There is one last thing to do when leaving the Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage in Dunedin. It’s to write in ‘the book’. This is something that you are presented with at the end, rather than at the beginning of your tenure and it’s a glorious rabbit hole of remembrance from past writers to dive down.
I recognised nearly all of them and was glad that the cottage is now equipped with double glazing and a heat pump, when reading about the battle to keep warm in an Otago winter- mostly from far north authors! This was my entry, typed printed and pasted because nobody wants to try and decipher my handwriting, least of all me!

It’s been nearly 2 months since we set sail (literally, on the Interislander ferry) for Dunedin. In this time, our ancient cat has not apparently died, or even missed us. He’s going to be so annoyed when our doting house residents leave and we come home. We bought 6 months of Chef and Whiskers cat food for the duration and he is determinedly working his way through it all. All hail the cat of 9-12 lives.

I was going to write about all my feelings around this last week in New Zealand. 

But if you follow me on facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or stumble across me in comments on news items, you will know very succinctly how I feel; I feel just like the rest of you. Unless you are someone called something like Aron, Derek or Ryan with a fb profile full of guns and army fatigues. Pro tip- never argue with