After the best part of 11 months living la dolce vita, the Mowday family are moving on. That meant a tough decision between opportunities that have come up to spend another summer in Italy or a return to New Zealand. And, ultimately, the decision was made by the health of our girl Daisy.

At 15 years old and with her heart condition, we felt she only had one big trip left in her and after some soul searching we felt that trip should be home.

That’s meant fixing flights for Jean and I (the easy part) and booking the girls in for a return journey and a battery of tests and treatments to ensure they aren’t carrying anything nasty back into New Zealand.

We also had to find someone to freight back the bits and pieces we have collected on our travels including Jean’s famous Italian vacuum cleaner.

The big question-mark over any planning was Daisy’s health and her ability to make the trip. That came down to a health check a day or two before we flew. If the vet decided she wasn’t well enough to fly, we were staying in the UK. Like the trooper she is, Daisy passed the health check and the girls departed on the same flight as us from London via Los Angeles to Auckland.

Thankfully they arrived in New Zealand none the worse for wear after their 36 hour flight and are now in quarantine in Levin. For my non New Zealand readers that’s a small rural town about a one hour drive north of our home city of Wellington. We’ve moved into a nearby motel so we can make sure Daisy gets her twice daily medication and to be able to spend some time with the girls as we countdown to freedom in 10 days time.