Changing lives / Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey.

Includes index

After 30 years apart, award-winning author Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey reconnected at their Gisborne Girls’ High School reunion and promised to write to each other. They kept their promises and their warm and witty letters about their completely different lives led to three published books: Common Ground, Common Table, and Common Lives. Corresponding since 1998, the two friends’ passion for gardening, cooking and their homes is evident, and in their last book they assured each other that they could never leave their homes. However, shortly after publication, they both unpredictably and radically changed their lifestyles. Changing Lives is their story of the huge upheaval they both faced, of how their lives changed dramatically, and how it affected them both personally and philosophically. For 15 years Janice Marriott had created a sanctuary in inner-city Wellington with her wild cottage garden filled with flowers, fruits and vegetables. Then she became a grandmother and made the bold decision to leave her home and move up to bustling Auckland to be with her grandson. The Canterbury farm Double Tops had been in Virginia Pawsey’s husband’s family since 1897 and, for many years, Virginia fed shearers and farm workers there from her country garden. Recently, though, Virginia and her husband made the difficult decision to sell the hill country farm to move to a 300 acre ‘lifestyle’ block. Janice’s warm anecdotes and Virginia’s dry humour and sharp wit work harmoniously in these charming, honest and beautifully written letters. Their perceptive exchanges on common life events will resonate with both city-dwellers and country lovers alike as they talk about motherhood, family, love and loss, the work–life balance, the meaning of life, and food and gardens.