Part 2 After Grandad passed away and Gran moved to The Mount, the special times continued… Gran dragging us on that massive 5k walk each day - taking us to Copenhagen Cones to watch the waffle cones being made & buying us an icecream as a bribe for coming along with her, delicious-best-ever salad sandwiches on that amazing NZ bread with cheese melted on the top, after dinner mints, NOT BRINGING SAND INSIDE, swimming, building amazing sand sculptures, gardening, making thumb biscuits, collecting tuatuas then helping her to shell them and then eating them, her teaching me how to be able to BREATHE by showing me the pressure points to unblock my never-ending-hayfever snot-nose (! a skill that now has me thinking of my Gran with gratitude every time I use it on my own kids when they’re all blocked up!), cold meat and salad dinners outside with amazing Gran-dressing in that special jug, you teaching me how to make my bed ‘properly using hospital corners’ !, Readers Digests for days, ICECREAM (Gran was a true icecream lover, something we all appreciated about her, haha)! The list could go on and about the fun I had growing up with visits to my Gran’s and the love I had for her. My Gran and I didn’t get to spend much time together as I got older. Things changed, but I was still always remembered by her - messages on my birthday, and later, my husband and kids birthdays too.. often including a special bank deposit for the kids to buy themselves a wee treat, even though there’d been so much time between visits. Gran always took time to message with me and to ask about us all and how we were going, to comment on pictures of the kids and to check to see how we were. Despite not having been close in recent years, growing up with a Gran like mine was a privilege. To all of the family who have been really close with, and have been caring for, Gran - I send you love and also so much respect for the beautiful life you’ve given Gran in recent years. I had the best Gran ever.

Part 1 My Gran - by Anita Growing up, visiting my Gran in Marton was so exciting (my Mum and Dad especially loved the car rides there, where my sister, Lizette, and I would ask ‘are we there yet?’, every five or so minutes, haha). We fed the chooks and collected their eggs, ran back and forth over the driveway sensor(??) to make the people at the house think a million visitors were on their way, scraped our initials into the passionfruit on the vine - staking our claim to them, riding that little tricycle that used to be my Dads, standing on the padded bench stool that also folded down, watching Gran in her doorframe from the safety of my doorframe in our jarmies whilst that old house swayed and shook from a massive earthquake, sliding down the stairs on boxes, having so much fun in the bubble-filled spa bath (‘Can you believe that my Gran has a SPABATH’ - 5 year old me), creating THE BEST EVER haunted house with the cousies in the downstairs room, TV dinners on trays, saying goodbye to Grandad with Gran - learning all about rescue remedy and chopping some hair off for his coffin, feeding pet lambies, helping in the garden & kitchen, thinking the stair-gate was hilarious (I get it now, haha), playing croquet on the lawn and getting stuck in the end of Gran’s very tightly, well-made beds!

I was at Matauri Bay the day you died Pat. had never seen it so calm and beautiful. I took a photo which I can’t show you here but I would have showed it to you when we had our little chats. Our enjoyed our little competition re great grand children You had 18 and I only had 14. Maybe I will catch up maybe I won’t but we had a laugh over it. Farewell and Bon voyage. Love Judy

Lots of love from me to everyone. Aunt Pat was such a special and lovely person.

Thinking of you all during this sad time, Gran will certainly be leaving a big gap in everyone's lives. Keep up with the hugs. All my love Kate

I will miss you so much Gran… thank you for so many fun memories- all the summer holidays and adventures- goody goody gum drop waffle ice creams , sliding down stairs in boxes, walks on the beach and catching tua tuas-always fun at Grans. You have always been such an inspiration to us all and achieved so much. I only wish we had more time together. Always love and a hug… Lizette & Rich xxxxx