Tim Crawford and dog Chester with the cows on the dairy farm he works on at Poroutawhao, near Foxton. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Tim Crawford and dog Chester with the cows on the dairy farm he works on at Poroutawhao, near Foxton. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Herald speaks to four people during the coronavirus lockdown on how they're isolating, and what it's like. We check in once a week to show you another perspective on the impact of the quarantine.
Bronwyn Emerson and her three young boys are spending the quarantine with her partner and his two kids in Christchurch. The children are aged from 6 to 15.
Spare a thought for the people isolating with kids. Then spare another thought for the people who brought two separate families together for the lockdown.
That's Bronwyn Emerson and her partner. The couple decided to spend the lockdown together and use it as a trial run for living together with Emerson's three young boys and her partner's two teenagers.
Into week three of the lockdown, a few issues are popping up. For one, different rules and traditions in the home that might already cause strife in the average blended family are exacerbated by constant close contact.
Emerson said she had also been feeling homesick, and it has been difficult for her boys not being surrounded by their own toys and having their own room - they're camped out in the living room.
"Today I'm wearing Matthew's [11] shorts and Connor's [9] t-shirt. They look like they're spray painted on but they do up," she said.
Her youngest, 6-year-old Liam, celebrates his birthday this week in lockdown, and Emerson is struggling to get him a new pair of shoes him trying them on to make sure the fit is right.
But thankfully her Easter tradition of sharing Cookie Time treats with her boys can go ahead, with a delivery scheduled to arrive before the Easter Bunny pops in.
The country is now past the halfway point of the lockdown, if it doesn't extend.
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The young professionals
Ashton Lindsay, front, with her flatmates, from left, Juliann Lum, Ceris Nieuwland, Jenny Zhu and Miriam Myluaganam, in the Wellington house where they all work from home. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Ashton Lindsay is spending the lockdown in a villa in Thorndon, Wellington, with her four flatmates. All are young professionals who are working from home throughout alert level four.
Ashton Lindsay is training for a marathon - as best she can in lockdown at least.
Regular runs are an excuse to get out of the house more. She's noticed all of her flatmates have been exercising "a lot".
She was doing her best to train, but "obviously not get too wild or in trouble".
Aside from more exercise and the urge to retreat to her room a little more than usual, Lindsay said the house is not feeling overcrowded.
The women have set up their second living room as a makeshift open-plan office, and each person having a desk and workspace of their own.
The reality of five people working in the lounge together means it can get a little noisy at times with various simultaneous video meetings going on, but in general, Lindsay has found it to be a great work environment.
As news of redundancies continues to spread around New Zealand, she said it's becoming more apparent just how lucky she and her flatmates are.
"I feel like we're just super blessed in our current set-up. I think everyone kind of recognises that we're doing really well.
At the start of the lockdown, Belworthy said she would be on the lookout for depression creeping in as she spent her days alone.
Instead she's found joy in peaceful, solitary days and the company of her pets.
Belworthy is aware of the rules allowing people living alone to share a bubble with someone else, but she is discovering she prefers to stay by herself.
"I've thought about it and I actually am enjoying my own bubble," she said.
The other day two family members came to drop off food, and spent an hour sitting in a two metre-distanced triangle chatting. Belworthy said the encounter was all she needed to keep her going for the next while.
She also hasn't had to go to the supermarket yet - a strong support network means people have been regularly dropping off food for her, meaning her fridge and pantry are "chockablock" at the moment.
He thought his partner, who is not working through the lockdown, was likely jealous of his role as an essential worker.
"She's going crazy. She definitely wants to go out of the house, anywhere. She wanted to go to the supermarket and I was like 'no, I'm already going out'."
One of the main differences he's noticed is an apparent disregard for the road rules between Foxton and Levin.
"No one's driving the speed limit anymore, it's a free for all," he said.
He'd seen people driving 80 or 90km/h through the town centres, but said he wasn't one of those using the lack of traffic as an excuse to speed.
Off the record, his answer was the same - what was the rush, after all?
