We take a look inside The Central App team’s lockdown bubbles and ask their secrets for getting through lockdowns, now and in the future.

Behind the Brand showcases our innovators, entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, leaders. 

It’s like a backstage pass into the real person behind the success. What makes them tick, what makes them successful. A peek at some of Central Otago’s smartest and most interesting people.

Learn their secrets, get hot tips from those with experience, and discover why you should support their venture.

Today, you get to hear what I’ve been up to during this lockdown, other than working of course.

My secret to getting through with sanity intact?

Loads of video calls with friends and family, which equals smiles, laughter and a huge dose of gratitude.

Our eldest daughter lives in LA, and they have been in various levels of lockdown for the past year and a half – so I remember to be grateful that we live here in Central Otago.

Lockdown is also a time to pick up all those projects I had planned, or started but got no further with. I’m finishing knitting, sewing, designing that’s been sitting there for ages.

It feels great!

So, what have I been listening to, reading or watching this lockdown?

Podcast: 99% Invisible off-shoot Articles of Interest

This lockdown, I’ve been listening to the 99% Invisible off-shoot podcast Articles of Interest with Avery Trufelman.

Each instalment in the miniseries covers a different aspect of the way we dress, including the rise of casual wear, the environmental impact of the textile industry and a burning question of my own – why womenswear doesn’t have pockets.

Book: Molecular Gastronomy by Hervé This

I’m very food focused. I firmly believe that food should not just be made to fill our bellies – it should nourish both our bodies and our soul.

I have a number of food allergies and intolerances, and refuse to eat sub-standard food because of it. The result? We have become a family of food experimenters, with some surprising and wonderful results.

Hervé This is a molecular chemist. In Molecular Gastronomy he explores the science behind different cooking methods, the physiology of flavour, the brain’s perception of tastes, the effect of chewing on food, and the reaction of our tongue to stimuli.

It’s wonderful to find out how and why things work or don’t work in cooking, what the palate feels and why, and then translate that to my own cooking.

Movie: The classics

I’m cheating. I’m recommending a genre.

I’ve been catching up on movies I haven’t seen in years. Movies I still enjoy, and others that I now remember why I never watched them again.

Either way, I’m re-watching films that don’t take life too seriously – I need some escapism in my life.

Light-hearted movies that make me smile and lift my mood. Classic comedies and rom coms.

Confession time: my secret love is Monty Python, and I have just re-watched 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton.

A film meant to be a horror but which sent us into fits of laughter, is 1961 film Mothra. It is a Japanese kaiju film, the first in the Mothra franchise.

The plot? A monstrous moth terrorises Japan after a nightclub owner kidnaps two tiny princesses from their island paradise.

Documentary: Loading Docs

Again, I’m cheating.

Loading Docs is not a documentary, it’s a site full of wonderful, homegrown Kiwi documentary shorts. And it’s free.

I re-watched a doco you might remember: The Coffin Club. Based in small town New Zealand, it’s the colourful story of a group of inspirational elders in their community who meet weekly to rejoice in life while facing the realities of death. They believe in living life with smiles and laughter.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you saw it when it first came out, watch it again – it’ll bring a smile to your face.

Another is Siouxsie and the Virus. It’s about Dr Siouxsie Wiles, our science superhero with pink hair who waged war on mis-information about Covid-19 and delivered good, science-based information to us as we collectively panicked during the outbreak in March 2020.

Here’s a link to Loading Docs.