Feel Good Story: 100 year old woman eats cheeseburger every day.

Catherine Reddoch leans her elbows on to the shiny surface of her favourite table by the window and glances out into the busy world.

The Matamata 100-year-old, known as Cat to most, looks at the traffic, watching cars and and stock trucks rumble past. She casts her mind over 100 years of a life lived and loved, surrounded by family and good friends. She smiles – and takes another big bite out of her McDonald's cheeseburger.

Mrs Reddoch is sitting in "Cat's Corner" at McDonald's Matamata, just off the roundabout off Broadway.

It's the same place you'll find her around lunchtime every day, tucking into a cheeseburger and hot chocolate – her lunch every day since two months after she and late husband Neil moved to New Zealand from Scotland in 1988. Every day. That's more than eight thousand cheeseburgers. Eight thousand hot chocolates.

They lived in Paraparaumu then. The manager of the store noticed the regular customers after a couple more months, and decided the meal was on the house.

"He said you can have it free," she says in her soft, charming Scottish accent. "He said 'you've earned it'."

When Neil died in 1989 from an injury suffered when he served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in World War II, Catherine moved up to Matamata, where she now lives at Matamata's RSA flats.

She's surrounded by some of Neil's paintings and photos of her family, including sisters Mary, 86, and Jenny, 93, who live in England and Scotland respectively.

Around 11am every morning, she'll reach for her walker, place her big black hangbag and purse under the cushion and set out the door.

She knows the walk well. Across the end of the bowling greens, with warm greetings from the members. "Morning Cat," they'll say. "How are you today?"

Down to the end of Ngaio St, along Rawhiti St to the start of Arawa, then down there. Past the Horse and Jockey pub. Round the corner, and across the street. Past the cafes and the Hobbiton information centre. Across the railway tracks, to McDonald's, and a door that a staff member will hold open before Mrs Reddoch arrives. It's around one kilometre all up, but she says she enjoys the activity.

"Sometimes I'm early, sometimes I'm late," she says. A round trip can take her up to two hours.

"I like walking," she continues, explaining how she delivered mail in Scotland during World War II. "I always have." Her Saturday visits include a trip to the TAB, where she'll place a $10 bet.
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McDonald's made a plaque for "her corner" last May for her 100th birthday, and threw her a party.

"Oh, it was a marvellous day wasn't it," she says to former carer and old friend Phyl Williams, who is accompanying her today.

The cheeseburger is finished and the hot chocolate cup empty. "Time to go," she says, standing and reaching for her walker. She moves towards the door.

"See you tomorrow," someone says from the counter. Mrs Reddoch smiles. "See you then."

- Waikato Times