Christmas in April

It really did feel a little like christmas on Wednesday when we made our first trip to the storage unit we filled prior to heading overseas last year.

This was our chance to bring some of the precious (and not so precious) things we had put away last year, home.

And every box was a new and exciting experience. Our box labeling was a bit haphazard –  as you’d expect when things were being packed a week before heading overseas – so boxes marked “books” contained plates and boxes marked “plates” contain pictures and boxes marked “pictures” contained books.

Hence the reason it was a bit like christmas.

The bad news was that even after removing around a dozen boxes, the storage unit still looked full to the ceiling. Yikes.

How quickly routine takes over

We’ve been back in our house for nearly three weeks and it’s amazing how quickly the daily routines of life take over. Having said that, in the last fortnight we’ve had a family wedding, my sister staying for a few days and the arrival of painters to turn the house into temporary chaos so maybe that’s not exactly routine.

The girls have settled back in as if they’ve never been away and are back terrorising those who dare to walk past our front gate. If you have seen our dear old Daisy in the last few months you would not recognise her now. Since coming home she’s had a new lease on life – in the video she’s the wagging tail on the right.

Coming home

Daisy rediscovers the delight of sleeping on our bed

On Friday we moved back into our home. It is almost a year to the day since we moved out and already that year seems like a blur. Since arriving back in New Zealand with five suitcases, two carry ons and two boxes of freighted stuff we have clearly accumulated some more as it required a small van to move us from the home of our friends to our place.

We arrived home with a little more than we left with

It was fascinating seeing the reaction of the dogs when they walked through the front gate. They knew this place – and immediately set about rediscovering everywhere they used to go and the things they used to do. Those that say dogs just live in the here and now are wrong, our girls remembered everything.

Even old Daisy with her heart condition, failing eyesight, deafness and tendency to collapse at a moments notice gained an added spring in her step and sniffed out her old haunts – immediately starting to bark at those poor passers-by who dared to walk on the pavement outside her front fence. I could almost hear them curse “those bloody barking dogs are back”.

As I write this Daisy is curled up in her basket beside me asleep, at peace with the world. And that’s a good thing.