It has been an outrageously long time since I last wrote anything here, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. The truth is simply that this has been the fullest year I've had since we came back from Auckland, and every time I sat down to write about one part of it, three more things had happened that also needed covering. So: the whole back half of 2019, in one go, which is admittedly an ambitious way to spend the run up to the New Year, especially as I should be packing.