Kerre McIvor: Locked down and languishing

Why would you come to Auckland, the Land of the Locked Down and Languishing? Photo / Brett Phibbs

Opinion

I've just had the first weekend in my new house. I moved in this week, but the family is still in their rental on the Kāpiti Coast.

Under level 3.75, or whatever the hell we're under, they can move up, but really, if you were the parents of two pre-schoolers, why would you come to Auckland, the Land of the Locked Down and Languishing?

In the Wellington region, the kids can go to their preschools so their parents don't have to juggle working from home and childcare and they're also able to take the kids to the swimming pool and the library as well as the park.

On the Kāpiti Coast, people are even able to travel outside their region. My daughter and son-in-law celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary this weekend with a night away in Martinborough — without the children. They visited all the gorgeous local vineyards and ate out at great cafes — doesn't that seem like a rare and wonderful treat?

The pleasure of travelling around the country is a pleasure denied us all in Auckland — unless you're a gangster. Or a gangster's moll. Then it seems you can do what you jolly well want. Perhaps the Government could offer the gangs an employment subsidy so their dealers stay at home and watch Netflix instead of travelling around the country pushing their wares?

Anyway, quite rightly, my family's staying put in the glorious land of level2 with all its travel and dining out and childcare centres and visits to the hairdresser and that gives me plenty of time to try to get the house ready for when they do arrive.

Moving house is always a bit of a faff, a costly faff at that. But I know how lucky I am to a) have a home and b) have a home I love. We may have a mortgage the size of the Greek debt to the IMF but it beats paying rent. And even though there's no dining room table or couches or televisions or even chairs yet, I have a bed and the carpet's soft to sit on.

I love the sound of the sea at night and the birdsong in the morning, and gradually bit by bit, it will all come together.

I'll enjoy the peace while I can because come December, when two big people and two little ones arrive, it will be a whole new chapter.

Just a note

Just a quick word to thank those of you who bother to read beyond the headlines.

I was stunned last week to find out that a number of the great, the good and the perpetually outraged spent time and energy fulminating about something I hadn't actually written. A throwaway line was taken out of context as a headline on social media and whoosh! A Twitter storm erupted.

A couple of people tried to point out the column had nothing to do with the headline but the Twitterati had a head of steam and weren't to be assuaged. No wonder the world is the way it is, with people screaming at each other based on absolutely nothing at all.

I had no idea it was going on as I'm not on Twitter and there was red wine to drink and Downton Abbey re-runs to watch on Sunday but I certainly heard all about it later.

So cheers to the people who actually read beyond the headlines and who don't expend their energy of a Sunday looking for reasons to be offended.