Confessions of a charity volunteer

At my stage of life, just past retirement age, I realise it’s all right to let go of old dreams. It’s okay to accept that I’ll never open the batting for New Zealand, make a criminal barrister or be the first anthropologist to record a newly discovered language.

I’ll never be a chef either, though I’m handy in the kitchen. The closest I’ll come is making coleslaw for 120 and doing my best not to grate too much of my knuckles into the mix. Or peeling 10-dozen boiled eggs. Or scraping off the remains of porridge encrusted on a bain-marie dish.

These and other jobs have occupied my Monday mornings for the past six months in the kitchen of the Haeata Centre at the Auckland City Mission. At Haeata, volunteers, under the guidance of a