Heading home.
Yes back to Christchurch.
One thing this snap Victorian lockdown has shown me is that even though 2/3 of my family and many of my friends are in Victoria, and therefore that’s where my heart often is, Christchurch is my home.
When lockdown began we were lucky enough to be staying with our beautiful friends, Julie and Gary. An opportunity mandatorily created to spend quality time together.
Quality time we may never have again.
Julie and Gary made it easy and made it special.
But the stress and uncertainty meant I couldn’t live in the moment and enjoy that time and opportunity.
When would we see Tim and Jaime and our beautiful grandson Finn again? When would we see our spoilt shared only child – Frankie.
Thank goodness Louise was taking good care of our pup.
I could have made it a holiday but I didn’t.
Of course we took this risk to come here and I don’t regret it.
We came to see our daughter-in-law in We Will Rock You; what a truly amazing show.
We saw opening night. Unfortunately it was the only night at this stage, we hope it will reopen soon.
A bittersweet opening night for the artists and supporting crew who have worked for months and months and months perfecting their craft to put on an incredible performance.
Words can’t describe how stunning, how entertaining, how much fun this ‘amateur’ show was.
It ain’t amateur let me assure you of that.

We got to spend some time with Vanessa and James – before lockdown.
We got a few days with Michael and Te Whetu.
We just didn’t expect the borders to close in 6 hours.
Last time I was here I left when cases were higher, in fact within two days of my leaving there were 800 locations of interest.
Last time it was 7 days after I left that the borders closed.
This time it was abrupt and it was traumatic for everyone concerned.
I don’t dispute that Dan did absolutely the right thing.
I now have a more comprehensive understanding of how tough this has been on Victorians.
Of how resilient and amazing, how inspiring, my fellow Aussies really are.
And how pleased I am to be getting out.
I am just grateful that Jacinda is letting us get home over the next seven days without mandatory quarantining.
Self isolating based on trust.
We won’t you let down NZ.
We are going home.
Home to Christchurch.