1981, I was in my final year of nursing training at the then, Nelson Polytechnic, and I had  a part time job, at the Chez Eelco Cafe, owned by Eelco Boswiyk, (originally from the Netherlands).  'The Chez', as it was known, opened in 1961, it was an European-inspired cafe at the top of Trafalgar Street, (one of the first of its kind in New Zealand), and it became the centre of the artistic and cultural life of Nelson. That Christmas, all the staff received a small ceramic blue and white bowl, inscribed with 'Vrolijk Kerstmis' and 'Chez Eelco 1981'. T ..read more

I found this little cigarette container after my mother died. Inside is a note in her handwriting, “Kath, keep this box its an antique These cigarettes were smoked over 100 years ago” The Players company was a leading producer of tobacco products during the ‘40s in the UK, and the sailor image was used to boost the ‘Navy Cut’ style of cigarette. My father was both a smoker and a sailor, hence my mother’s fascination with the cigarette tin. And photos of him in Royal Navy uniform do bear a resemblance to the image on the lid. The inside of the container is completely clean, with no smell of ..read more

    In October 2020 I moved into a rented house in Wellington.  I had been working in a bedroom in my flat during the first lockdown and was desperate to find somewhere with a studio. The week I moved in I came across two small handmade pottery items in the basement studio tucked almost out of view under the wooden ceiling beams and covered in dust.   One looked like a small candleholder and the other a lid of some sort.  The basement studio is a rugged space with a rough concrete floor, plywood cladding to the walls, and a bush and stream outlook and sound ..read more

Fourteen years living in another country (in my case, Japan) results in many acquisitions, some of value, others utilitarian, many merely decorative.  Treasured mementos from those Japanese years include Tansu (antique wooden chests), old porcelain, indigo-dyed fabric items, prints, both Ukiyo-e woodblocks and multimedia ones by contemporary artists, and all sorts of local craft ware.    In a category all of its own is the small Daruma “doll” I possess.  To gaijin (foreigners) a Daruma is a curiosity, a colourful toy to buy as a souvenir.  To Japanese it is a symbol of ..read more

This is the story of how my grandparents met. I knew nothing about this story until I came across newspaper clippings in the National Library of New Zealand online newspaper archive.     According to my mother Gran had been ‘a very good cook in her day.’ She had even run a restaurant. It was only recently however that I came across this story about my grandmother’s restaurant. Sena (my grandmother) was the 8th child of Hanna and Nicolai Larsen who had emigrated from Norway in 1873. Nicolai died in 1887 leaving Hanna with 10 children. The youngest of whom was two. Sena and her two si ..read more