RELENTLESS NORMALITY IN NZ

Normal rating: Traffic-light rating: 9/10 GREEN

Once out of compulsory quarantine, visitors to New Zealand will quickly tune-in to the locals’ attitude of “Pandemic? What pandemic?” Complacency would seem to be an inevitable consequence of months since the last community transmission. We don’t wear masks on the street, and the scanning of track-and-trace QR codes ranks lower than the viewing figures for longrunning TV series Country Calendar.

My family life is relentless in its normality, with all free time consumed by the need to deliver kids to skiing practice, dance classes, judo and sleepovers. We accepted an outdoor table the other night for “family pizza Friday” because all the indoor tables were full. There’s no social distancing at events, and we’re excited by the prospect of an upcoming family skiing holiday to Queenstown.

Great caution was exercised by the elderly during previous lockdowns (and will be again, if necessary) but grandparents are fully immersed in the hazardous business of child care and my mother’s septuagenarian film club resumed their weekly trip to the cinema nearly a year ago.

You will see masks worn on public transport, but the real differences between now and February 2020 are largely invisible, and revolve around relationships with overseas friends and family: my wife’s parents had to abandon a trip to visit us from the UK last year, and I am sure we are not the only family to be reconsidering the long-term location of elderly relatives.

iHitting the slopes isn’t a distant dream but a reality in Coronet Peak, near Queenstown, New Zealand