Just before Christmas 1997, the dreaded redundancy came, and I looked for work immediately. There was scarcely any on the East Coast, but I got a contra!ct with a Bank in Auckland and commuted there week by week, living a twilight sort of existence, in a hotel Monday to Thursday nights, at home late Friday and Saturday, driving seven hours or flying on Friday and Sunday nights, giving me an odd existence in a week that had seven days but only five evenings.

We were looking to move to Auckland when the tolerance permanent, but before we had a chance, the bank was sold to one with headquarters in Wellington, so the move was again on hold until my role had more permanence. In the end, we moved to Stokes Valley in July 1999, to a not very good but four bedroom house in a not very good area. Drugs and gangs were the main issues in the area, and the excitement of being five doors from a major methamphetamine manufacturing and wholesale facility certainly enlivened up life there, especially when the place was finally raided.

The events of early 2005 are documented elsewhere so I will simply say that on our return to England we found our way to my late mother's house in Bromborough, just a few miles from where I had grown up, and where my parents had moved in 1985, not long after I had gone to Birmingham.

That house in Bromborough is still our home, but next week I will tell you about the place that is almost a second home to me. Possibly even two of them.

Remember, more details on request. Ask me anything.