Forty-four years ago today, a monumental event happened in my life. On 26th August 1976, at 10.36 pm, my eldest daughter Lisa Marie was born at Good Hope Maternity Unit in Sutton Coldfield. In 1987 I was to return for my midwifery training and stayed for 14 years before heading to New Zealand for the first time in October 2001. Lisa is an amazingly beautiful, intelligent, kind, loving, and incredible woman, daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend. Unbeknownst to either of us, around the same time, Barry was travelling north through England to Scotland with his mates, on their six-month UK pub crawl Overseas Experience (OE) from New Zealand.

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For the past seven years, I’ve been fortunate to spend this day with Lisa and her family. Understandably I’m sad to not be there for her this year. However, Kim’s made the journey by public transport (albeit with many delays!), to join in the celebrations, and I’m sure they’ll all have a brilliant day together. Happy birthday Lisa!

A Sneak Peek Into Our MIQ Life

Today I thought I’d give you a sneak peek into life at the MIQ facility here at Sudima. It’s not riveting, so don’t get too excited! However, I can understand it’s interesting as I’ve been looking forward to the experience knowing how incredibly fortunate we are. I’m hoping it’s going to be a unique ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ memory!

We may be mostly ‘confined’ to our room, but we’re discovering plenty of ways to exercise. Walking to the end of the corridor to dispose of rubbish is one of those. We’ve got a magnificent view of the front of the hotel, and today with a bright azure blue sky we can see snow-covered mountains in the distance behind the airport. The exercise bike is proving a great advantage; we’ll have firmed our thighs fabulously by the time we leave! Being able to stretch our legs and breathe the fresh New Zealand air in the fenced off car park is terrific. And this afternoon we ventured into the garden area too. We feel extraordinarily fortunate we’re in this MIQ facility.

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The more observant amongst you will have spotted my purple ukelele in the corner! Another favourable aspect of our stay – time to continue my lessons with Fender Play! It’s a good job the rooms appear to be sound-proofed!

Feeling Cared For

Since arrival, I’ve had daily phone calls from Healthline NZ. Well, when I say I’ve had the calls, I’ve had a notification they’ve called and each time (nine in all) a voicemail has been left. I couldn’t understand why the calls weren’t ringing. Barry did some Googling this morning and discovered this article – https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/stop-iphone-calls-voicemail-3521926/ which solved the issue. I’d been perplexed.

It seems that on a recent iPhone update, they automatically ticked a box to stop calls from unknown numbers! This afternoon I was finally able to answer and chat to a lovely lady who wanted to check we’re okay. They offer to call you every day if you need it. Blimey. That’s a far cry from anything I could imagine happening in the UK. I declined the daily calls. We are thriving, not just surviving. I opted for a call on the last day. Knowing if for some reason we did need any help, we can call anytime. Kiwis you are so supported here it’s unbelievable!

One of the questions asked was “Would you normally be at work?” That made me laugh out loud. I AM at work, I replied. It makes no difference where I am in the world. This evening at 8.30 pm, and again at 9 pm, I have scheduled work meetings via Zoom. I have a perfect ‘job’ for us 🙂

What’s Not To Love?

I know, I said I wouldn’t bore you with photos of food each day. And I won’t. Honest. But it’s such a pleasure to have three meals a day I don’t have to cook! Breakfast improves each day – this morning was a ham, cream cheese and lettuce bagel. Lunch was divine!

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Especially for Pip, this evening’s ‘Chef’s Dessert’ was:

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Test One Completed Successfully!

This evening at 4.30 pm, just over 24 hours after our ‘poke up the nose’, we had a phone call saying our COVID-19 tests were negative. Hoorah!

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