Muriel | Ōrewa

“I’m staying at a complex just about a kilometre down the road here in Ōrewa. Well I belong to a gym where the girls are really friendly, and we all know each other and if you’re missing for a couple of days at the gym, you’ll get a phone call to make sure you’re okay and if anything’s wrong, or just have a chat, go for a coffee.

Yeah, so I rely a lot on my gym girls. Yes, and all the same people go to the gym. You know? People of all ages. Most of them are mainly a little bit younger than myself, but people that aren’t working, and they’re at that stage in their life where their kids are all sort of looked after and we have a regular gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday and quite often we go for coffee afterwards. So, we’ve gotten to know each other really well. I’ve known most of them for at least 15 years. We just sort of go together, and it’s great. Wonderful.

Well, I live in Canada, in British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver, and I had the opportunity to meet a New Zealand fellow who was travelling around, and he came to British Columbia, and that was over 50 years ago, and so we have been bee-bopping back and forth. We lived here for a while in the ‘90s and then we went back to Canada, but now that we’re at that stage in our life where we’ve got grown-up kids and grandchildren in Canada, we spend our winters down here. Canadian winters down here, which is summer, and to get away from the winter in Canada, and and then the rest of the time we are based, in British Columbia. 

I think it’s very important because especially I think as you get older, you have to have a community that looks after you, you know, and when you don’t have your kids at home anymore, you’re not associating with people like at the schools, at the at primary level, or through their high school, and they’re off doing their own thing. They’ve got their own families, and you have to create your own little community outside of that. I’m very fortunate that I do spend a lot of time with my kids and grandkids, but having my own friends is really important too and I think it keeps you active. My husband’s 78, and I’m coming up 72, and we spend a lot of time at the gym, and that’s our life right now, coming down here and having a good time, and just relaxing and yeah, it’s great.”