When Carole Coull was undergoing treatment for breast cancer last year and wondering if she'd make her 80th birthday, she spotted a handy looking tree stump.
The Ashhurst resident set herself a goal - to have her photo taken on the stump en pointe for her milestone birthday.
Carole, nee Hilton, celebrates her 80th birthday today, March 12, and her son has taken the photo.
"I don't feel 80, I don't know how you are supposed to feel when you get to 80."
Sometimes she wakes up with an ache or pain but after dancing she feels all right. Dance keeps her fit and moving.
"You have to keep moving otherwise you lose it."
Growing up in Wellington, her mother was so keen for her to learn ballet she tried to enrol Carole with renowned teacher Dorothy Daniels when she was just 2.
Daniels said Carole was too young and to come back when she was 2 and a half. Carole still has the photo taken of her shortly after on stage at a 1943 DIC fairy frolics featuring Daniels' students.
"During interval, I remember Mum putting me on the potty out the back, it's funny what you remember."
Carole's mother was a solo parent working three jobs, but she still found the time to make all Carole's dance outfits, including the pointe shoes, tutus and a Spanish skirt for a dance competition that took 27 metres of fabric. Carole remembers her mother waking her late at night to try on a dress so she could get the hem of it straight.
Carole says her mother could be tough but as she loved dancing so much it didn't matter.
In 1958, she danced in Les Sylphides at the Festival of Pines with the Wellington City Ballet Company at the newly opened Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth.
She was a page boy in a Royal Ballet production of Swan Lake in Wellington in 1959. Also in the classic ballet were English ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn and New Zealand dancer Rowena Jackson.
Carole trained with Daniels for 17 years and as well as dancing for the Wellington company she performed with the New Zealand Ballet.
One of her highlights from decades of dancing was appearing in Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, both with Rob Guest.
A gig she remembers less fondly as she had to keep pretending to eat was appearing in a National Film Unit promotional clip about Rotorua, destined for Australian viewers.
Carole moved to Palmerston North in the mid-2000s after her husband died and found solace and purpose in Maureen Ax's dance classes and the Over 50s Dance Group. She's also a member of the dance group's performance wing, Spring Chickens. Carole jokes the dance group's name is inaccurate as everyone is over 70.
"I just love dancing, I think it's the most beautiful thing and when you dance you forget all your worries."
She also loves pointe work and was practising supporting all her body weight on the tips of her toes as she farewelled the Guardian.
Between the ages of 36 and 62, Carole danced very little as she travelling around the country in a bus and raising her children and then caring for her sick husband.
She found the dance group therapeutic during her breast cancer journey.
"You can just forget everything when you come to dance group, all your worries disappear until you get home maybe."
Her fellow dancers say Carole is exceptionally humble - during our chat she kept asking if she was really a story. She enjoys their companionship and is keen for more dancers to join their group.
"We're a very lovely bunch here, we're all cool, we all have fun."
The Spring Chickens perform for Rebus clubs, retirement villages and service groups and have been as far as Raetihi, Levin and Marton. On June 13, they will take part in Regent Dance 2021 in Palmerston North.
The dance group promotes the fitness, health and wellbeing of women over 50 through fun, dance and exercise.
The Over 50s Dance Group meets every Monday and Thursday 2pm-3pm. Contact Val Bolter on 021 059 2157.