5.45am. Like most working mums, I am up early to try and get ready before the kids, Ruby, 8, and Finlay, 7, get up. I am pretty lucky that my husband, Chris, is home most mornings to help, but he is away hunting at the moment, so it’s on me.
7.45am. We try to leave the house. Often, we are delayed when our much-loved pet lamb, Snowflake, makes a run for the good grass on the drive! We have a forty-minute drive from our rural property in Halcombe into Palmerston North. I like having the kids at school in town because it means I can pop down to events. Both my kids still like to be walked into school, and I don’t mind because I know one day they won’t.
9.30am. We open the store. Today, my assistant manager, Eden, and I have the job of writing the weekly newsletter to our customers and processing all our new handmade pieces into the store. I love designing pieces, especially anything with coloured gemstones – I am a real gemstone nerd! Everything I know about this business I have learnt from my parents – we are the only jeweller in the Manawatū that still repairs and manufactures on-site. Working on special, sentimental and often irreplaceable pieces of jewellery involves huge trust – handling metal or stones in the incorrect way can completely ruin these forever, so the up skilling and training of the jewellers in our workshop is a non-negotiable. We want to have some of the most talented and technically capable jewellers in the country, so we provide as many opportunities as possible for them to keep learning – not just from us but also from other leaders in the industry. We also make sure our jewellers and apprentices have the opportunity to work on their own designs that we then sell in the store. They can have full control of the piece, choosing gemstones and the metal they would like to work with. You can actually see the jewellers working from the store.
12noon. I’m the co-chair of the parents’ association at my children’s school, and today we are hosting a Chinese cultural celebration at lunchtime, with food and games provided by the Chinese families within our school community. Then it’s straight back to tidy up some end-of financial-year account coding in Xero.
3pm. I have an impromptu Social Club Committee chat about a team dinner date. There are seven in the team, including me and my co-owner, Sam. Most are under the age of twenty-two, so we like to do really fun things together. Of course, the entire day is filled with helping our wonderful customers who trickle in and out of the store. We’ve just done all the wedding jewellery for a family that is third generation shopping with us. They are an old-school farming family, which I love – I have a thank-you card from them on my desk. We are still doing things in an old fashioned, family-oriented way – you don’t just look after the jewellery, you look after the family. For lots of families, the passing down of the jewellery and the sentiment becomes hugely important – the ability to look after Great-Great-Granny’s pearls or diamond ring that came over with a family from the UK is really special to us.
4.45pm. A slightly early finish for me. Hubby appears back from the bush, so that is lovely for both me and the kids. We have a treat of dinner out in Palmy, then drive home.
8pm. It’s time for the kids to quickly cycle through showers and teeth and into bed, then for washing hubby’s bush gear and preparing tomorrow’s lunches. I get my last steps for the day walking the dog down to our letter box – a two-kilometre round trip. Lastly, I watch a cheeky episode of The White Lotus before bed.
This story was featured in our Takurua Winter 2025 Edition.
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