Hawthorne Den owner and vintage fashion connoisseur Jan Wards beside one of the jewels of her collection, a Petite Vogue dress, which she says she will never part with but still loves to display in her Waikaia op shop. Jan Wards runs the Hawthorne Den alongside her husband in Waikaia, which is both an event space, with its vast and beautiful garden area, and a special shop. An old chapel holds a massive collection of vintage clothing Mrs Wards has found in op shops and sales around the country. The op shop served as a way for Mrs Wards to give back, as she said the thrill of the op shop was one she found soothing, wishing for others to experience the same thing. "I’ll say back, ‘I’ve just done a half an hour trawling at an op shop’," she said, laughing.

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PHOTO: ODT FILESA Dunedin motel continues to trade while the director of the company that operates it endeavours to have the liquidation it was placed in terminated. The company, which was incorporated in 2021, holds a lease and operates the Regal Court Motel business in George St, the liquidators’ initial report said. Its shareholders were NZ (BOP) Investment and Development Ltd and Jiafeng Liu while Mr Liu, whose address was Bluff, was the sole director. The liquidators had continued to trade the motel operation to give time for the court application to be filed but would need to begin looking at sale options if the application was not successful. The director advised that debt was disputed and that dispute would form part of the court application to terminate the liquidation.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED / PARKS & RESERVES (file)A warning shot has sounded for mooring owners in the Queenstown Lakes area, with hundreds of permits at risk over outstanding resource consents, the council says. Yesterday, a council spokesperson said 10 consents had since been completed retrospectively. Rory Cassidy Fennell. In October, Rory Cassidy Fennell, of Queenstown, was one of the first to receive retrospective consent for his Lake Wakatipu mooring. Mr Cassidy Fennell initially advertised the mooring for $35,000 and received significant interest.

University of Otago Japanese student Maria Miya, 20, does some calligraphy while her peers Naoki Kozakai (left), 18, and Shion Hashimoto, 20, watch yesterday. PHOTO: GERARD O'BRIENUniversity of Otago exchange students are celebrating a Japanese coming-of-age tradition that is more than 1300 years old. The Otago University Japanese Student Association has organised a Dunedin Seijinshiki ceremony which celebrates young people becoming adults when they turn 20 to be held at Knox Church on Saturday. Twenty is a special age for Japanese people as it is the legal drinking age. The ceremony at Knox Church will feature a speech from Dunedin Mayor Sophie Barker and a koto (traditional Japanese instrument) performance.

University of Otago Summer School students Caitlin Proctor, 21, and Thomas Boyte, 19, make the most of a sunny Dunedin day and study outside on the Union Lawn. PHOTO: GERARD O’BRIENSome University of Otago students have cut their summer holidays short to get ahead in their degrees. Summer School began this week and will run for six weeks before finishing on February 13 when exams begin. Theatre and English student Caitlin Proctor said she was doing summer school to finish her bachelor’s degree early. She said the biggest difference between a regular semester and summer school had been having four lectures for one paper in a week.

University of Otago biomedical sciences researchers Prof Peter Fineran (left) and Dr Robert Fagerlund are hoping their studies into phages will one day help in the battle against antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases. "We have interacted with a number of Otago orchards to collect phage samples, as part of our research," Prof Fineran said. Pseudomonas bacteria could cause losses of 20%-50% of young orchards, so growers relied on copper sprays to control it. So his research team is developing phage cocktails — a combination of multiple phages, each with a different "key" to unlock a bacterium’s defences. They were also being used in mainstream agriculture, but Prof Fineran warned that phages were not "a silver bullet" solution.

Queenstown’s Cecil Peak Station, which had a ‘‘guide price’’ of $60 million, was taken off the market at the end of last year. In October, the Otago Daily Times reported Cecil Peak, a 13,000ha high-country farm, was being marketed for sale by Bayleys. The farm, which has been in Singaporean ownership for more than 30 years, has a $33 million rateable value, with a "guide price" of $60m. The pastoral lease provides a right to run 14,000 sheep, but the farm now operates with between 3500 and 5000 sheep and up to 500 cattle. It also has 23km of lake frontage and country going up to an altitude of 1978m on Cecil Peak itself, which is directly across the lake from Queenstown’s CBD.

Well one Dunedin man actually did, and it landed him in court. For the boysA man with a serious commitment to his mediocre rugby team helped them lose the final while wearing his home-detention anklet. One polarising social media influencer named her three children Malibu Barbie, Elvis and Aquaman. Thankfully, Malibu Barbie and Aquaman will never have this issue. Life lesson: Don’t deface property, but if you must, make it clever.

Hastie Construction owner Hayden Hastie hopes to partner with Heartland Homes to build more transportable homes in the future. Oamaru construction company Hastie Construction has dipped its toe into building transportable homes. In partnership with North Canterbury building company Heartland Homes — which has a history of building transportable homes — it has built a 90sqm house which will be on display at an open home on Sunday before it is loaded on the back of a truck and driven to Ranfurly. Owner Hayden Hastie said it was the first transportable home his company had built and he hoped to partner with Heartland Homes to build more. Mrs Foster said transportable homes could often be cheaper.

Seasonal fruit growers across Central Otago have experienced some setbacks due to the weather. The district is yet to feel a constant summer heat which has pushed the picking season back for many fruit growers. Mr Nolan said the grading of the fruit this season had had to be much harder. Teviot Valley grower Stephen Darling said the weather had not impacted export fruit. "The weather has not affected our exporting; in fact it’s quite good as our best export timing is generally later in the season.

Dale Phillips. PHOTO: ODT FILESFormer Volts opener Dale Phillips reminded everyone of his power — including his old team. The Aces batter whacked 77 runs off just 36 balls to bring up his highest T20 score in Auckland yesterday afternoon. Phillips, who returned to the Aces this season, was in fine form with 14 boundaries and well supported by Bevan Jacobs’ 53. Former Black Cap Martin Guptill flicked his shot deep and was dropped by Cumming.

PHOTO: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERItems stolen during burglaries are largely predictable — jewellery, electronics, alcohol. They are usually not the fossilised bone of an extinct flightless bird. A couple of weeks later, Barnes was back, again using his sleeves to avoid leaving fingerprints at the crime scene. A minute later, CCTV showed him leave carrying a fossilised moa thigh bone. In a letter to the court, Barnes said he was "really sorry" for his actions, but Judge David Robinson questioned his remorse.

PHOTO: CRAIG BAXTERFirst Chris Rattue, now Stephen Jones. "Is it all right for Stephen Jones to belittle people? "Once again, Stephen Jones is struggling to write anything positive, and at the risk of calling him a name ... whatever he writes doesn't particularly bother me." "The haka has long been partly bonkers," Jones wrote in his column for The Times. ■ Hayden Meikle met Stephen Jones once.

Outgoing Alliance Group chief executive Willie Wiese addresses a roadshow meeting in Mosgiel in October last year. PHOTO: PETER MCINTOSHAlliance Group chief executive Willie Wiese is leaving after nearly three years in the role, temporarily replaced by his Irish counterpart. In a statement yesterday, Alliance said Dawn Meats group chief executive Niall Browne had been appointed Alliance’s acting chief executive. Mr Wiese has been with Alliance for eight years and was previously the co-operative’s general manager processing, before being appointed interim chief executive after the departure of David Surveyor and then later confirmed in the role. Mr Wiese said he had delivered all his goals for the company and now was the right time to leave.