We arrived in Wellington thinking we would be there for three months as that’s how long the work Wayne had would last. When we were making our decisions to leave Christchurch the corona virus was a concern, but a distant one, there still weren’t any cases in the country. In the days between making that choice and getting to Wellington that changed.
The day Wayne started his new job he was warned that they couldn’t guarantee his role would continue if the situation worsened. He’s been employed as a casual worker for two years now so for us that wasn’t as alarming as it might be to others, it is the very nature of casual employment. By the end of the week there were confirmed covid 19 cases in Wellington and there were clear warning signs that if it continued to progress then the places we were staying would likely close to force people to head home. To me the other option of staying at a holiday park where you are normally crammed in closer to your fellow campers didn’t feel like an appealing or safe way to ride out what was coming.
On Monday morning Wayne headed off to start his second week of his new job. We could see that things were going to all change at some point but Wayne wanted to stick with the job until they did, I agreed because ideally you don’t want to leave people in the lurch but really I would have been happy to jump in the bus and leave right then. For the first time in our whole journey being in the bus didn’t feel completely safe. We have an ever changing set of neighbours, sometimes parked just over three metres away and during the week Oliver and I rely heavily on getting out of the bus as much as possible to fill our days, but even a simple thing like a playground wasn’t really safe. So when it was announced that the country was heading in to lockdown I felt overwhelming relief. I also felt overwhelming gratitude because we had somewhere to go.
So the next morning we left Wellington after just over a week and made the long drive to Te Puke to my parents orchard. We hadn’t seen my parents in just over a year so any reunion was going to feel good. Add to that all the other emotions that this strange situation had prevoked and I can safely say I have never felt so grateful to see my beautiful Mum.
Perhaps that gratitude has helped us through the lockdown as our experience has so far not been to bad. We were lucky that there is plenty of truck driving work that is classed as essential and Wayne picked up a new role quickly as being a casual worker meant there was no wage subsidy to carry us through. The first two weeks we had gorgeous sunny days and made the most of them on my parents orchard. Rain has made it feel less fun but we have a well established school routine to help those days pass quicker and grandparents to share the load. What the future will look like for us now is a complete unknown. But I guess it is best to just not dwell on that to much for now and wait to see what the next few months bring our way. I hope you are all finding your way through this strange, strange experience. Lots of love from my bubble to yours!
My Wandering Kiwi Family 