Home Sweet Home

We managed to stay awake until 5.45pm last night having had room service of chips and salad and then crashed! Awake at 1.30am Himself went off to inspect Eugene, the car. It was filthy and had some a message writ in the dirt, a rather polite one I thought. It wouldn't start either but a breakdown chap duly arrived and did what was necessary, commenting that he wouldn't fancy driving all the way to Cork but don't turn the engine off. Himself revved away and I hurtled up and down 4 storeys of the hotel bringing down bags. We set off, the tyres were pretty flat and the brakes creaked but we kept running and Eugene perked up. Having been used to a large and automatic Serena, it took a while to remember how to use the gears!
Home by 9.30am and all good. Sue the house sitter and Rua (who had only recently found us when we left back in March) both pleased to see us. It felt odd to suddenly be home - so this is where we live! The garden is rampant - seriously! A good job we are in isolation for the next 14 days as I can see how we shall be spending our time.
Sue the house sitter has just left, heading for the ferry then a long trip up to Perthshire for her next (hopefully shorter) house sit. How fortunate we were to have her stranded here.
I'm still marvelling at how we managed to cross the world in 41 hours, at the joys of business class (did I mention we travelled business??), at being able to eat many rather good meals whilst flying ( steamed lotus root was a new experience) and even watching a movie (The Goldfinch, not very good) and arriving feeling fairly chirpy - feats never managed before. Thank you Dr G for the necessary assistance.
 So that's the end of the New Zealand 2020 adventures - quite a lot more excitement than we could have ever possibly imagined. 
Thanks so much for all the wonderful supportive comments over the last few days (well weeks really) - I appreciated each one. 
Now for a bit of quiet. And a lot of gardening.