It wasn’t so much the journey as the beginning of the journey. I was at the check in counter at Auckland Airport. My reference numbers didn’t match. The Covid Test Kit booking number on my receipt was different to that on my UK Visas and Immigration ‘Public Health Passenger Locator Form’. I hadn’t filled in the online form correctly. Therefore I couldn’t complete check in. Therefore I couldn’t continue to immigration. Therefore I couldn’t get on the plane. Therefore my stomach sank.

However, thanks to the great patience and kindness of the Singapore Airlines check in staff, I managed. One gave me a wheel chair to sit in and I began to fill in, on my iPad, my ‘Passenger Locator Form’ again, from the beginning. Another found the correct reference number that did match, and, when I’d done, sent themselves an email from my iPad and came back a few minutes later with the essential form printed out. A third member of staff said to me, ‘Well done!’ when it was they, not I, who had done well. So I was checked in and through I went.

My stomach was lifting again but because there was no lounge available, or bar, or anything, I couldn’t get a settling brandy. There was a machine but it didn’t do brandy. There were two friendly fellow passengers who invited me to sit in the waiting area with them, we’d seen each other in the queue to the check in, and we chatted. He had been in technology and she ran a charity which helped women join or rejoin the work force. Calm, friendly people were, for me, even better than a brandy.

The flight was fine with only fifty five minutes between flights in Singapore. When I had telephoned Singapore Airlines to make the booking I had asked how they could get my bags from one plane to the other in so short a time.
‘That, Mr Acland,’ I was told, ‘Is our problem, not yours.’
He was right of course and there my bags were at Heathrow not even on the carousel but all lined up ready to be collected.

The most notable aspects of the twenty four hour journey were that behind my ears hurt from the elastic of my mask and I couldn’t hear because I hadn’t been able to recharge the rechargeable batteries in my hearing aids.

Immigration at Heathrow was calm and efficient and, having presented my documents and having explained to the immigration officer that I couldn’t hear, he looked at everything, typed something into his computer, gave me a thumbs up sign and waved me through. Within an hour from the plane landing I was in a car on my way home.

It is spring. The sun shines. Ive unpacked. I’ve done some sweeping of leaves in the garden and have tied up a clematis. I’ve done some cooking. My covid test kit arrived and I’ve sent off my day 2 swab, back of throat and up a nostril same swab turned five times. And I’ve had the result – negative. How good it is that a negative result can be so positive. I will do a day five test tomorrow and may well be out of isolation by the weekend. The time in New Zealand was wonderful and it is wonderful to be home.

The form filling online is formidable. Last month when I had a problem my elder son recommended that I, ‘Ask a teenager or a four year old.’ Fortunately I have enough teenage grandchildren here to help me through the departure process.

My covid test which was done at a local hospital yesterday has come through negative. I had the opportunity for the result to be communicated electronically but I couldn’t face that so, on the recommendation of the doctor, I will collect the proof, on paper, this afternoon. I think the doctor realised I was a bit stressed and told me, with a smile, that I’d been a ‘Good boy’. My son asked, if that was the case, why hadn’t she given me a lollipop.

Before travelling I need to have had my covid test taken within three days of departure and the result and documentation to prove. Done – almost, see above. I need to have booked and paid for, online, a kit for two covid tests. Done. These will be delivered to Kennington Park Road for after my arrival in the U.K. I will do the tests on days two and eight of my self isolation. Check in online. Done. On one flight my seat has a bassinet in front of it. I’m hoping it will not contain a baby.

The pre departure online form for the U.K. government I tried to fill in today but discovered I can only submit it forty eight hours before my arrival time and what with time differences and flight times my maths isn’t up to calculating that so a teenager is required. Not Done.

I’ve booked, online, a table for dinner with the family at Homeland, Peter Gordon’s restaurant here in Auckland for before I leave and, also online, a taxi from Heathrow airport to Kennington Park Road for when I arrive. So nearly everything has been arranged – online.

Easter has been different this year. Not only because it has been Easter in New Zealand’s Autumn rather than in England’s Spring but also because I’ve been in an unfamiliar city, Nelson, and away from my usual pattern of worship for Holy Week and Easter.

I travelled up from Christchurch to Nelson on Holy Wednesday. It was a Grandson’s birthday so I was with him for that. We had lots of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I haven’t had that for a very long time. Maundy Thursday was another birthday and another very good family celebration.

