I live in a city, and I like quiet life. I hate nosy (爱管闲事的) neighbors but it’s very unlucky that I had one for myself. They moved in a couple of months ago and although I never felt that they were a strange family, I’ve always hated the way they get “too close” to me, my house, my garden, and even my garbage cans.

One day, my neighbors were mowing their lawn (草坪). My garbage cans were near their lawn. For some strange reason, I found the wife looking through my garbage cans. I felt angry but since they were from a different culture, I thought that maybe it was “normal” from their ideas.

That afternoon, the couple knocked on my front door. When I opened, they gave me a plastic bag. Inside were my old daily bills, credit cards and bank statements, and an old birthday card that my old uncle sent. They said that they were returning them to me because these documents contained very private information that may be used by others.

I’ve heard of it before. I asked them how those documents can be used by others and they started telling me their very own experience, which forced them to leave their home and move next door to us. The wife told me that she never destroyed the bills. They also had a “nosy neighbour” who looked through their garbage cans which they actually thought was pretty strange. Little did they know that this “nosy neighbor” was collecting their personal information from their rubbish. Then all their money was taken out from the bank by their neighbor.

It was a very painful experience for all of them and they wanted to leave it all behind so they left. I was very thankful. They were not nosy neighbors. They simply didn’t want us to experience the same thing that they did.

Nancy Meherne lives a simple life by the sea, gardening and surfing at Scarborough Beach just a walking distance from her house. The 92-year-old’s board was made in New Zealand in the 1970s. Unlike its owner, it’s a little seriously worn out (its blue and red pattern is long gone)—but it’s easy to carry and suits her just fine. Often wearing just a swimsuit, despite summer water temperatures ranging from 14℃ to 18℃, the grandmother of seven walks to waist-deep water, waits for the perfect wave and jumps on.

Born in Wellington in 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression, Meherne says her life has been full of interesting or exciting moments. In her early 20s, after training and working as a schoolteacher, she left New Zealand by ship to study and work in England and other countries in Europe, spending her weekends and holidays exploring the region, taking free rides, sleeping on train platforms and staying in youth hotels.

Her travels also took her to India, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan where she taught at a school for three months. After returning to New Zealand, Meherne raised three children with her husband, Doug, while teaching in primary schools. Her teaching philosophy was similar to her life philosophy, “You’ve got to have fun.”

She remembers seeing the ocean for the first time and being shocked at its grandness. A keen swimmer and surf life saver in her youth, Meherne says she didn’t take up surfing until her late 30s or early 40s when she was living in Sumner and started borrowing her son’s board. “I never did try and stand up, but I loved it. I’d go whenever I could.”

Meherne will be 93 in August, 2022 and says she will keep surfing for as long as she is able to “do a little jump” to get on the waves. Her husband Doug says, “She has certainly kept the bar pretty high there. She has aged but she hasn’t got old—you know what I’m saying?”