Dieter | New Windsor
“Just now; I just dropped my mother-in-law back off at Powley House.
We try to keep interactive with my wife’s mother as much as possible. Being an old pensioner and living in Powley House it can get quite lonely for her, and that, so we try and include her in as many things as, as we can.
So, yeah so, we’ve just been up the Bay here this morning, and had a coffee and a chit chat and a catch-up. So, I think it’s, it’s a two-way thing, kindness. She’s loving our, our connectivity, and we’re enjoying her humour.
She’s living at Powley House, so she’s living in the retirement village, which is just around the corner. It’s all very local. My wife Margaret has lived in Blockhouse Bay since she was a young girl, and the family’s been here.
It’s (kindness) an essential ingredient. As human beings we need to be needed. We need, we need to be valued, and we find that value and that need to be needed by being interactive with other people. By interacting you need to be kind and considerate and thoughtful about what other people think and feel. That’s what life is all about; it’s about feeling and caring. So, kindness is hand in hand of course.
I grew up in Glen Innes. My childhood growing up there was interlaced with the local community, the local school. I bonded playing rugby. Rugby was one of the things I started playing as a, as a child of about nine, nine-ten years of age. The family cohesiveness of the environment that I grew up in Glen Innes, particularly the Māori, the Māori family cohesion that was very, very intimate and connected with, and I felt very strongly bonded with that. So, yeah I came from an area where people all pull together and help each other.”