Good Friday was overcast and grey and on the verge of rain. I went to Stations of the Cross, outside, at the local Catholic Church. It was very simple and good.

Saturday evening was quite different from my usual Holy Saturday evening in church. There were twenty one of us, family and friends together for an evening meal on the verandah. Different generations completely relaxed and enjoyable.

I had been intending to go to the Catholic Church on Easter Day but their only service was out of town. So I went, with some of the family, to the Anglican Cathedral. It should have been my automatic choice but the Cathedral offered ‘charismatic style’ worship in the evening so I was uneasy about the morning worship. I’ve always associated ‘style’ as in ‘Georgian style’ as fake or not the real thing. I wanted the real thing.

On the morning of Easter Day at the Nelson Cathedral the worship was the real thing. It was ‘decent and in order’. Good, Low Church, Anglican worship. Traditional hymns, a solid sermon from the Bishop who was originally from Kenya and everything as joyful as Easter is bound to be. It was very good to be there.

It was a pity the children were taken away from us for the whole service. We met up afterwards. My granddaughter was pleased to have been chosen for some game they played and to receive as a prize a soft sponge rock with, on it, ‘Jesus is my rock’. My great nephew was not pleased. He neither received a prize nor was chosen for anything. I’m afraid his memory will be the longer.

We had lamb for our Easter meal, gave thanks, and remembered absent friends.

The Indian Uber driver and I disagreed. It was nothing to do with the journey. It was a political disagreement. Quite a few of the Uber drivers in Christchurch are from India and the majority of them seem to be from the Punjab. I’d visited Amritsar before covid so we would talk about that. I enjoy the discussions with all my Uber drivers, the ones that are prepared to talk that is, and most of them are. With the drivers who originated from India we often talk politics. It’s rather the same as when they discover I live in London. They ask what I think of Boris.

The disagreement was about the present Prime Minister of India, Mr Modi and the BJP. I’m basically not in favour. Nor are most of my Uber drivers. I think the Prime Minister and his party are divisive. So do most of my Uber drivers. But not this one. He was from Chennai and a strong supporter of Mr Modi and his government with facts and reasoned arguments to support his view. He left me needing to check my facts, which I’ve done thanks to google, and to clarify my assumptions.

But the main thing I discovered was that I learned far more from him, talking and listening to him and having my views challenged by him, than by the drivers who shared my views. The discussion with the Modi supporter hasn’t changed my opinion. It has increased my understanding. Clearly, if I want to learn more, I need to have more discussions with people with whom I disagree.

Saturday did not begin well. It began as a very dark day. The sun was shining and everything in the world was in its place. I had slept well. But there was that personal darkness which is difficult to confront let alone do something about. It has happened before, of course, and it happened in London during lockdown and more than once on a Saturday. I wonder if there’s something about Saturday, the last day of the week.

Anyway when last Saturday began it wasn’t great and it came with the timely reminder that being in a covid free country, on a fine autumn day, with no serious matters to worry about, does not mean, automatically, that everything in one’s garden is rosey.

My initial response was to go back to bed. To go back to sleep. To shut everything out and to ‘turn my face to the wall’. Sleep is often an attractive alternative to facing the darkness that’s there when awake. I totally understand why those in prison increase their sleeping time for as long as possible. That way you can avoid some of an unappealing awake time. But, of course, deep down you know it’s not a good idea to sleep this easy sleep for ever, as attractive as that may seem to be.

So, what else to do? I had forgotten how difficult it can be to make the effort and force oneself to do what one knows is the sensible, right, useful, good, and whatever else, thing to do. After a lot of avoidance tactics I managed to put a load of washing in the machine and turn it on. There were other things that needed to be done but I knew that I needed to walk to Jellie Park and to swim. The gym bag packed, I set out and passed an elderly woman walking slowly with a crutch. She had clearly had a stroke and was taking her required exercise. She gave me a very cheerful, ‘Good afternoon,’ to which I replied.

The pools were teeming with children. It was Saturday afternoon after all. They sometimes encroached on the slow lane which had one other occupant, a young man who couldn’t swim more than a few yards at a time. After I’d done two lengths he said to me, admiringly,
‘You can swim!’ I replied that I was very slow. He repeated,
‘But you can swim!’
I told him that I hadn’t always been able to swim and that my swimming teacher had told me to put my face in the water and blow bubbles and that I had started swimming doing dog paddle. He didn’t think that dog paddle was swimming and I said that I didn’t really know but that I thought dog paddle was swimming and that it was a perfectly good way to start. His sister came to see how he was getting on. She’d been to the gym, not swimming, and she agreed with me that dog paddle was swimming. He seemed encouraged and swam, dog paddle.

