A sensibly early start to avoid the rush hour sees us heading into Christchurch. My first, of two, ‘Writing up your Family History’ workshops is held in the impressive looking Christchurch Boys High School. The precise location is the former stables of the Deans’ (yes Martha, that is where the apostrophe goes) Building, which has recently been refurbished as the school archive, following the earthquake. Nineteen participants are present to hear me croak my way through the day. Actually, thanks to being heavily medicated, I am not a croaky as I was. The students are lovely and the day seems to go well. Back home to conserve my energy in order to do it all again tomorrow. Chris has been introduced to the resident bull in my absence and survived; our hosts breed champion Lowline cattle. He has also been cleaning the van, prior to us returning it tomorrow.

The next day, I am back for my ‘repeated due to popular demand’ ‘Writing up your Family History’ workshop. Different students give the day a slightly different feel but there seems to be plenty of enthusiasm. Chris successfully returns the van and Apollo agree to refund us for the replacement fire that we had to purchase. At least now we don’t have to work out how to get it home. We travelled 1804km, or 1121 miles in our van and it is sad to say goodbye to it, even if it was beginning to malfunction – still, we have more to look forward to.

After the workshop, we repair to the historic and impressive Riccarton House, former home of the Deans family, for a meet and greet. It is certainly a stunning property, although the severed animal heads on the wall seem somewhat unnecessary. We meet and we greet. Most of my students from the past two days are present and some people I am connected with on social media.

Then we are taken to our home-stay location, where the owner has kindly moved out to allow three conference speakers to hold wild parties enjoy her home. On the way, we pick up some exceptionally tasty fish and chips from a shop called Fush, which is how the locals pronounce ‘Fish’. This ‘house-sharing’ makes it hard not to feel like we are students again. We stay up later than we should putting the world to rights.