In response to ‘January 8th Sunshine’ it was suggested to me that there is a third school of thought ‘Gloat’ and that I was gloating at my situation here. I very much hope not. Certainly as I was growing up that was not considered an option. And I’ve not met it anywhere in this covid free New Zealand.

There is certainly a recognition of how fortunate we are here and a real concern for the rest of the world which, I think, New Zealanders, isolated as we are, have always felt – you only have to think of the New Zealand commitment in two world wars – but gloat, no.

I have felt a sense of guilt at being here when others are there. But I’m sure that sense of guilt needs to be examined critically. Feelings of guilt are so unproductive. I know some Christchurch people who were away from Christchurch when the earthquake hit felt bad about not sharing in the fear and destruction the earthquake brought.

Some of those who left Europe and Britain for the safety of the U.S. and Canada during the war felt the same. I suspect that was more about not being part of a shared experience rather than guilt.

A bit of social guilt on the part of those of us who have clean water, weather proof houses and all the rest, in the face of those who don’t, might not go amiss if it leads to action. But generally feelings of guilt? No.

Perhaps the ‘gloat’ response contains an element of the first school of thought – ‘If I cant have it no one should have it!’

And I have had another response – from the United Kingdom. ‘Please don’t give up on food parcels! Send New Zealand marmite and Fix and Fogg peanut butter. They’re far superior to any British product.’

There’s a school of thought which suggests that if everyone can’t have something no one should. There’s another which suggests that if only one can have it the others should rejoice at their good fortune. I was brought up in the latter school – perhaps because there were six of us.

Today the sun is shining and I’m in Christchurch. Just two weeks ago it was Christmas Day. After church in Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, we went to the beach at Waimarama for Christmas dinner – legs of lamb cooked on a barbecue, ham, Christmas pudding with holly stuck in and burning brandy poured over, all of that. The weather wasn’t great but there were lots of family, more than twenty of us, and the beach houses are very comfortable. When we drove back to Havelock, two days later, we made a detour and called in on some cousins for coffee. They had been fishing in the morning and checking the lobster pots. They gave us two crayfish (lobsters) to take home for lunch.

Once home I prepared the crayfish, made some mayonnaise (the egg from my nephew’s hens) and asked my sister if she had any lemons. She said that she had, and pointed, I thought to a basket where there were avocados but no lemons. She was pointing to a tree outside the kitchen door. The lemons were on the tree. The avocados were from another tree in the garden. The stewed apricots I’d had for breakfast were from another.

Life in New Zealand, seems quite ‘other worldly’ to me at the moment. I think that many of my friends and relations here have, and cannot have, any idea of what life is in London. I, who am closer to it, am finding it difficult to imagine.

When I was very small, three and four years old, I would go with my mother to meetings of the Peel Forest Red Cross. My mother was president of this local branch in South Canterbury, New Zealand. I remember seeing the women knitting socks, scarves, and ‘Peggy squares‘ to be sown into blankets. These were for men in Prisoner of War Camps overseas. Fruitcakes that had been wrapped in grease proof paper were put in cake tins and soldered airtight before being sewn into hessian bags with a square of cotton, cut from an old bed sheet, sewn on. On the cotton patch, written with indelible pencil, an address in England. These memories are of New Zealanders doing their bit for family and friends in wartime Europe and Britain. They had something tangible, something useful, to do.

We here have nothing useful to offer. Food parcels are not what is needed. We can telephone and Zoom and all of that, to try to keep spirits up. And, like our wartime forbears, hope and pray that it will be over soon.

December 12th New Zealand

The Christchurch Town Hall was not full but the centre sections of the gallery and the stalls were. It’s an annual event, The Messiah, that is, and for everyone there it was, I imagine, normal. For me it was extraordinary. It was the first live concert I’ve been to for about ten months.

As I had a couple of hours to spare I’d wandered through the town centre before the performance. There were people queuing outside the Theatre Royal in Gloucester Street for the ballet, ‘Nutcracker’. Then after walking through Regent Street, the wine bars and cafes already full, I passed ‘Piano’. There were people going in to what I discovered later is a small concert venue chiefly used for chamber music.

I arrived at the Town Hall three quarters of an hour before Messiah was due to start and was surprised at the number of people already in the foyer. Then I realised that as well as the main auditorium there’s also a theatre. There was a performance of Irish music and dance there starting at 7.00pm. Somewhere else in town some of my family were at the Court Theatre for a performance of ‘Jersey Boys’. It’s booked out into January.

Christchurch, New Zealand has a population approaching four hundred thousand. It was devastated by earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 . Much of the centre city still shows signs of the destruction, buildings shored up and empty city blocks where buildings have been cleared. The cathedral which was partly destroyed is in the process of being rebuilt.

And on the evening of Saturday December 12th 2020 in this comparatively small cathedral city there was chamber music, ballet, theatre, dance and Handel’s Messiah.

December 16th Beethoven and Canterbury

This morning, along with about a hundred others, I celebrated the anniversaries of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven in 1770 and the arrival of the SS Charlotte Jane in what is now called Lyttelton Harbour, Canterbury, New Zealand in 1850.

