Life style 11 nov 16

21 August, 2015

life+style The Weekend Sun 1

A closer look at your skin, See page 2

THE WEEKEND

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Health & beauty | Art & creativity | Home & living | Automotive

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life+style The Weekend Sun 21 20152016 11August, November,

Love the skin you’re in And look after it, too!

Are you taking good care of your body’s biggest organ – your skin?

Skin Centre dermatologists Nicky Abbott and Susan Simpkin certainly hope you are.

“People forget that skin is actually a living part of your body,” says Nicky.

The two dermatologists are new to Tauranga’s Skin Centre, but they’re passionate about protecting the skin.

Nicky says people who think the skin is merely a protective covering are more inclined to lie in the sun and not take care of their skin.

“The other thing is that people often worry about vitamin D but during these daylight saving hours you actually have enough incidental sun exposure to not have to go out of your way and take vitamin D supplements,” adds Susan.

Both dermatologists cover a range of skin issues including rashes, blistering conditions, skin cancer, rosacea, inflammatory skin diseases and more, and have a world of experience between them.

Susan originated from South Africa, studied in Auckland, and worked in the United Kingdom before moving to Tauranga.

Nicky graduated from medical school in Dunedin in 2007, did additional training in dermatology in Brisbane and Liverpool before working in the Gold Coast as a consultant and finally moving back to Tauranga.

And with all of the traveling and different types of sun exposure, both Nicky and Susan are passionate about defending skin.

“Protect your skin from an early age, that’s the most important thing. It’s the cheapest and easiest way to look after your skin,” says Nicky.

Being fair skinned and having red hair, Susan is aware of sun damage and the potential for skin cancer.

“I’m very passionate about looking after the skin and protecting yourself against skin cancer and I’m very aware of the risk,” says Susan.

“Living in New Zealand you have to protect yourself, not just hats and sunscreen. It’s things like shade cloths in schools and outdoor living areas being aware of the time that you are going out and doing things.”

Susan says the Skin Centre offers the latest technology to ensure patients are getting the best treatment available.

“We use dermoscopy as a form of early detection of skin cancers and it helps us by giving us early clues to skin cancer and making the decision as to whether something needs to be removed or not,” says Susan.

And to protect your skin in the best possible way, Susan says wearing an appropriate sunscreen for you, depending on your skin type, is important.

“So if you have sensitive skin you’ll be looking at fragrancefree products, if you have fair skin you’ll be looking at SPF 50-plus, acne-prone you’re looking at oil-free, non-comedogenic products, and actually protection from the sun is better with clothing than with sunscreen.”

So for the best care for your body’s biggest organ, the skin, visit Nicky and Susan at the Skin Centre.

Photos: Chris Callinan

Susan Simpkin

Nicky Abbott

EXCELLENCE IN DERMATOLOGY

11 November, 2016

Sky-high addiction

“I started to get a real interest in kites and what makes them tick”

John is Katikati’s kite man He unravels another kite, pulling it out of a nook in his Coffin Club-made coffin standing against a wall in the garage.

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Photos: Bruce Barnard.

Both the kites and the Coffin Club have a special place in John Russell’s heart. And so does the next kite, and the one after it, and possibly all of his 140-plus kites packed tightly in his garage.

Nearly all self-made – and containing a challenge he’s overcome – Katikati’s self-professed Kiteman is more buoyed by the happiness they give to others when they are high in the sky.

But they don’t delight wife Pam. “Sometimes they drive me crazy,” says Pam. “I can’t even get my car in the garage.”

But she regards her frustration with an ounce of respect. “I suppose I love my Mah-Jong and Croquet.”

And so the pair remain happily together, for nearly 50 years, finally retiring in Katikati.

John was gifted his first kite at age seven by his father Alan, when they lived in Rotorua.

But he didn’t touch another kite until he and Pam had children. “I made them a few kites, and I made one that never worked.”

But this conundrum didn’t spark John’s interest.

“No. I didn’t have anything else to do with kites until about seven years ago.”

He and Pam had moved to Katikati and he met Don Mossop, who is a member of the Western Bay Model Flyers Club.

“I was talking to Don one day and he said he was going to run a kite-making workshop at the Katikati Resource Centre, so I offered to help.”

John owned a couple of kites then.

“Three months later Don said he was going to run

a workshop at Katikati Primary School to talk about flying but he wanted to borrow some kites because the wind was too strong for his aeroplanes.

“So I lent him some kites and asked him to take some photographs. The photographs of these girls and boys with their kites and the expressions on their faces – they were filled with delight. The kites really didn’t fly but the children had a wonderful time.”

Still this didn’t see John’s love of kites take off.

“No. What happened was I had an operation on my leg and I had a fair bit of time convalescing.

“I thought to myself “what could I do to keep busy while I couldn’t walk much? Well, I could run a kite festival’.”

He’d seen people fly kites at Waihi Beach. But if he ran a festival he would’ve had to get resource consent and meet all sorts of obligations of running a structured event. “Traffic plans etc which could have cost a lot of time and money.

“So I came up with a plan of ‘Let’s Fly a Kite’ – inviting people to go to the same place at the same time to fly a kite, which means it wasn’t a festival and didn’t require consent.”

