and somehow still sexually fulfilling romantic relationship, who never runs out of energy, never snaps or shows impatience or needs to ask for help from anyone − she’s a myth. You have failed to become her only because the very idea of her is unachievable nonsense (and actually − now that we’ve laid it all out − pretty boring).

So perhaps this is what it is to be in your 30s: to gather up all of the ideas about where you “should” be and what you “should” have, and to take to them like Marie Kondo. To hold them one by one in your hands and ask if they truly give you joy, or if you’ve been seeking them simply because you’ve been coerced by the culture around you to do so.

Because while what we’re going through right now is tough, it’s not hopeless. After all, the 40-, 50- and 60-year-old women who sing of the liberation of their decades were all 30-something once, dragging their own expectational deadweights around behind them. They didn’t just wake up on their 40th birthday to find them all gone – they will have shed them slowly, one by one.

Which begs the question − which will you rid yourself of today?

BY M E LO DY T H O M AS

W

hen I was upset one day as a teenager, an adult tried to console me by saying the teenage years were a “storm of emotion”. I thought she was an ancient old hag without a clue (she was in her early 30s), but a few years later, looking back on the excruciating crushes and heartbreaks, the parental divorces, pregnancy scares and eating disorders that had peppered the lives of my friend group, I was able to give her a break. I recently heard myself telling a 14-year-old the teenage years were − you guessed it − a storm of emotion.

The ideas I was given about my 20s were more appealing. It was a time for figuring out who you were, spreading your wings, cramming in a study session then heading off to a dance party and starting work the next day on no sleep. These days I think the 20s come with a lot more pressure. We didn’t have social media feeds filled with hyper-successful, barely-20 influencers, entrepreneurs, and politicians; and compared with global issues like climate anxiety, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and terfdom, most of our worries were superficial and − in retrospect − pretty self-involved.

I’m sure I experienced some anxiety in my 20s, but for the most part I was too busy having fun.

Older women have always had great stuff to say about their 40s, 50s, and beyond. Sure, your body starts to give out and your “value” as a sexual object diminishes.

But you care less and less about what other people think. You grow into your own skin. In one of the best moments of television I’ve ever witnessed, in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag, Kristin Scott Thomas delivers a soliloquy that reframes menopause − rarely spoken of but generally agreed to be a bad thing − as “the most wonderful thing in the world. Yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get hot and no one cares. But then you’re free, no longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts, you’re just a person, in business.”

But all of the sage advice-giving seems to have skipped a decade − the 30s − and now that I’m halfway through mine, I can’t help but feel this period could really do with some. All around me, friends are struggling

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C A L E N D A R

August ADAM PORTRAITURE AWARD Exhibition of finalists New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata, until 9 August JASMINE TOGO-BRISBY: DEAR MRS WUNDERLICH Page Galleries, until 15 August THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US Paintings by Shelley Masters Potocki Paterson, until 1 September ORACLES Pati Solomona Tyrell and Christian Thompson City Gallery, until 6 September BILL SUTTON: A GOOD IDEA New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata, until 10 September COMMON GROUND Glass art by Wendy Fairclough Pātaka Art + Museum WAI: THE WATER PROJECT Pātaka Art + Museum

“The most perfect escape - views, comfort, silence and beaches just a stone’s throw away” “This place exceeded my expectations.

A really beautiful place to stay” “Exceptional”

HE KĀHA Exhibition of works by uku artist Stevei Houkāmau Pātaka Art + Museum OBSERVATIONS OF A RURAL NURSE Photography by Sara McIntyre Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui MITTENS FLOOFY AND FAMOUS Wellington Museum

1 WELLINGTON ARMAGEDDON EXPO Gaming, collectibles, anime, trading cards, eSports, movies, and more Sky Stadium, 1–2 August

4 PARKIN DRAWING PRIZE Exhibition of 2020 finalists New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, until 30 August

