RNZ: Spectrum

Now semi-retired, Geoffrey Higgs tuned his first piano in 1948. His ear has lasted and he can still coax instruments to the right pitch. He can also persuade his stiffening fingers to pick out the old standards on his 107 year-old German piano while his wife Alison sings along. In his garage-cum-workshop, Geoff demonstrates his tuning tools to Spectrum's Jack Perkins but his pride and joy is a restored pianola, or pneumatic piano, dating from the 1920s and dozens of paper rolls containing hits of the day.

Sandringham Road shopping centre is known as Little India. The ever expanding plethora of Indian restaurants, spice shops and food stores vie for the last remaining spots where the family dry cleaner, shoe repair shop and corner dairies used to be. The Sandringham Community House has begun food and spice tours for Aucklanders and David Steemson joins twenty of them one Saturday afternoon.

Cavaliere Signor Giovanni Mersi is 83, and for the last 70 years he's been the self-appointed guardian of the first Italian edition (1787) of Captain Cook's journals. Amelia Nurse visits Giovanni to hear the story of his astonishing childhood in war-time Italy, and what these very rare books have meant to him.

The sturdy, light and versatile Irish currach is used along Ireland's remote Atlantic coast for fishing, ferrying, and transporting goods and livestock, including sheep and cattle. But a group of Irish expatriates have built a currach and are sailing it on Wellington harbor. They're building more with the intention of racing these Irish rowboats.

For twenty five years Merv Smith was a house-hold name as he fronted the breakfast show on Auckland's 1ZB, New Zealand's first commercial radio station. Thousands tuned in to the Early Bird show to hear Merv, his Scottish spider friend McHairy, and his ubiquitous train whistle. David Steemson drops in on Merv who has turned 80 this year.

Since the Christchurch earthquakes propelled Paul Fleming from his Chancery Lane shop in central Christchurch, he has begun a business called 'Happy Tours' featuring an immaculate Austin Seven called Myrtle. Myrtle takes Spectrum's Deborah Nation into Christchurch's central city Red Zone. Christchurch poet Helen Jacobs also tours in Myrtle.

Excavator operators demonstrate skill and precision in using their 12-tonne diggers to pour tea from a teapot attached to their massive claw-buckets and even add a teaspoon of sugar but there's also the serious stuff. And after two days of gruelling competition, one operator emerges winner of the National Excavator Operator Competition.

She left home in the 1800's, and returned only fifteen years ago. After a multi-million dollar restoration, Mataatua Wharenui is back on Whakatane's foreshore. The 24-metre long meeting house was sent abroad in 1879 by the New Zealand government and displayed in Australia and London before being erected at the Otago Museum for seventy years. Spectrum's David Steemson traces her story.

The Port town of Lyttelton- just through the tunnel from Christchurch- embraces and celebrates its musicians and artists. Poet Ben Brown is one of these and we hear Ben in public performance and he also tells his story to Deborah Nation.

Keen landscapers and DIYers turn up with their trailers, buckets and shovels, eager to collect gravel or river stones from the Otaki river bed for their garden or home projects. Normally permission is needed to remove gravel and stones from the river, so it's an extremely popular event. Removing gravel also helps with river management and flood protection.

Longer than 3 rugby fields and equal to the height of a 23-storey building, Cunard's 151-thousand-tonne flagship Queen Mary 2 is the largest ship to ever visit New Zealand. She recently called into Auckland for a one day stopover as part of her first Royal Circumnavigation of New Zealand. Spectrum's Lisa Thompson takes in the QM2's arrival from aboard a Ports of Auckland tug before climbing aboard.

Cantabrians raise funds for their Cathedral by gathering at Lansdowne Park and Homestead to picnic and listen to Mozart arias at a Glyndebourne-inspired concert.

Spectrum's Jack Perkins traces the story of Pumpkin Cottage in Silverstream, Upper Hutt, which became an artists' retreat for early impressionists such as James Nairn and Mabel Hill, who travelled to the rural setting to learn and paint together.

It's a museum of dreams and memories. A bit tongue-in-cheek really, but its founder was inspired by a friend with Alzheimers. The tiny Jonesonian Institute …think Smithsonian Institution …is hidden away in Auckland's Waitakere Ranges. There, you'll find bottling jars, full of preserved memories, marbles (in case of loss), pliers (in memory of being pliable) and photo art depicting dementia and nightmares of genetic engineering!

As protestors gather and clash with local police at the annual Waihopai protest, organic farmer and teacher Adrian Leason recalls the saga of the 2008 break-in at the Waihopai surveillance base near Blenheim.