Ann Venables is adamant she has not retired - she has just stopped teaching.
After 32 years teaching home economics at Balmacewen Intermediate, she has decided to call it a day.
And as if three decades at the school were not enough, her ties go deeper than that.
She was a founding pupil of the school when it opened in 1964, which has made her departure from her classroom at Balmacewen all the more difficult.
Much of her life has been centred on the school.
She recalled her first day at the school, and chuckled at how she was still there nearly 50 years later - largely by chance.
After graduating from the College of Education in Christchurch, she got her first teaching job at Sunset Intermediate in Rotorua.
But the call of Dunedin, where she grew up, was too strong, and she gave up teaching for a year so she could return to the south.
Miss Venables worked as a tour hostess for Fiordland Travel in Manapouri during the summer season, and at a clothing alteration business in Dunedin during the off-season.
It was during this time a job came up at Balmacewen which she applied for and won.
"I think it was fate. It was by chance that the job came up while I was in the city again."
She said 32 years was a long time, but every year was different, and the time had gone quickly.
"I'll miss the smell of food cooking in the classroom.
"I'll also miss the lovely, constant contact you have with capable teachers and students.
"I've taught whole families.
"Teaching the children of former students was a real highlight.
"I'm always amazed at how talented and capable students are, and what they are able to achieve."
She was also amused at how all of her pupils, across the three decades, had thought it was funny their cooking teacher was allergic to garlic, especially since it was used to flavour much of what we ate.
As for the future, Miss Venables said she planned to go back to basics and pursue her interest in self-sufficiency by growing her own food and living off the land.
"I'll try to pursue the good life."
Staff at Balmacewen Intermediate will say goodbye to their longstanding colleague, at a farewell afternoon tea at Luna, in Roslyn, today.
