"Well thank goodness they didn't," Marj said.
Just the week before she was sitting in bed at 3.30am having a cup of tea, listening to talkback radio and nervously waiting for Cyclone Lusi to hit.
"I've never rung talkback radio before but then I heard this chap ring in from New Plymouth about the expected cyclone.
"So I decided to ring. I was a bit scared when suddenly I was talking to the announcer so I asked if he could tell me anything about the cyclone because nothing had happened here yet and I was still waiting."
She had good reason for the trepidation.
In March 2012 a devastating weather bomb hit Patea.
Severe gale force winds ripped off roofs, blew out shop fronts and caused power cuts across the lower half of the North Island. But Patea was the worst hit and was right in the path of the terrible winds.
Marj remembers the main street of Patea being a minefield of twisted sheets of iron.
"It was terrible. We couldn't see what was happening with all that metal flying everywhere. It's the worst storm I'd ever experienced and it had come in the early hours of the morning. I was very happy that Cyclone Lusi didn't come."
She remembers when she and her family had to be evacuated during World War II in London because of the bombing and were sent to Shropshire to live with a farming family.
"No I didn't really enjoy it. It really wasn't such a happy time, the people there looked down on us because we were cockney."
Marj was born in India, her dad was an officer in the British Army and they moved around frequently but stayed on in Shropshire after the war when local authorities built a housing estate for all the evacuated families from London.
However, in 1953 she and her late husband Dennis decided to emigrate to New Zealand and Patea, taking Dennis' parents with them.
"We came out to see Dennis' sister and her husband who had both been in the air force during the war. When they had returned to New Zealand they were given a rehab farm at Whenakura near Patea and wanted us to come out and stay with them."
They sailed on the Oronsay from London but sadly just two days into the voyage her father-in-law died suddenly.
"He had been gassed during World War I and his lungs weren't good. There was a burial at sea but the captain said it was best we weren't there so we had to just sit in the cabin and have a cup of tea.
"It wasn't very nice at all."
Marj hastens to add that they weren't "ten pound Poms".
"We paid our passage."
The rest is history. Patea became home very quickly and Dennis worked at the Patea freezing works. They bought a huge old villa and settled into being part of the small South Taranaki community.
These days Marj doesn't get around easily due to osteo-arthritis in her legs and she is on sticks. For her birthday the family clubbed together and bought her a shiny white mobility scooter.
But there was just one small hitch, Marj had never ridden a bicycle or driven a car.
"Well I never needed to ... I walked everywhere or someone always drove me."
But with three lessons under her belt already, she reckons she's got the hang of it and will be off for an airing with her L plates fairly soon.
For the past 35 years Marj has lived in her small stucco cottage, tucked away amid lawns, trees and pretty gardens. She has a much-loved aviary, fluttering with bright yellow canaries.
"I love it when they whistle and sing but they've been having babies as well and I hadn't thought of that. But I wouldn't part with any of them."
Marj's cottage is filled with family memorabilia from over the years and she had stored all her old favourite frocks in the attic.
At her party her granddaughters hit the attic and dragged the frocks downstairs, put them on and organised a fashion show on the lawn.
With the barbecue fired up and the music playing, the "girls" staged their runway extravaganza in Marj's old frocks.
Even though the models were collapsing with laughter it was the best entertainment ever, Marj said.
The trouble is now she reckons she might be getting too old because a few of her old longtime mates have died or gone into care.
"I do miss them all, but I'm lucky living here because people really care about you," she said.
"You never have to worry."
lin.ferguson@wanganuichronicle.co.nz