Linda is an interesting woman. She works as Corporate Affairs Manager for Waterford Security, the family owned business she operates with her husband Craig. Linda is mother to three grown kids – Grace 28, Jack 26 and Florence 22. She and Craig might be considered empty-nesters, if it weren’t for the dog, Harold, who takes up the space of a full grown person.
The really interesting bits about Linda jump out when the conversation turns, as it inevitably does, to health and fitness. “I’m not a fanatic or anything, I’ll take drugs if I have to but if I can avoid it with diet, I will.” Linda adds emphatically, “Food is the best medicine.”
While Linda worked 25 years as a pharmacist, she says pharmacy was really just a safe career choice. Her real passion lies in community nutrition. She says that earning her Diploma in Food and Nutrition was the result of a life-long, personal interest in using food to get and stay healthy.
While Linda eats a plant-based diet, she recognizes that some make the decision to go Vegan for environmental and humanitarian grounds. For her, the decision was made as the result of a personal health issue. Becoming Vegan was a gradual process. As she continued to limit various foods from her diet, she says, she just felt better and better.
Linda says that being vegan does take a bit of planning. She dehydrates her own food and prepares meals to take tramping. She actually grows a lot of her own vegetables too.
An important part of healthy living is physical fitness and Linda’s voice get’s excited when she talks about her many tramping trips from base camp at Everest, climbing Kilimanjaro or visiting Antartica. “The wild-life was amazing. The whales, the penguins and the albatross…more beautiful than I ever imagined and the elephant seals were leaping out of the sea.” You can hear her love of the outdoors when she talks about her next trip; she and Craig are off to the Galapagos Islands in June 2020 for the sole purpose of seeing “more amazing wildlife.”
Thankfully, New Zealand is a beautiful place to work and play and she and Craig return as often as humanly possible to spend time in the Wairarapa. Contrary to the youthful cries for freedom which was only to be found in someplace away from the family farm, Linda now treasures times at her country home. Her vision of retirement promises views of the Tararua Mountains, overlooking the Rumahanga River and the family farm where her father, Bryan Tucker, himself a long-serving member of the Rotary Club of South Wairarapa, still works the farm. He might have known that while she couldn’t wait to leave, one day she would quite like to return! And she does!
Oh, yeah! And as an active member of the Rotary Club of Port Nicholson, Linda has held a variety of positions from treasurer to president and more recently as assistant governor. Not surprisingly, being an active member of the club includes participating in the Poneke Tramping Group.
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