Kerre McIvor: Happy old year, happy new year

I enjoyed my time in London but I don't miss the grey skies. Photo / 123RF

COMMENT: A belated happy new year to you! Just on that – when do you stop saying happy new year? The day after New Year's Day? After the first week? Right up until March if you run into an acquaintance you have yet to greet?

I bet whatever you got up to was a lot wilder than our night. The McIvors didn't even see the New Year in. We arrived back in the country on New Year's Eve after six weeks of helping out my daughter and son-in-law with their toddler and a brand new baby.

Combine six weeks of very little sleep and a 30-hour jaunt across the world and I was in bed before 10pm.

I know a lot of people who were glad to see the back of 2018. They'd had awful years and were looking forward to starting afresh.

But 2018 was a wonderful year for me – thanks to the fact I was on sabbatical from work. I take over the 9am til midday show on Newstalk ZB as of January 14 and I had a year off while Leighton Smith finished up his extraordinary broadcasting career.

Well, when I say a year off – I presented the Sunday morning show, I wrote a couple of weekly columns and I had special projects to do for the company, but I was free of turning up to work at an appointed time, five days a week.

It was incredibly liberating. Most of us work because we have to. We have to pay rent or mortgages, we have living expenses, we're trying to save for our retirement.

If we're lucky, we love our jobs. But it does mean that our time is not our own. To find myself with time – time to spend with my London-based family and grandchildren; time to spend having adventures with good friends; even time to spend lying in bed finishing a particularly good book rather than leaping out in response to an alarm – was the most wonderful luxury.

When my son-in-law broke his leg a couple of weeks before the second baby was due, my family was in dire straits. My daughter was hugely pregnant and could barely lift their little boy. My son-in-law couldn't carry him. They needed someone to help out until the cast came off and I was so lucky that that someone could be me.

Leighton Smith, whose slot I will be taking over. Photo / Jason Oxenham

I got to spend some magical one-on-one time with my grandson, help out with housework and be there when the new baby arrived.

We all spent Christmas together and then it was back to New Zealand – and back to reality. The sabbatical really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it's fair to say I made the most of it.

However, I have the DNA of a peasant. My ancestors didn't swan around palaces, doing nothing professionally. They were out in the fields, toiling and tilling til the sun went down. So it's all for the best that I'm back to work tomorrow, prepping for the new show.

My London family is back on solid ground and I must admit, I don't miss the grey skies and English winter.

For me, it's into the studio that Leighton Smith called his own for such a long time and it's back to work. But I shall forever be grateful for the wonderful year that was 2018.