Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine

A giant truck crawling along with a building on the back is no longer the extraordinary sight it once was, especially in Wairarapa where a number of old villas and historic hotels have suffered various indignities on their way over the Rimutakas.

But anyone who has become blasé about this process should look no further than the story of how one little country church came to rest next to Emporos on Greytown’s main street.

Tracking down Michael Nalder these days is a bit like chasing an elusive rare bird through the jungle – perhaps an apt metaphor given that Michael spends several months of each year sourcing items in Bali and has been working at a frenetic pace to open his impressive new interiors store in Greytown.

This as well as appearing weekly on the TVNZ Good Morning Show, running two antique / interior stores, and transforming interiors with his eclectic signature style.

Anne Taylor conducted a virtual interview with the man who, in the words of the billboard outside his store during its construction, refuses to let a ‘good recession go to waste’.

Mint at Martinborough celebrated its second anniversary in April of this year. During that time it’s become a unique destination kitchen shop. Owner Sue Wilkinson says that people often bring their friends in saying “this is the shop I was telling you about…”

As well as a huge variety of new kitchen equipment from New Zealand and around the world there are lots of vintage items dotted around - Sue’s current favourite is a china pudding bowl - with instructions printed on the lid - patented in 1910. “They just walk in the door” says Sue of her ‘pre-loved’ stock.

Carnevale, also known as Mardi Gras, is celebrated in Italy in the weeks before Easter - to banish winter and have a final party before the restrictions of Lent. It’s celebrated with parades, masquerade balls, entertainment, music and parties. Everyone dresses in costume and masks and the anonymity this provides means that all are equal - from barrow boys to aristocrats.

Martinborough’s Jen Tarring who, together with husband Steve, own Winslow Wines, became fascinated with the Carnevale masks when travelling in Florence and Venice in the 1970’s.

Sarah Borthwick remembers the first time she saw the 3.2 hectare Te Whanga Gardens, owned by her then fiancé Paddy’s family. “I thought it looked like the Botanic Gardens,” she says. “Now I just see all the gardening work that needs to be done!”

While Paddy runs the family wine business – Borthwick Vineyard - Sarah has ambitiously taken on the lion’s share of the work on the grounds, with the help of Janet McDonagh who works alongside her two days a week.

Retired vet, Roy Farman has a wonderful way with words. If he hadn't followed his chosen path into veterinary science, without doubt he would have made an exceptional writer or stand up comic, although he might not agree that’s true.

Born in Suffolk England, Roy knew he wanted to be a vet since he was ten years old, his interest ‘sparked’ when he watched the local vet work on his father’s horse that had cut its leg. “After that I would cycle the 5 miles to his surgery every chance I got to watch him work, I loved it.”

Every treasure Alison Norris-Baber lovingly crafts by hand has a story to tell.

It’s simple discovering what makes Alison Norris-Baber tick. You can tell by the glint in her eye when she her runs her hand over a piece of vintage fabric and recalls its history or when she cleverly re-works an old blanket into a cushion complete with a screen printed photo of beach huts along Rustington Beach in her native England and accentuates it with the embroidered words ‘I left a little of myself at the shore’.

One of Rona Ogilvie’s fondest memories is of being taken to ‘high tea’ in her home-town of Fife, Scotland. “Nana would put on gloves and makeup and off we’d go to the tea shop every Saturday afternoon, it was great fun.” Now Rona is bringing something of that experience to Greytown, by opening The Vintage Tea Shop on Main Street.

While you may remember the Kiwi tea rooms of old, with their lukewarm percolated coffee and orange Formica tables, the traditional English and Scottish ‘tea shop’ is something rather more elegant: think white linen, silver tea services and of course dainty, gold-rimmed china teacups.

If a community’s school is a measure of its health then Martinborough is a thriving town. And a large part of that vigour can be put down to wine and the people and money it has attracted to the area.

A new project has now forged a more tangible link between grape and learning with Martinborough Vineyard creating a special fund-raising vintage for the town’s 120-year old primary school.