What a whirlwind past five weeks - my feet don't seem to have touched the ground.
Among Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch one thing was very clear: I packed for winter and experienced autumn temperatures and so was totally overdressed with all the wrong clothes. Roll on summer.
I spent four days in Christchurch viewing new product with suppliers and visiting a few new suppliers' showrooms, but the main purpose was the National Kitchen and Bathroom Association Conference.
Conference is always full on with inspiring guest speakers sharing stories of their work or motivational speakers offering advice from business management and marketing to stress management.
Each conference brings new ideas and gives us an opportunity to view the latest in textures and colours coming on the market and images hot off the press from Europe. Suppliers get to showcase new items in production and it is important to keep up to date with what is available for clients' homes and businesses as technology is changing rapidly.
My favourite speakers were Fred van Brandenburg, Coralie Winn, Alison Ogier and Angela Pile.
Mr van Brandenburg is a South African architect who emigrated with his family to New Zealand in the 1980s. He works under the philosophy of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi and has studied him with a passion, so if you know Gaudi's work and the mind behind his creations, you will be intrigued.
Mr Van Brandenburg's work is organic as Gaudi's was and still is. He has a passion for our beautiful planet and creates masterpieces with nature in mind - intricate and beautiful and far removed from his original work when he first started designing in South Africa.
He works the same way as Gaudi, creating his masterpieces from scale models and producing no drawings. He is currently working on a colossal project in China and we had the privilege of hearing about his journey from South Africa to New Zealand through to Spain and the changes and challenges in his work over the years. The shift alone from South Africa to New Zealand architecture saw a change in his work as our climate and resources are different. You need to see and feel his work as it is too hard to describe - if you want a glimpse pop on my business Facebook page as I have posted images from the conference there.
Another speaker I loved was Coralie Winn, a young woman who lost her job after the quake and could see how her lovely city was slowly disappearing and the pulse and vibrancy it once held was dying. She has created Gap Fillers, public spaces within spaces that once housed buildings filled with working people and energy. For those who have not seen Christchurch, there is a sadness and emptiness - damaged structures are still yet to come down and there has been an enormous amount of work done clearing sites to make areas safe.
It still looks like a war zone in some areas and I found it very hard to recognise streets I once walked down or areas where I had stayed.
Gap Fillers started as a need to help create some vibrancy within the city and surrounding areas and to help bring energy and laughter back with a sense of community spirit.
Coralie sent out an SOS to start filling the gaps (on a budget as there was no money), creating spaces for people to congregate, listen to music, dance, watch movies, or sit and read but most of all to bring some life and colour back into an area that had been destroyed by an act of nature.
We were split up into teams and travelled around in buses with a challenge to complete. There was lots of fun involved in scouting out bits and pieces and recreating things for our challenge.
Back on the bus between challenges there was an eerie silence and we drove through streets that would once have been bustling with people and businesses.
Gap Fillers has been a success especially for Coralie as she now has fulltime employment and a budget to continue with her work.
I was impressed by her initiative to do what she has achieved and it will be interesting to watch the city evolve and come together to form an even stronger community.
If you have any questions about issues discussed or product supply, call me on 027 6023298 or drop me a line on terry@terrylobb.com; Terry Lobb Colour and Design Ltd Facebook.