Another vote for Khyber Spice - great range, great smells and friendly. I go to the Westmere butcher like many others and they're excellent, but also Grey Lynn Butchers in the Surrey Cres shops are great - know their stuff, go out of their way to be helpful, very friendly, yummy sausages! And I've heard that there is going to be a decent bakery opening in the Surrey Cres shops in the next couple of months or so which would be fantastic.

I was at the Westmere Kids Try on Sunday (awesome participatory event for some local schools - my daughter loved it). I thought it was a bit iffy having the PM start the event a week out from the election (Nikki Kaye as local MP would have been ok, but the PM trailed by cameras not so much) - but was very heartened when I overheard a couple of nine or ten year olds comparing John Key autographs that they'd got on their arms. Said one: "I got his autograph but I'm not voting for him." "Nah, me either" said the other.