Three events have been especially significant for me since coming out of self isolation and returning to what is regarded as normal life here in London. Normal life being the early stages of easing Lockdown restrictions.

The first I expected. It was the visits, albeit separately, of my family here. We couldn’t hug but we could be in the garden together, see each other and talk face to face. I could also hand over appropriate gifts – New Zealand marmite and New Zealand peanut butter.

The second took me slightly by surprise. Mass at St Agnes on Friday morning was especially moving. There were eight of us. Nothing was different from before I left last November or particularly different from the weekday mass at St Michael and All Angels in Christchurch, New Zealand, although, of course, here we wore masks and there we didn’t. And it wasn’t even so much the mass itself. It was being in the silence, the stillness and that sacred space.

The third event was also unexpected. I hadn’t imagined anything could measure up to swimming in any one of the pools in Christchurch’s Jellie Park. However being back at the Elephant and Castle’s Castle Centre was a total joy. It has only recently reopened and there are restrictions. You have to book and numbers are limited. I booked for the Friday 13.30 session, the slow lane of course. One of the staff on duty called out, ‘Welcome back!’ and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. There were some familiar faces and some familiar habits. There’s one woman who always says or nods, ‘Thank you’ when I indicate she should go ahead of me, she being a faster swimmer than I am, and there’s one man who doesn’t. They were both there.

Certainly part of the significance was the familiarity. But it was more than that and more than having a routine. Perhaps it is that Spring is here.

Self isolation at home is over. All my covid tests have come back negative. I have had my first AstraZeneca vaccination. The appointment at St Thomas’s was for 11.05 am and I was in the queue as required 15 minutes before my appointment time. I had arrived early as is my wont. I was called at 11.07. The whole thing was done efficiently and the staff were every bit as friendly and helpful as those at outpatients at the Public Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand.

There is no doubt about it. New Zealanders are basically friendly and do talk. But then as I left the St Thomas’s Vaccination 1 site processing fifteen people about every ten minutes it seemed – there are three sites on the go at once – I was walking alongside a British Asian, a bit younger than me, he having just had his second jab, and we talked. There was nothing particularly deep or significant in what we said, we agreed that the system we’d just been through was great and that it is good that spring is on its way and basically how fortunate we are. In the supermarket this morning one of the staff noticed my ‘I’ve had my covid vaccination’ label and told me he’d had his that morning. We compared stories. And that is the atmosphere I’ve encountered in London these few days since I’ve been out and about.

And there is also no doubt that New Zealanders have been able to live through this time of pandemic with very little of the difficulty, worry and fear that the rest of the world has faced. During my five months in New Zealand I encountered no gloating in that. It’s just a fact. The only day to day signs of the pandemic are masks being worn on public transport and people ‘checking in’ to shops, restaurants, churches, and all the rest, usually on their mobile phones. Occasionally I would see taped two meter distances still on a floor or on the ground from when social distancing had been required. I suspect that the masks at least will be part of reality for some time to come.

There was also in New Zealand, wherever I went, an interest in and concern for the rest of the world. Perhaps because all New Zealanders are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants there is a greater awareness of the world as a whole than there is here in the United Kingdom. The television news there is every bit as insular as it is here but I think the geographical isolation of New Zealand and the comparatively small population helps people to look outward and forward. Or that may be a result of the ‘immigrant’ gene as well.

But with this as with so many things I imagine it depends to a great extent on who you mix with, who you talk to and most importantly who you listen to.

For my own part I have realised that as well as missing U.K family and friends while I was away (and I do have enough of each in N.Z. to compensate) I missed being surrounded by my own ‘things’. I had always considered myself fairly detached from my possessions. I enjoy them of course and value them usually because of their associations. But I had believed I ‘sat lightly’ to them. I discovered, while being away, that my own nest in Kennington Park Road was more important to me than I had realised.

I’ve done my three turns around Cleaver Square and have booked a swim at the Castle Centre for Friday. I’m back home with the familiar. However my local Tesco Express has moved everything around. How inconsiderate!

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.