It's looking like an early white Christmas at Tainui Reserve in Havelock North. But while some people love the scenery the aspen poplar trees provide when they drop their fluff, others say it's making their lives miserable. Ann Christie, who lives in the direct path of the falling fluff, has been fighting to get something done about the trees for more than 30 years.
When Local Democracy Reporting visited Christie in her home this week, all of her doors and windows were shut, and her air conditioning was switched off so it did not become clogged. Outside it was 25C. The fluff, described by an expert as "highly flammable", was in the air and everywhere you looked.
"This is a good day," Christie said. "At least we can go outside. If it was like this all the time I wouldn't mind.
"But all it takes is a bit of a breeze and away it goes. It wrecks the garden, goes through the house and the shed and if I forget to shut the bathroom window it covers our toothbrushes. It covers everything.
"When it's bad you just can't go outside. "We have talked to so many people over the years about it, but it feels like we are banging our heads against a wall." In 2004, then Hastings District councillor Dinah Williams came to see them and she told Christie: "'you can't live like this'".
Williams then commented in a story published in Hawke's Bay Today on 8 December, 2004, about a call for the trees to be removed saying: "If these people want to have a barbecue outside they can't. These people canno.