I’m back! After a whirlwind three months of ups and downs and catching up with old friends.  I thank my Old Mate from the Pub for his hard work. In fact, I almost feel like handing my old Royal typewriter over to him, so he can continue his good work.

So I went to the America’s Cup in Barcelona for the entirety of the Regatta. I had a reasonably decent apartment about 10 minutes walk from the downtown yachting action, as I wanted to live the Spanish life for a little while. Not too much touring around, just enjoying the local neighbourhood, the local cafes and restaurants and supermarkets. The second-hand  shops, markets and every other place that makes up a grand city like Barcelona. I camped myself down in the fan zone for every day’s racing, the Louis Vuitton Regatta and the actual America’s Cup which was virtually six weeks of sailing. It was bliss.
I kept running into different people I’d met in a previous lifetime; some I hadn’t seen for well over 40 years. So lovely having an unbelievably tight police presence all the time, that I saw happening both on and off the water, and at times, cruising through the fan zone on electric motorbikes with sub-machine guns. Certainly, giving any would be criminal pause for thought.  
I really enjoyed the huge food markets, with the abundance of beautiful fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, bakery items from all around the local areas. It was so easy to eat well every day.
During a 10-day break between the Louis Vuitton Series and the start of the actual America’s Cup, I took the time to get a rental car and drive up to Brittany in France, some 900 kms from Barcelona to visit some old friends I had sailed around the world against. A wonderful reunion with some men I hadn’t seen forever and may well never see again. I stayed in one of their homes and lived the French way for five days; it could teach us a few things about working a 35-hour week and having a glass of red wine at lunchtime, followed by a bit of a snooze.
After the two months in Barcelona, I was very sad to say goodbye, I enjoyed it immensely. It was something I had always wanted to do, live the Spanish way for a period of time.  A few takes I did bring from Europe, we should introduce more toll roads to pay for our flagging infrastructure situation. The roads in France and Spain were incredibly easy to navigate, and an absolute delight to drive on and the toll booths are very easy to manoeuvre through. I would like to see more tolls in this country to pay for roading.
It became abundantly clear to me that New Zealand is a very small country at the bottom of the world, and we simply don’t generate enough tax revenue to pay for the niceties we need. This would include great hospitals, stadiums, roads and good schools and universities. All these can only be paid for by taxpayer dollars, but the solution is not to simply tax more and more.  
One of the keys to helping us get back on our feet is productivity. I saw more orange cones on the way back from the airport to Devonport than I’d seen on my whole trip away and noticed that the roadworks in Lake Road hadn’t moved more than 100 metres in the two months I had been away.  Apparently this shambles in Lake Road is to install a new electrical cable for the charging of a new electric ferry, so my people at the coalface tell me.
I was talking with a young New Zealander in Barcelona who had come down from London for the first weekend of racing, and I asked him if he would ever go back to New Zealand. His answer was no, he wouldn’t want to go back to a country embroiled in ongoing treaty issues, the small mindedness of local politics and the “hermit country” mentality that some of us still have as a hangover from Covid times.
I feel sad, because we live in a beautiful country and we have people who do so many great things, but I feel we have been let down by numerous governments over the last years and we need a positive way forward.
Lastly, on the day after my return from Barcelona I had a medical event that caused me to spend a week in the cardiac ward at North Shore Hospital. Within that ward I met the heroes of this country, the doctors and the nurses, the cleaners and the porters, the phlebotomists, the meal bringers, the cup of tea ladies, these are the real celebrities in this country, not the extremely overpaid people who think they are.  
I would like to thank each and every one of them, for their compassion, their knowledge and care, their warmth and humour and their ongoing hard work. I thank them from the bottom of my heart, and I wish them all a really happy Christmas. It was indeed a humbling experience that week in the cardiac ward at North Shore Hospital. We are extremely lucky to have these people in our midst.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody.