Last weekend, the engineer and I drove 5 hours to New Plymouth to help celebrate a significant birthday of my old university friend, Gillian. She had orginally decided to ignore the birthday and do nothing, against all her friends’ advice. However, once we told her we were making the trip, she and partner, Reeve made [...]

Rotary International have a scheme, abbreviated as GSE (group study exchange) where a team of up to 5 young adults, aged in their late 20s or 30s, visit a country to expand their knowledge in their chosen vocational area. It was Hawkes Bay’s turn to be the last stay for a team of 4 Danes from [...]

Many, many years ago I spent a year in Wisconsin, USA, as an AFS student. I attended school for a year at J I Case High (for the non-farmers amongst us, J I Case made tractors!) I stayed with the wonderful Barrett family of Crabapple Drive. I had a great year, which changed my life. [...]