amongstthenikau.co.nz

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C A L E N D A R

5 HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY Work by five Wellington artists Te Auaha Gallery, until 15 Aug

NGATAIHARURU TAEPA: KIA ĀIO TE WHENUA

7

Page Galleries, until 12 September

Presented by Chamber Music New Zealand

TE KŌKĪ TRIO Expressions Whirinaki, 7.30pm

LEGO CLUB You bring the ideas, they supply the Lego

12

Learn how to create a more sustainable workplace

Otaki Public Library, 3.30–4.30pm

MISS.MISTER BURLESQUE AOTEAROA 2020

Sustainability Trust, 2 Forresters Lane, 4.30pm to 6.30pm

VENUS RISING

6

Four choreographic works performed by the Royal New Zealand Ballet

PODIUM SERIES: SPIRIT

Opera House, 20–22 August

GREEN TEAM GATHERING

Wellesley Boutique Hotel, doors open 6.30pm

8 HURRICANES V CHIEFS Sky Stadium, 7.05pm kick off

10 TE WANANGA O RAUKAWA PULSE V THE GOOD OIL TACTIX TSB Arena, 6pm

12 CINEMA ITALIANO FESTIVAL Masterton, 12–19 August TERMINAL Art about “the airport” City Gallery

15 BLUE DRAGON BOOK FAIR Ngaio Town Hall, 9am–4pm LOVE LOCAL PORIRUA EXPO Te Rauparaha Arena, 10am–4pm CONSERVATION WEEK

22

TE WIKI O TE REO MĀORI

NEIGHBOURHOOD NOISE

Māori Language Week

Indoor music festival

14–20 Mahuru

Southwards Car Museum, 7pm

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

MARTI FRIEDLANDER: PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS

Turnbull Library New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata

28

18

SHED SERIES: CADENCE A relaxed concert performed by the NZSO Shed 6, 7.30pm

WELLINGTON MARATHON

September BEE AWARE MONTH

COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS THROWDOWN Alcoholic-based coffee beverages competition

Expressions Whirinaki

FATHERS' DAY

NEW ZEALAND SIGN LANGUAGE WEEK 21–27 September

SPRING EQUINOX

25 MITRE 10 CUP RUGBY Sky Stadium, 7.05pm

Immersive multimedia art inspired by Andy Warhols’s Flowers

Page Galleries, until 12 September

21

Wellington Lions v Bay of Plenty

POP GARDEN

6

Michael Fowler Centre, 6.30pm

23

3

ED BATS: BOOTLEG UTOPIA

Sky Stadium, 18–20 September

Spanish-inspired concert performed by the NZSO

30

5

20

HOME & GARDEN SHOW

PODIUM SERIES: INSPIRATION

17

Embassy Theatre, 6.15pm

Exhibition to celebrate 100 years of the

New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata

Prefab Hall, 5.30, free for spectators

Hosted by Wellington Film Society

17

27

15–23 August

COLOMBUS

CARTERTON DAFFODIL FESTIVAL

14

Symphony and songs with the NZSO Michael Fowler Centre, 7.30pm

13

28 WILDERKIDS Nature and adventure-based school holiday programme Innermost Gardens, Mt Vic, 28 September– 9 October

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P U Z Z L E D

Te reo teaser

1

To celebrate Māori Language Week we’ve put together a crossword to test your te reo. All answers are in te reo Māori.

2

3 4 5 6

7 8 9

11

10

13

12 14

15

17 16 19

18 20 21 22

23

24

Crossword answe rs from issue #71 Across 4. Aurora 8. Matariki 9. Barrett 11. Dark 15. Comfortable 17. Mull 18. Huntaway 19. Celestial 21. Orchid 22. Rain 23. Bird 24 Tawa

Down 1. Bright 2. Pumpkin 3. Storm 5. Scarf 6. Fireworks 7. Stella 10. Referendum 12. Resolutions 13. Crayfish 14. Radiator 16. Nikau 20. Frost

Across

Down

4. Earth oven (5) 5. Toilet (9) 6. Treasure (6) 9. Greenstone (7) 10. Mountain parrot (3) 11. Work (4) 12. House (5) 13. Bird (4) 17. Wellington (2,9,1,4) 18. Stand strong (3,4) 19. Land (6) 22. Irksome, annoying (4) 24. The colour blue (9)

1. Good (2,3) 2. Man (4) 3. Fantail (10) 7. River (3) 8. Children (8) 11. Sea (5) 14. Earth mother (11) 15. To delay, to wait (6) 16. One (4) 20. Woman (6) 21. Tummy (4) 23. Gathering (3)

Answers will be published in the next issue

96

Virtual open day ON NOW

study.ac.nz/openday

On-campus open day 21 AUGUST Te Auaha campus Dixon St/Cuba St Campus

What’S on in the gallery

Have Something to Say #2

Te Auaha Stage & Screen Exhibition

Sentient Soul 玉盌

Non Disclosed Artist

A collective exhibition curated by Margie Beattie

Year 3 devised project

A Japanese Ceramics exhibition by Kumiko Jacolin

A collective VFX exhibition

5–15 AUG 2020

21–28 AUG 2020

1–7 SEPT 2020

22–27 SEPT 2020

Te Auaha, Dixon Street Find out more at teauahaevents.com

Performing Arts auditions Book now:

» MĀORI AND PACIFIC DANCE » DRAMA » COMMERCIAL DANCE » MUSIC

(by appointment only)

Marietta.Foote@whitireia.ac.nz

whitireiaweltec.ac.nz/performing-arts-auditions