The former anniversary needs little comment other than this. To be part of a gathering coming together on a sweeping lawn surrounded by trees in the late morning of a warm summer’s day and then to move into a large and elegant drawing room for a performance of Beethoven’s music, two Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and afterwards to mingle on a terrace sipping a sparkling wine, was an extraordinary and I suspect unique experience in the world as it is today. Here Beethoven was being celebrated in a way not possible, I suspect, anywhere else in the world. I think most New Zealander’s have no idea how fortunate they are.

The second anniversary, of the arrival of the Charlotte Jane, and therefore of ‘Founder’s Day’ for the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand, has, understandably, less international significance. We celebrated both. A toast was proposed, in Maori and in English, to Beethoven and to the Province, and we drank it with gratitude.

December 17th The Geraldine News

The weekly newspaper has a review of a musical presented by a local village primary school. The village is Woodbury. The musical ‘A Very Woodbury Christmas’. There were four performances in the village hall with a demand for an extension to the season. From the newspaper report I gathered there had been a good deal of local cooperation and support and that local characters and situations featured in the production which had been created by one of the teachers at the school. Every one of the 102 pupils were involved.

The musical was described by the newspaper as, ‘Based loosely on a Christmas theme in a rural community where everyone had forgotten what the real meaning of Christmas was about’. The community discovers the real meaning of Christmas amidst all the commercialisation and busyness. The show included Christmas carols with a local twist – ‘Jingle Bells’ became ‘Tractor Wheels’.

In due course a little angel, performed with considerable enthusiasm by a very young pupil, the newspaper reported, helped the community to discover that ‘the real meaning of Christmas is spending time with the people you love’.

I’m sure it was great and very good for a local community where the realities of Covid19, in whatever mutation, barely exist. However I am especially aware of so many of my family and friends this Christmas who, because of the law, regulation or common sense, cannot spend time with the people they love.

And I think of that even greater reality of Christmas which is centred on a baby in a crib, on God become human, and a message which goes further than being or not being together. Behind every authentic Christmas crib there is the shadow of a cross. And there is the star which is surely at least a hint of the light of the resurrection.

December 19th Blue Christmas

There was a service at St Mary’s Geraldine this evening for ‘Blue Christmas’. When we came in the music was a recording of Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’. The service was quiet, reflective and thoughtful. It was especially for those for whom Christmas includes loss, and was attended, chiefly, by widows and mothers whose children had died. During the service we sang verses of ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ and we were reminded that this hymn is a song of people in darkness longing for God’s light.

We were invited to light candles of remembrance and the readings included the one from Isaiah chapter 40, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people’, which I’d heard sung on Saturday the 12th, and from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 11, ‘Come unto me all you who labour and are heavy laden.’

Among the Vicar’s closing words were,
‘As people who are familiar with the darkness, we also know that our way is illumined by the light of the Christ Child this Christmas Season. May the hope and light of Christ sustain us in our darkness.’

December 4th
On Sunday, as I did my circuits of the yard, one of my exercise companions said,
‘You go out tomorrow don’t you?’ And when I had said that I hoped so, he continued,
‘See you on the other side!’

The Isolation Facility was a sort of purgatory, a place of cleansing, between the reality of life under whatever tier of rules and restrictions apply in London and the heaven that life in New Zealand seems to be. And there are no Plenary Indulgences, not even for the Pakistani cricketers, a brilliant team, I’m told, who are finding the rules of their Isolation Facility very difficult to deal with. But however difficult isolation may have been, and it was difficult from time to time, it was difficulty for a purpose. A purpose achieved.

I left the Distinction Hotel with a letter which begins:
‘This letter is a formal confirmation of your completed stay in managed isolation.
We are pleased to confirm you have completed the necessary requirements for isolation after arriving in New Zealand, staying in a controlled environment under the supervision of the New Zealand Government.’

And the letter concludes,
‘We thank you for joining thousands of others in keeping our communities safe. Your efforts help us to prevent COVID-19 spreading within New Zealand. We hope that your stay has been comfortable and you have felt well supported.’
‘He wake eke now – we are all in this together.’
The letter is signed, a duplicated signature of course, by Air Commodore Darryn Webb, Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine.

It was reasonably comfortable and I was totally ‘well supported’. I’m told that a family friend described the hotel as ‘Bulgaria 1954’. As he wasn’t born in 1954 and has probably never been to Bulgaria that is not altogether fair. The bed was fine, there were plugs for the bath – actually my room had a walk in shower not a bath so I don’t know that – and the people, all of them, military, security and hotel staff were, without exception, friendly and helpful.

I cannot begin to comprehend the complexities of organisation which are involved in achieving a Covid free New Zealand. Of course here it is possible to be border protected because we are so far away from anywhere else and the population of the country is only five million. Nevertheless it is surely a remarkable achievement.

