As well as resting up in the PSS Wakatipu Home after a fall put him in hospital a few weeks ago, the retired shearer has won a year's supply of his favourite beer, thanks to his mate and fellow Southern man, Lyall Smillie.
Mr Mathias made headlines on the front page of the Otago Daily Times in June when the colourful character celebrated his 95th birthday at his Arthurs Point home with a glass of Speight's, family and friends, including Mr Smillie.
Now, the pair have won the Speight's Great Beer Delivery competition of 52 dozen stubbies in the company competition celebrating a year since the Speight's Ale House was shipped to London, delivering beer to a Kiwi missing his favourite ale.
The competition required entrants to say in 100 words or less why a mate deserved a Speight's and, because Paddy loves his Speight's and his local pub had closed, he was seen as a suitably worthy recipient out of the 700 hundred entries received, Speight's assistant brand manager Monique Aitchison said.
In his entry for the competition, which closed at the end of October, Mr Smillie said Mr Mathias' story was one that would not be matched anywhere in New Zealand, that he was as "sharp as a tack, still read the ODT from front to back and [at 95], the best advert for a lifetime Speight's consumer".
"Sadly, his local, the Arthurs Point, has closed, a planned new road means its demise. It had been held up to now as the longest-licensed hotel in the South Island. It was above the site of the first gold discovery on the Shotover," Mr Smillie wrote in his entry.
Relaxing on his favourite seat in the sun outside the Wakatipu Home yesterday, Mr Mathias said he would share his win with his friends and neighbours, Ross Heywood and Ross White, who helped look after his sheep and house at Arthurs Point.
He was also now enjoying the hospitality and good care at the home.
"It's good food and the nurses look after me pretty well. It's all right here. I sit in the sun every day and look at the roses and the planes."
On his birthday in June, Mr Mathias told the Otago Daily Times he had "not yet" been tempted to get married, and when asked yesterday if he had asked any of the nurses to marry him, he replied, sharp as a tack, "Not yet."
