Hatches and despatches

Commentary - The Good Life

- Michele Hewitson & Greg Dixon

THE KING'S MESSAGE

The Queen and I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas, but also offer our hearty congratulations on making it through to the end of 2025. You must be relieved to have got here. I know we are.

When we left Auckland for the Good Life in Wairarapa all those years ago, we did not start this mad if wonderful journey in the expectation that at some point we would be ringing a bloke called Danny and asking him to come over with his digger to bury a beloved, but dead, pet sheep.

We have had to do this twice this year, and although a fellow as cheery as Danny is hard to find, even in these parts, we don't wish to have to call him again any time soon.

We have also, in 2025, had to inter another of the Four Hens of the Apocalypse, Jacinda, though I dug that particular hole myself. There now remain just two of the terrible buggers. In February, we also lost our beloved cat, Sqweaky.