I have been a bad, bad blogger. Sorry. And I've had so much to blog about. So far this year I've climbed many volcanos, (yes, that is Mt Doom beyond the snow angels,) I've written two seriously 'Kiwi' books, (Dingle Dell and Brydie's Bach,) I've gone Black Water Rafting, I've eaten many a custard square and many a cream bun with daily doses of Tip Top icecream, (yes, daily,) I've woken every morning to tuis warbling, I've smelled freesias that still smell like they used to, I've watched fireworks on the Skytower from my deck, I've dug for cockles then steamed them open while drinking cold Steinlager, I've been to Eden Park and seen the All Blacks, I've listened to some proper rain, I've had a beer with Frodo Baggins in the pub at Hobbiton, I've stood before his round door and walked in the footsteps of Gandalf, I've taken High Tea on more than one mountainside, I've admired the sparkling waters of the Waitamata, floated beneath glow worms, bought gumboots, and I've learned to celebrate the comma... 

Well this blog entry is way overdue. I've been in New Zealand for 9 months now and I haven't blogged a blog. Now I don't know where to start. Maybe with Dingle Dell, the book Jack and I wrote together at the beginning of our amazing gap year. It all started when Jack's friend, Ned, came over for the school holidays and they found a body in the bush reserve up the road. They poked it with a stick, because they were 12 and that's what you do. When we went back it was gone of course but a little while later I came across a huge rugby league jumper and a bag full of bits and pieces - a shoe lace, some insect repellant, a movie stub, an empty box of crackers and a medicine bottle. Enough to spark a story? Of course it was! Not only was it the most fun I've ever had writing a story, (because I shared the experience with Jack,) it was also my coming home. New Zealand, how you've changed. The gap between rich and poor is a yawning chasm now. What a place you still are though. Where else could you see a volcano out your window? Where else can you walk up the street and, without leaving the city, be surrounded by tuis and fantails and punga ferns and streams and soggy, Kiwi bush... And bodies... Apparently...