A new season

You probably don’t take much notice of the numbers which sit at the top right of page four in every issue. This month it’s Volume 30, Number 3, which indicates that for the last 30 years, NZ Lifestyle Block (formerly Growing Today) has come out every month. The ‘3’ stands for the month of this particular issue.

But the first number isn’t quite correct. For its first couple of years, the magazine was a journal for the NZ Tree Crops Association but official counting of each volume didn’t start until 1976 and so officially it’s year 30.

While the numbers are sequential, this issue is a little different. You won’t see it in what you’re reading. The NZ Lifestyle Block columnists, writers and team have been beavering away to create this issue for you, as we have done for the last 10 years.

What you might notice is the company name has changed, to Lifestyle Magazine Group. It’s a new company which includes NZ Lifestyle Block and NZ Life & Leisure, and it’s owned by the editor of NZ Life & Leisure, Kate Coughlan. It means we’re in excellent company, if you’ll pardon the pun, with NZ Life & Leisure taking out Magazine of the Year and a slew of other awards at the Magazine Publishing Awards in 2015. You won’t meet anyone who loves magazines more than Kate.

When I was a young news journalist, my treat to myself was to buy glossy magazines and it was an expensive, budget-breaking obsession. I lived about 50m away from a specialist magazine store in Wellington which only sold high-end, glossy, mostly international titles and I couldn’t get enough. But out of the thousands of magazines it offered, my favourite was NZ House & Garden. I would sit and think how I really wanted that editor’s job.

That editor was Kate Coughlan, so it’s an honour to be here working for her. She’s still one of the best in the business, and she’s committed to continuing the work of making NZ Lifestyle Block your best, practical, informative guide to living on a block.