Lynda van Kempen

There is a changing of the guard after 110 years and four generations of the Lindsay family running Wedderburn farm Cornaig.

A native fish named Gollum will be back in the spotlight next year, at the centre of a battle over whether a hydro-electric dam could be built on the Nevis River.

She draws the line at jet-skiing, but sports-mad great-great-grandmother Margaret Barnes, who turns 100 in seven weeks, says she's still taking life in her stride.

"This is what Christmas is all about - giving and being together with people." That heartfelt comment by Elma McGregor, of Alexandra, the organiser of Alexandra's community Christmas dinner, which catered for 144 people yesterday, summed up the feelings of the people behind the scenes as well as those of the diners.

Thirty tonnes of books are unpacked and waiting for buyers but this year's Alexandra Rotary Club charity book sale has a hard act to follow.

Wearing a seat belt probably saved the life of an elderly woman whose vehicle rolled 30m down a steep bank on the Clyde hill, Alexandra police said yesterday.

Central Otago camping grounds are expecting a "full house" during the next week, with an influx of holidaymakers today and again on Monday.

Christmas came early this week for the supporters of the $2.6 million Alexandra Community House project, as physical work got under way on the site, four years after the facility was first mooted.

Laughter, rather than tears, marked the end of an era yesterday, as the school at the Roxburgh Health Camp was farewelled, 70 years after it opened.

Alexandra and Clyde volunteer firefighters were called to two separate fires within 20 minutes on Saturday afternoon, both sparking into life after embers from earlier fires re-ignited.

The company which runs Dunstan Hospital says it has a strong mandate to continue its plans for a CT scanner, after public meetings this week attracted about 700 people voicing their support for the project.

Roxburgh's sole doctor, Eric Wegener, is backing the case for a CT scanner based at Dunstan Hospital, saying "the numbers speak for themselves".

The company that runs Dunstan Hospital is confident it will be able to fund the $800,000 capital cost of a CT scanner based at the hospital without asking the community to "put its hands in its pockets again".

Submissions from as far afield as the United States and Australia have joined the chorus of protest about an application to renovate the historic St Bathans Post Office for commercial use, with 190 objections recorded.

The old hands at the historic Vulcan Hotel are the new owners.

Asian markets are now proving more lucrative than the United States for export peony blooms, growers and exporters say.

The Department of Conservation came under fire yesterday during a hearing on whether the historic St Bathans post office should be leased for commercial use, with one submitter saying the consultation was a "sham".

More than four years after the relocation of the Cromwell information centre was approved by the Central Otago District Council, the project has finally come before the Cromwell Community Board for the first time.