Christmas celebrations have come and gone but the festive mood and holiday air is all around as we welcome in a New Year.
I love that feeling of hope and renewed vigour that tends to surface as we embark on fresh beginnings so, here’s hoping 2017 fulfils dreams and brings health and happiness to readers.
Like many others the Rural Living team is enjoying a break and will be back in the office on January 9 but as we relax we can also look back on a great year.
Just ahead of Christmas I attended the opening of Papakura’s purpose built New World supermarket in East Street. What a corker! I just loved it. Being a genuine New World shopper I was thrilled by this light, bright and airy store with its easy flow and excellent presentation.
Owner operator, Peter Lynch and his team are to be commended for the mammoth effort they put in before the opening – every quarter fairly sparkled. Though I was attending the public opening, I just had to do a little shopping too. There were great bargains but, it was the quality of produce, meat, fish and deli items that had me salivating.
So, it’s congratulations to all those who brought together this exceptional supermarket! It will be a pleasure to shop there.
Of course, last year held many highlights. Locally, we saw Andrew Hutchinson from AS Wilcox named 2016 Young Horticulturist of the Year, we saw Pukekohe get its first set of traffic lights, ground was broken on the new train/bus station and Counties reached the final of the Mitre 10 Cup.
On a bigger scale we watched how the US elections played out – many of us shook our heads in disbelief although I must congratulate Mr Trump, he played the American people perfectly.
We all felt for the people of Kaikoura and surrounding areas hit by the awful earthquake in November which also resulted in huge problems for Wellington’s infrastructure; the ramifications will be felt for a long time to come.
We applauded our AB’s for their fantastic year and even though they bowed to the Irish in Chicago there seemed few who begrudged that brave and fierce side their victory. We also saw our Black Caps win a test series against Pakistan for the first time in more than 30 years and watched Joseph Parker win his fight against feisty Mexican Andy Ruiz – just!
But as the year counted down, the big news was Prime Minister John Key resigning from the top job – didn’t that catch us by surprise? Now we wait to see what surprises new PM, Bill English and deputy, Paula Bennett, have for us in 2017.
Undeniably, 2016 has whizzed by and here we are embarking on another year. The Rural Living team looks forward to bringing you more on country life – stories about the people and issues at the heart of Franklin. In the meantime, enjoy New Year celebrations (wisely) and here’s to a fab year ahead.
Cheers
