Stephanie's Kiwi Skin Story

“We are out­side every day with our busi­ness, which man­ages a gar­den of nation­al sig­nif­i­cance. We love our work­place. It’s inte­grat­ed into our home life and comes all the way to our front door! We feel extreme­ly lucky to live and work in a small bit of par­adise, where it’s hard not to find beau­ty in the outdoors.

I’m always ask­ing the team if they have sun­block on. I should get a t‑shirt with that print­ed on the front! I make sure my hus­band is reg­u­lar­ly checked as he has been a gar­den­er for near­ly thir­ty years. I am ashamed to say I haven’t done the same for myself, although I have only recent­ly joined the out­door team and spent most of my ear­li­er years work­ing in an office all day.

I’m a lot wis­er now about the dan­gers of the New Zealand sun. When I was younger, there were many care­free hours in the water and sports fields with­out sun­screen and hats. I def­i­nite­ly got toast­ed more than once and looked like a lob­ster. Now I hide indoors when it’s too hot outside.

We have been for­tu­nate to not have any­one close to us die from skin can­cer, but my grand­moth­er had sev­er­al melanomas removed. It was a wake up call to start being seri­ous about our skin.”