Kia ora, friends

Like an early Christmas present - the kind you politely say ‘thank you’ for, put in the cupboard, then give to the Salvation Army - The End is Naenae is back.

It’s been about five years since I last blogged, or a little more, if you make the small effort to count it properly, which I haven’t. In that five years, a lot has changed.

I don’t live in Naenae anymore. I actually live in Upper Hutt, but I couldn’t think of a pun based on Upper Hutt.*

My kids got big. They’re now fifteen and ten. And there’s been some huge developments in our whānau.

Readers from back in the day will remember my daughter M, the elder kid - sharp and principled, with a wry sense of humour. She is no longer my daughter, but my son. You’ll get to know him as E, and I’m enormously proud of him.

K is the younger brother of E. K used to be crackers, and he actually still is. A couple of years ago he drew a picture of Kate Bush, standing next to a bush called Kate. He makes me laugh every single day. I write about both my kids only with their permission.

To tell the truth, I’ve been scared of blogging again. Career twists and turns mean there are lots of topics I can’t write about.

More importantly, I’m not sure I’m as good at writing as I used to be. The upside of being a caffeine-fuelled chronic insomniac was that my brain loved to skitter about in a thousand directions at once, spewing spangly words like an out-of-control fireworks display.

These days I’m more sedate, and am more likely to be funny inadvertently, like when I phoned in to the wrong school to report E was sick. We’ll see what happens.

Thanks for reading, friends. The best thing about the blog has always been the thoughtful, generous and often hilarious readers.

Stay tuned for my next entry, a review of Rogue One. I’d like to post it now, but I need to watch the movie first.
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* In a reference to 90s rapper group Upper Hutt Posse and my own militant feminism, I thought about Upper Hutt P*ssy. I was warned it could draw the wrong crowd.

This is Upper Hutt Posse. They didn’t even film this clip in Upper Hutt. You can tell because there’s more than one multi-story building. Turncoats.