New Zealand is closed

For the most part, New Zealand’s approach to whatever the hell this is has been pretty sensible.

We’ve got a clear alert system that explains what each level means and why it’s important. The government escalated the levels faster than anyone expected, but it feels reasonable given the circumstances.

Tonight, New Zealand enters the highest alert level. Not because things are particularly bad here, but because the right way to manage a pandemic is to act early and decisively.

The message is being hammered home: don’t hang out with anyone you don’t live with, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, shop sensibly… and if we break the rules, lockdown will stretch well beyond four weeks. Let’s be honest, it’s probably going to last longer than four weeks anyway.

This is what happens when I don’t blog for a while: everything goes to shit. Let me catch you up.

We bought a house in Wellington late last year. It wasn’t about putting down roots in New Zealand so much as stopping … the endless grind of paying off someone else’s mortgage. It’s a nice house, though. Some of you have seen it, it has a great view and flamingo wallpaper.

If anyone knows how to stop the neighbour’s cats from treating our flower beds like a litter box, that’d be amazing. (Hunting mammals is encouraged here… maybe that’s my answer.)

We’re lucky. We each have our own study, and for now, we have ridiculously fast internet. Honestly, it’s the dream setup for working from home.

So, this is our fortress for the foreseeable future. To help my rapidly deteriorating memory, I thought I’d keep the blog updated for a bit. It might be interesting to look back on one day.

Oh, and here are some photos from the past year or so… not of the house, but some of the view.