A month of special morning teas

Kerikeri Pharmacy retail manager Megan Bayer pouring tea for customer Cecilia Johns and long-time pharmacy employee Lynne Coombes. Photo / supplied

What do you do when one of your colleagues retires after 39 years in the same job? Clearly a card or a quick whip-round won't do, especially if the colleague, Lynne Coombes, has become a local institution after almost four decades of dealing with the public.

The solution staff at Kerikeri Pharmacy came up with was to organise Morning Tea with Mrs C - and not just one morning tea, but one a day for a month, with a surprise guest every time.

So each morning at 10.30am Mrs C would take a seat in a specially decorated corner of the shop while her workmates served her tea and treats and brought in another favourite customer.

''I don't have any say in it, so every day at 10.30am I have a surprise sitting there. Every day has been a lovely surprise,'' she said.

The morning teas started on January 5, and continued until her last day on January 29.

Mrs C, a shop floor manager, started at the pharmacy in 1982, when it was owned by Di and Dave McFadzien, and located where the Fishbone Café is now. The business moved to its current corner location in 1989, and expanded a few years later.

''I really like being here and the people I work with. I like 99.9 per cent of my customers. It's a very nice place to be," Lynne said, adding that she was grateful to her colleagues for the month-long send-off and to everyone who'd wished her well.

Colleague Ingrid Reed said Mrs C was known for the number of friends she'd made while working at the pharmacy, so the morning teas were both a farewell and an acknowledgement of the friendships she had struck up.

''After 39 years you can't just shake someone's hand on a Friday and send them on their way. Besides, the town wouldn't allow it. She's an institution," she said.

Despite being on her feet five days a week for so many years, the 77-year-old has no plans for taking it easy. She recently traded riding a Harley for pedalling an e-bike, so she hopes to do plenty of cycling. She also plans to declutter her home and do casual work at the pharmacy.