Hey, maybe I’ll grow vegetables! How exciting is that? Marama is married to a guy called Tranh. He and his family are from Vietnam, and when they arrived they started a market garden. Now they grow bok choi and broccolini, and other stuff that Cam and Sholto won’t eat.

Tranh is cool. He let me help in the garden; even said I could cut cauliflowers. ‘Be careful,’ he grinned. ‘You cut off your finger, your mother cut off my head!’ I think Mum was keen on him once, but Marama got there first. Their daughter Sheree is beautiful (and spoilt). Wish I had eyes and skin like her.

When I read Great-great-uncle Robert McDougall’s book about Waimoana, I realised how many other things have changed. There’s our ‘new’ bridge. There’s families from other countries, like Tranh’s. Dr Koen, the South African guy from the hospital, has a sister who’s started a vineyard and café on the road to town. Some Fijian people live in what used to be a sharemilker’s house between us and the marae; Mr Nadolo drives trucks for contractors.

It’s the same over where Dad comes from. For ages, it was just Maori and Scottish people there. ‘We all got along fine,’ my father told me. ‘Except for the bagpipes.’ (There’s stories about that in Great-great-uncle Robert’s book.) Now they’ve got a Sri Lankan doctor, and Cambodian cleaners, and a Pakistani accountant, and a family from Sudan in Africa, who came because there’s war in their country.

Other changes in our valley? The Waimoana Store closed down about five years ago. Shops in town are allowed to open on Sundays now, and most people drive in there, especially since the council straightened out the last tight corners on the road. Great-nana Florence reckons it’s too easy to get everywhere now, but since I get car-sick after chemo, I don’t mind.

The War Memorial Hall is still there. A Governor or someone opened it, would you believe? But it’s only used for weddings or family reunions. Waimoana School has just one-and-two-quarter teachers now. (The two-quarters are Grandad Alan and Nana Beth; they take it in turns to help with the seniors. When I was there, I never knew which one of them might be in the classroom.) The roll has gone way down, because families are smaller, plus machines do most farm work now. And since it’s so easy to drive into town, some parents send their kids to school there.

Great-great-uncle Robert McDougall’s book describes how the school used to be much bigger; how it was one of the first to bring in Maori people to teach their language and games and history. Now that’s all coming back; little Waimoana led the way!