Sharp as a tack with a great sense of humour is how a neighbour describes Howick resident Doris Heggie (Dot to her friends) who turned 100 on Sunday.
Instead of a big celebration with family and friends, as earlier planned, Dot had lunch with close friends and her son Alistair at Barracuda restaurant in Eastern Beach.
The birthday girl received more than a dozen birthday cards including one from the Queen and two from the government that stand proud in her well-maintained unit.
Her daughters Fiona, Shauna and son Tom along with their families couldn’t make it for their mum’s big birthday due to border restrictions post Covid-19.
“All of my family except one son is in Australia so it’s sad we couldn’t have the party we had planned,” says Dot who is a familiar face in Howick.
She says her children were keen for her to move to a retirement village or at least live close to them, but none of the options were viable.
“I love my independence and don’t want to make any major changes at this stage of my life,” she says.
While most of her close friends have either died, moved to rest homes or out of Auckland, she says she enjoys going to Communicare on Tuesday mornings, a Friendship Centre for morning tea.
“At the last meeting there were around 20 people and they cut a lovely lemon cake for me,” says Dot.
Dot, who was born in Bristol, England, spent many years in Scotland before moving to West Africa, then back to Scotland before heading to Australia and finally settling in New Zealand with late husband Andrew.
She attributes her long life to her genes. “I inherited it,” she says.
“My mother died at the age of 102 and my sister Joyce in Bristol celebrated her 104th birthday in February. She hosted a big party at a hotel but I am not the one for organising all that,” she says.
Dot describes herself as laid back and house proud.
“That’s probably contributed to my long life,” she smiles.
She still runs her daily errands and rues the fact that the front curl on her freshly permed hair is not sitting well due to the sudden downpour she was caught in as she was shopping, the other day.
For the photograph to go with the article, Dot asked the writer of this article if she could first put on some make-up for the picture.
Going from the response she got as she later walked into Howick Village Optometrists, it’s obvious that this grand ol’ lady is much loved figure.
Frith Jenkins, the business’ owner, laughed, “Oh she is like the Queen Mother. We stop doing everything when Dot enters the shop and just attend to her.”
 who turned 100 on){kind=link}