As a child I loved doing school projects and would spend days ruminating on how I would gather the material and (the best part) how I would present the project. I always made the deadline but at my own peril. My mother described me as the night owl because I worked on projects throughout the night. After 17 years, 884 deadlines and 884 very late nights my last recipe column for The Weekend Dominion Post Saturday magazine was published on Saturday 20 February.

I will miss feedback from readers. Often by emails to express delight in a dish, sometimes to correct me on details and occasionally to relate a disaster. Please note newsletter readers: adhere to specified cake tin sizes!. I have kept all the feedback received via Croxley written in biro which to this day I still receive.

My favourite is the Wainuiomata lady, originally from Britain, who told me the story of the man who developed the Kenwood mixer. After World War II her brother, an RAF engineer, was seconded to a small factory owned by a Mr Ken Wood. Mr Wood gave him the task of developing an electric cake mixer and the rest is history.

So now without my column, but still busy with catering and cooking classes, I have that little bit of extra time left in the week. My father was a retailer and it seems heredity is strong. As a child I always loved playing shop. As it happens, we have one on site and I am in my element.