Old friends

Landing at Auckland airport I step outside and there's an immediately noticeable change of temperature. Off come a couple of layers as the humidity rises. I walk around to the International terminal where I've arranged to meet my friend Amanda. I leave a note with an elderly volunteer at the help desk to say I'm at the espresso bar, a note clearly marked for the attention of 'Amanda'. When she turns up at the desk he denies all knowledge of a note. He's waiting for 'A man…' to give the note to...
It's a happy reunion. In the few years since I've seen her Amanda's daughter Anouk, now six, has grown tall, almost up to my shoulders. And chatty. And affectionate. I am instantly Auntie Cate, which makes her unique in being the only person in the world to call me that. Here's a picture of Amanda and Anouk from later in my trip.

I've known Amanda since the early Nineties. She had come to London as a 20-something New Zealander, got a job teaching at a primary school and stayed. Now she's back in her home town with her English partner and Anouk, doing up a new house in an area of Auckland called Mount Albert. 
We find a space for my bags in her overflowing car and drive straight there. It's a handsome two-storey wooden house painted a pleasing shade of milky green. The space out back is large with a double garage and a Feijoa tree dropping fruit by the second. This fruit has an unusual taste, citrus with a sharp tang, one that I have not yet acquired.
They only moved in recently so everything is in a state of flux or box. I'm allocated a little bolthole, facing north so sunny and warm and filled with colourful paintwork and bedding. Anouk instantly moves in her army of Clickie people, which is fine by me. Amanda tells me her plans for the house and though the project sounds daunting I have seen her go through enough renovations to know that she will create something really special, filled with treasures. There are pieces propped up around the place that seem so familiar to me – glass baubles, panels of stained glass, the kind of pieces that made her flat in London's Bonnington Square such an inner-city oasis. 

The next morning we walk Anouk to school and I'm dragged into the classroom to meet the teacher. Amanda and I then drive south to Pukekohe to have lunch with her mother, Paula, and to see the 'ten acres' where Amanda grew up and which I've heard so much about I feel I already know. It's quite a drive down a gravel road, then a turn off to the right takes you up the drive, through the trees, to the house at the top of the slope. 



Paula's house is filled with collections of fine crockery, old black-and-white photographs of Amanda and her two brothers, the wood burning stove is glowing warm and there's chicken soup in a pot on top of it. After a quick bowl of soup, and a quick hello to Amanda's brother who lives next door, we head out to look at the property, meet the stock – four head of cattle – and explore the acres of forest that Paula has turned over to be regenerated as native bush. It's a dense canopy but the undergrowth is coming along nicely too, with tree ferns and nicau palms all thriving in this pest-free environment. There's Amanda disappearing into the forest.
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We come back here on my last day in New Zealand, for a barbecue dinner with the family and to say goodbye to Paula. Amanda shows me the gigantic crater just a stone's throw from her house. She used to catch the school bus from the edge of it. It got me thinking about how people are often happiest when they finally come home.