He flicked off emails inviting the NZ Kite Fliers Association. “They all said ‘No’ because they had kitebuilding workshop that weekend except Robert Van Weers from Palmerston North.

“He’s a professional kitemaker who designs, makes, and sells them worldwide.”

John showed Robert the kite he’d made 40-50 years before, for his kids – that never flew. “Robert said: ‘Well, if you do this and that it will fly’.

“I did ‘this and that’ and it flew – and I started to get a real interest in kites and what makes them tick.”

He started making some with Pam’s sewing machine which flew into a full-blown addiction. Merle Foster

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11August, November, life+style The Weekend Sun 21 20152016

Enjoying outdoor living Bay of Plenty is arguably the best place to spend summer.

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11 November, 2016 21 August, 2015

Drop into Furnish and check out their quality outdoor furniture selection.

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November, life+style The Weekend Sun 2111August, 2015 2016

Infestation of rats Graham’s bucket of cultured rust

Photos: Chris Callinan.

When the cop pulled Graham Steel over while driving downtown, the Mount businessman probably thought he was up for a ticket.

There were no ‘street legal’ issues, and no problems with the Warrant of Fitness, registration or licence.

Nor was Graham speeding. But the cop still took a very close look.

“He didn’t want to give us a ticket. He wanted to know if I was interested in selling my car.”

Cop petrol-head, and not cop enforcer. But no, Graham wasn’t interested. Because the car is a personal statement, a work of art, part of him, something different.

His car is something called a ‘rat rod’ – “a bastardised hot rod,” says Graham. Rat rods are a culture, a craze, a bare canvas of sorts.

“It’s huge in America.” But there’s also a rats’ nest in Graham’s factory in Tukoraka Drive – two rat rods there.

Rat rods, we are told, are highly-exaggerated versions of the 1950s jalopy hotrods, which may demand further explanation for us Honda, Suzuki, Fiesta and Focus owners.

An exaggerated jalopy is a car built to look poorly done, usually thrown together from junk parts, poorly constructed with little regard for safety.

Ask a gearhead person – noun\gir-hed according to the dictionary – who pursues mechanical or technological interests. And they will tell you a rat rod is a pile of junk on wheels.

But Graeme will tell you one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. “You go to a swap meet and you keep finding stuff, cool stuff; stuff that should go on your car. Sometimes you think ‘that looks cool, I love it’ and then something else will look crap and you wonder why you bought it.”

It’s about making your own car, stamping your own mark on it, your own gimmickry. Like Graham’s gear shift – it’s fashioned from a shotgun.

Pull the trigger and nothing dies – in fact life is created, the car starts. “It’s pretty rowdy in there.”

Graham built the car from the ground up. The body is, was, a 1928 Model A. “But you remove the mudguards to reduce the weight, you chop the roof to reduce the wind resistance and so on.” Lots of reducing going on.

And while panelbeaters are going on skiing holidays by chopping rust out of cars, Graham is growing rust. The rat rod is a bucket of cultured rust.

“It’s painted rust, the whole car is rust. The rust powder is in the paint.”

Then you douse it with hydrochloric acid and apply a sealer. To stop it going rusty, of course, or at least to stall the process.

Graham would have preferred to leave his car out in the rain – “let it go rusty naturally”.

It begs the question; why? “It’s a look, it’s different.

It’s about making them an interesting thing to look at.” And the rat rod, which consumed 16 months of work – including building an engine – and $18,000 is a showstopper.

“Park up the street and it’s a magnet. People flock to it. They want to touch it, photograph it, discuss

11 21 November, 2016 August, 2015

“It’s about making your own car, stamping your own mark on it, your own gimmickry. Like Graham’s gear shift

it. You get mobbed. When it was coming together I didn’t think this would happen.”

Graham’s re-fashioned the ‘woodie’ 60 years after they were fashionable, a car style with rear bodywork made of a wooden frame and infill wooden panels.

Remember the 1953 Buick Roadmaster Estate?

Well, Graham’s rat rod has got a wooden roof. “I scored some cross beams off old wooden lamp posts, the bits the wires were attached to.” He cut them into 8mm strips, glued them to plywood, made a roof and attached it with some old head bolts. Rusty ones, of course.

“Different again.” Difference is definitely a driving force with rat-rodding.

And if we are thinking this is all blokey indulgence, then wrong. “I have got two girls, both petrolheads; both drive it. One of them took the car on its maiden voyage to Beach Hop at Whangamata last year.” Driving the rat rod is different, but you get used to it.

And it’s from small things that big ideas are hatched. Raymond, who works alongside Graham, made a little tin model of a rat rod.

“He was going to build a real rat rod. A big one. He still is building it. I said: ‘Stuff it, I am going to build one too’.”

There’s another feature that distinguishes Graham’s rat rod. “There are plenty of them being built but they’re not road legal.” That’s the reason Graham’s car stands out – we just don’t get to see rat rods.

Usually rat rods don’t get to venture too far from the rat nest.

Graham’s beast does ’cos it’s different.

Photo: Bruce Barnard.

– it’s fashioned from a shotgun”

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life+style The Weekend Sun 21 August, 2015

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