Thursday 11th November

I know, it’s been over 3 weeks, I should have written this up before but it’s not been an easy thing to put down in words.

I left Honiara, well tried to leave, Thursday 14th, got onto the plane then as usual with Pacific Blue, the plane had a fault and we were stuck overnight in Honiara. I got hold of Steve and he booked me into Kitano Mendana for the night. Adrian was upset over me leaving, somehow we managed to have a really good relationship, despite everything.

Friday I spent the morning with Adrian at Don Bosco, waiting to see if Pacific Blue had managed to organise another plane or replacement parts for the one sitting on the tarmac. The maintenance guys flew up on Solomon Air with parts, then spent till nearly 5pm getting it all sorted. Consequently, we were too late into Brisbane to make connection flights so those of us travelling further were booked into the Chancellor Hotel for the night with Pacific Blue picking up the cost. Nice hotel, if anyone has seen Hotel Babylon on tv, that almost sums it up.

Anyway, after a long disjointed journey, I finally got into Auckland about 4.30pm Saturday afternoon, rang Damian and he came and picked me up at AKL, and I stayed at his place for the night.

Moved back into Mums place sharing with sister since then.

The last 3 weeks have been a mix of job hunting, and clearing up stuff with VSA, medical etc, and finally getting to see Leonard Cohen in Concert. Absolutely brilliant. All the years I’ve spent listening to him made the wait well worth it.

At present I’m considering moving to Takaka or Golden Bay, if I can get the finance and buy down that way. Then I’ll start my own small nursery and just potter about with some fishing, hunting and growing stuff. And get used to NZ winters again. I’ve been freezing since I got back, even though it is almost summer and temperatures have been around the 15 – 20 C mark.

There is work around Auckland, it’s more a matter of convincing employers that I’m still capable despite being out of the country for a while.

Will keep updates coming into this from now on.