8
Friday February 8, 2013
5 minutes with:
The Sun
Alistair Sowman Mayor
Q A Q A Q A
What is your favourite food? I like a good curry
What makes you smile?
An early morning bike ride or a walk on the Wither Hills on a clear Blenheim morning. What’s your pet hate?
Uninformed newspaper letter writers
Q A Q A Q A
Your favoured holiday destination? Outside of the Marlborough Sounds, it has to be Fiji What’s your favourite music? Call me old fashioned but it has to be Leonard Cohen. What is the one thing Sun readers would be surprised to know about you? I was the first licensed embalmer in Marlborough.
Q A Q A Q A
Who would you invite to dinner? My mum and dad. Lot’s to tell them What’s next on your wish list? To open the new theatre. A saying you like to live by? It’s what you do now that determines the future. Don’t expect something tomorrow that you haven’t invested in today.
gardening
this week
Never too old to get your hands dirty Story and photo by Annabelle Latz No one has told Mary and Stan Elvy that folk in their eighties cannot still garden. The couple spend time every day working in their garden, and turning 80 last month did not change one thing for Mary. “We try to spend at least an hour in the garden each day. It’s extremely relaxing” she said. They moved into this Blenheim house 22 years ago, and at the time there was no garden at all. The work they have done has been huge, and still managed to raise three welfare children and five children of their own. Last month their garden featured in NZ Gardener Magazine. Mary has been very involved in the local gardening scene over the years.
She has been a garden judge in Blenheim, been involved in the horticultural society, baked cakes to raise money for hospital equipment at Wairau Hospital, won gardening competitions, and in 1980 put together a wedding bouquet for the Duchess of Kent who visited Nelson. “It was a posy of orchids. She was beautiful, very very natural.” Mary and Stan grow most of their own vegetables, and grow 200 roses. “I love gardening, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s good for you. There’s nothing nicer than growing fresh vegetables,” said Mary. They grow more than they need, but that is all part of it. “I love giving things away, that’s what life is about.”
Red cabbage pickle - recipe This easy sweet-and-sour pickle recipe is great served with barbecue meat. Ingredients: 3 Tb olive oil 1/2 red cabbage, thinly sliced 60ml red wine 3 Tb brown sugar 60ml balsamic vinegar 35g currants 35g pine nuts
Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add cabbage, cover and cook for 5 mins. Turn up the heat to high, add wine and let it bubble, then add sugar, vinegar and currants. Cook, stirring, for 5 mins. Heat a frying pan to medium, add pine nuts and toast, stirring until golden. Stir the toasted nuts into the pickle. Let cool and refrigerate until needed. The pickle will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
FLOWER BULBS MIXED
FREE!
to keen gardners. Phone 578 8253 after 8pm
Mary and Stan Elvy say gardening keeps them fit and healthy, which is why they are in their eighties and still in the garden every day.