I was 1 of 6 children living up the road from Glen Innes. Groceries came from the 4 Square or down a weekly trip on foot with baby and sibling on the pram to wander through the small shops (no big supermarket) along Line Road. I remember cheese was cut from a block and honey was big sticky cubes in small boxes. Groceries delivered back to home later in big brown boxes.

Our mum did ALL the baking of cakes, biscuits, slices, sponge cakes and took great pride in them (she was famous for her sponge cakes layered with real cream and preserved berries). A rarity was a store bought cake from the Ernest Adams shop down in GI.

A real treat was small newspaper wrapped packets of fish n chips on a Friday evening to be eaten on the walk home with our mum or we'd be given 50c to take to the back door of the Kohi factory to get broken shortbread - (closest we got to store bought).

Or dad was from Hokianga/Kaeo and our Nana lived along Tamaki Drive and her garden was a half acre section edged with every type of fruiting tree and underplanted with beautiful Dahlias, the interior planted out with ROWS of veges. In those days Nana's place was the centre of the family and weekends were mostly there with all the rellies and our cousins.

Planting, harvesting and preserving all that food was high priority, with lots of card playing, smoking, cups of tea, eating by the adults in between. Our job was to get up the trees and pick collect the fruit, the mums loading up huge galvanised bathtubs with the fruit & veges for pickling and preserving or drying (potatoes & pumpkin) and the dreaded rotten corn into jars in the spare shed under the grapevines. These were happy, satisfied days.

am 55 and I grew up in Titirangi Auckland. We lived a good 15 min walk from the Village but a little closer was a small corner shop owned by Mr Barber. It was attached to the Toby Jug Restaurent. You bought sugar and tea (loose tea) by the pound, biscuits weren't prepackaged in those days they were all in tins and you bought howver many you wanted. I think they were Bycroft biscuits then. Bread came fresh every day and I loved those loaves that you broke apart. I ate the middle out of one of those on the way home from the shops once. Butter was bought by ounces or pounds. We bought meat from the butcher (sawdust on the floor). Until the first supermarket opened there we bought groceries from the 4 square and there was a proper hardware shop where you bought nails and screws etc by weight. My Mum worked full time for most of my childhood but baked everything herself and all meals from scratch.

a lot of people still have gardens or are returning to gardening as a healthy option, plus a lot of women have careers which cuts down on the time it takes to do and make these things.
Let the memories run and listen and learn.
I remember my mum using the copper for the weekly wash, my Uncle would clean and polish it out every Christmas then cook the ham in it, ahhh the smells were wonderful and it would take him all day to do it. Best Ham Ive ever eaten.
When the milk arrived it was always a fight to get to the 'top' milk for our porridge as this was the creamiest part.
When we picked up the bread on our way home from school we would prize the loaves apart and get little hands down into the 'kissy' bit and pull bits off, I remember hollowing out one half once and getting a hiding for it- which I deserved.
Dad hunted so we always had venison, ducks, wild pork etc on the table. Mum kept chooks and tons of fruit trees and my Grandad had a huge vege garden. Seafood involved family and cousins etc and a whole day at the beach where a fire would be lit and the kids cooked spuds in the ashes while the gathering went on.
Same with whitebaiting when mum and the aunts (and kids) would spend hours on the river bank.
Wild blackberries were plentiful and delicious, kids always arrived home scratched and tired with purple lips and fingers.

Entertainment was a singsong around the piano accompanied by any instrument people could lay their hands on.
We loved to make pompoms using the cardboad with the hole in from the top of the milk bottles and did french knitting with cotton reels with 4 little tacks around the top.
Nobody got bored, there were always tadpoles to catch, lupin tracks to explore, swamps to conquer and trees to climb. I