A number of children came to play in the slow lane and I said to one of the pool attendants that I really did like children however I would like them even more if they played in their own area and stopped playing in the slow lane. She agreed and sorted that out. One of the children gave me a speaking look and then grinned cheerfully. I’m rather afraid she may have been a relative of mine and that she recognised me though I didn’t recognise her. New Zealand is a village.

After the swim I went to the supermarket for bits and pieces then to visit a friend in a retirement village then on to a most enjoyable and relaxed dinner with more friends. Having had a day which started very badly it ended very well indeed. I must remember though, that, somewhere in the middle of the day it needed real effort to move, and, that it was worth the effort.

When I went to the hospital the other day, a follow up on the treatment for my eyes, I was allocated to the Professor. There were two young interns in on the consultation and the Professor began by asking why I lived in the United Kingdom and not in New Zealand. I gave my usual reply which is that I don’t really live in the United Kingdom but rather in London. And that I think some people are city people and some village people and that that is not a matter of right and wrong but is just the way people are. And that I am a city person. And that New Zealand is a Village.

The Professor asked the interns what they thought. It seemed they agreed. At some stage in this discussion I suggested that Christchurch was the only city in New Zealand where people asked you what school you had been to. Both the interns agreed with that. The Professor mentioned that he had been to school in Timaru, the city south of Christchurch. Our discussion continued and was wide ranging before we got onto the subject of my eyes. Then there was treatment of the eyes, some lasering and an injection with pauses in between. The pauses gave me time to think and to investigate a thought that had come to mind.

When I returned to the Professor’s room for my final consultation I asked him if his father lived in Timaru and he said that he did. I then said,
‘I think your father is engaged to be married to my brother-in-law’s sister.’
‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Yes. New Zealand is a Village.’

On Mothering Sunday the church was packed – standing room only. There were over four hundred people there for the main service of the Sunday. I was keeping the seat beside me for a friend who was coming to lunch after the service. An older woman came to sit next to me and I apologised to her and said that I was keeping the seat for someone. She began to move away until a person in the pew behind said that if everyone moved along there would be space for the woman and my friend, yet to arrive. We did. She sat. And she began a conversation with the person in the pew behind.

I took no notice of this, of course, until I heard the words, ‘Peel Forest’. It’s often the case, I find, that you overhear nothing of someone else’s conversation until a name or a place that you know is mentioned. Peel Forest is the village close to where I grew up and where I first went to school. The woman one seat away from me said to the person in the pew behind,
‘The only connection I have with Peel Forest is Simon Acland.’
‘You are sitting next to him,’ said the person in the pew behind.
The woman and I turned to face each other and she said to me,
‘My father was your Godfather.’
And indeed he was. We are meeting for lunch after church next Sunday.

STREET SIGNS

There are two street signs, previously unfamiliar to me, near where I am staying in Christchurch. One states ‘No Cruising’. I gather Christchurch has a problem with cruising which means ‘driving a vehicle repeatedly in the same direction, and over the same section of road, in a way that either draws attention to the power or sound of the engine, or that creates a convoy of vehicles that interferes with traffic flow’. Clearly there are parts of London, Knightsbridge for example, that could do with the same restriction. However I do wonder if therefore it’s ok to drive ‘in a way that either draws attention to the power etc’ where there are no, ‘No Cruising’ signs?

The other sign states ‘Kiss + go’. It is outside the Fendalton Open Air Primary School. I should have been able to work that out but it took me a little time. The sign indicates a maximum two minute waiting period for leaving children at the school gate. It’s an ‘Open Air’ Primary School because in 1924 the school, established in 1875, started Open Air classes. That was based on pilot programmes in England where it was found that plenty of fresh air and open spaced classrooms allowed children to recover more quickly from disease. The new classrooms had wide verandahs, large windows and faced the sun. They still do. And they still help children recover more quickly from disease. There’s a thought.

As well as this ‘Open Air’ school New Zealand has Normal Schools and Model Schools. The Normal Schools derive from the sixteenth century French Les Ecoles Normales and, like others world wide, is associated with teacher training. The Model schools are not for aspiring models but are also for training teachers. These were founded as training centres for teachers who would work in country schools. A model, in the city, for a country school. I continue to live and learn.