Did I mention I spent a lovely week working from home?
I flew in the Sunday and we had dinner with family in Mana before the 3ish hour drive back to the farm.
I worked from home during the week, and finally bought a converter for my Surface (laptop) so I could attach a big screen – makes life so much easier!
I spent a day at the field days (where the hell have the livestock gone?! My fave part) learning all about Agritech in NZ. I wrote a blog about it, you can read it here.
I caught up with my cousins for dinner, walked my friend’s dog with her, had lunch wth my good friend Mike (and his sister Hayley and babies Harrison & Knox), moved the cows with Dad, got a pedicure with Mum, spent time with my family and finally met my neighbour’s baby. Oh and I spent an hour at my old High School chatting to students about how the working world is changing.
Three monarch butterflies hatched while I was home and Mum and I found them just after they had come out of their chrysalis. It’s lovely to be so close to nature and the animals. Speaking of which, the cows are finally getting used to humans and Mum and I had them eating out of the palms of our hands.. literally… we fed them apples.
Luckily for me, my favourite Bluff oysters were in season early and I shared three punnets with Dad. Cheese sizzlers are another Kiwi favourite and I’d have one or two with my breakfast.
Saturday night we had a get together with friends and family. I had accidentally (oops) bought a bottle of ’05 Dom Perignon on duty free so we celebrated life and a happy day with that and had a lovely meal (thanks Ma) in fab company.
On my last day, we went for a walk around the back of our land, admiring the trees that were planted a few years back. Dan, Caro, Mum, Dad and I set up a table underneath the apple tree (which was absolute laden with fruit) and sat in the sunshine enjoying leftovers and banter. It’s probably my favourite thing we did.
Oh! I went to a rodeo! On the Friday. It was cray. I drank Tui (had to) and watched cowboys ride bulls. It was excellent.
Many think that when I’m working from home or remotely, I don’t actually work much. The truth is far from it. I work my usual 8.30-/6 pm, spending my lunch with my family etc and then I’m on call until around 8pm. All my colleagues are still at work and I need to jump back on here and there. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work away that I put in extra effort and sometimes miss a bit of what I went home for. Just have to work on that balance!
I went back wth Dan to Wellington on the Sunday and worked from his place Monday. Mum & Dad came down for dinner and we went to Hippopotamus, which while was a fab evening, was shocking service.