December 9th The Other Side
I still think life here is extraordinary and I’ve been out of quarantine for over a week. I was required to wear a face mask on flights to and from Nelson last week. I do check in to restaurants and buses with the ‘Covid App’ on my mobile phone but I have given talks to a group of sixty, ‘In My Eightieth Year ‘, and forty, ‘Its Part of the Ageing Process’, with no one wearing masks so I was able to see people’s faces and gauge my response to their reactions. That was wonderful for me and as I wasn’t heckled or booed and no one walked out I guess it was ok for them. I’ve been to a small drinks party and a lunch for more than a hundred former staff of Christ’s College. No ‘social distancing’ at all. On Saturday evening I’m going to a performance of ‘The Messiah’ at the Christchurch Town Hall. Nearly every seat booked.

It is the normality that is extraordinary. As I hesitated to get into a lift with two other people in the hotel in Nelson, and then got in, I had to explain to them how wonderful it was to be in a lift with other people. I think they were a little surprised but said they had family in Yorkshire so they thought they understood. I still find myself smiling as I am able to ask directions of a stranger and I’ve stopped backing away to two meters distance when people approach me. I keep on having to tell people how fortunate they are – I must get over that soon! I’ve been to church and we sang hymns and there was coffee afterwards.

There’s an element of guilt floating around in me somewhere, guilt that I’m not sharing in the difficulties that others are facing at home in London. Still, I’m out to a Thai restaurant with friends this evening so I’m managing to live with it.

Being Together

We get to the exercise yard by going through the Gumption Bar. Not functioning at the moment. More’s the pity. I think the exercise area has been cordoned off from Cathedral Square. It is to the south of the Cathedral. There’s a tree with a raised patch of grass and benches around it inside our area and another outside beyond the double fence with the shade cloth. And at one end of the double fence there’s a small area with no shade cloth.

Every day there have been visitors to my fellow guests either standing on the benches around the outside tree so that they can see over the fence, or the other side of the two meter no go area where there’s no shade cloth. Those inside keep their masks on. Those outside don’t wear masks, they have neither need nor requirement. And they talk to each other or don’t talk all that much but are just there.

For all the telephone calls and video links, zooming and streaming and every bit of useful technology there is, it is very clear to me that people still just want to see each other and hear each other. They want to be together even at two meter’s distance, in the flesh.

November 20th Routine

The routine began well though ‘chapel’ happened before breakfast which didn’t arrive until ten past nine. Then it was PT. I didn’t use the lift to go to the exercise area but took the stairs, one hundred and twenty seven of them – extra exercise. There was a bigger army presence than usual and standing, correctly spaced in a row, were ten men, my fellow guests, clearly ready to line dance or something. I discovered they were all from Italy and were there for their morning briefing. What it was about I have no idea. Sadly I don’t speak or understand Italian.

After the briefing most of them went off to the smoking area to have a cigarette. The smoking area is next to the exercise area. When I’m first down the next group down are the smokers. I’ve now realised it is chiefly for them the area is open from midnight until 6.50 a.m. Thank goodness I gave up smoking nearly thirty years ago.

Maths has been added to my timetable. I now have the Christchurch Press, the local newspaper, delivered each day and it has Sudokus near the back along with the crosswords and the children’s cartoon. I can’t do the crossword so I do Sudoku. Strange in a way as I was useless at maths and figures at school and loved English and words.

November 24th Trend Setting

It’s easy to set a trend, I’ve discovered. And it only takes one person. I am that person and here in isolation I’ve set a trend. When we exercise most of us simply do circuits, clockwise. A few have sophisticated routines that include exercise mats, skipping ropes and very big rubber bands. The majority of us did not come so well prepared so we do circuits.

I was the first out yesterday morning and I remembered a friend suggesting, early in the first Lockdown when I was doing my circuits of Kennington Park,
‘Why don’t you sometimes do your circuits a the other way round? You’ll see things differently.’

So I set off around the very small exercise area – anti clockwise. I got a slightly strange look from the next person out but then everyone followed suit. And in the afternoon? And this morning? They’re still going anti-clockwise. If I’m first out before I leave perhaps I will reverse the trend.

Tattoos

Quite a number of my fellow guests are tattooed – probably more than I’ve seen because the weather has been cool so I’ve only seen legs, arms and necks. I see the tattoos when we’re doing circuits. Some have tattoos around their upper arms. One young man has six stars, not very professionally worked, down his right calf. There may be seven with the seventh hidden by his ankle sock.

A young woman has some words tattooed around her neck but I’ve not been able to read them because I’m not allowed closer than two meters and the letters are quite small. I don’t like to ask in case the words tell me where to go.

Another man has roses tattooed on his right calf, chiefly in red, and on his left, in lurid green, the face of the devil. He wears a sports shirt that has on the back KEEP THE FAITH which, on my first circuit, I thought a rather good sentiment until the second circuit when I thought, ‘Faith in who, or what? The Government? His doctor? Himself? President Trump? God? The Devil?’ I had remembered that faith doesn’t exist without an object. I decided not to ask him who or what was the object of his faith.

November 25th

I was late down this morning. Everyone’s still walking anti clockwise.