Usually I feel the urge to write once every four weeks – the thoughts and memories and stories that line my head build up until there’s a pressing need to spill it all, in long sentences with stupid typos and always some sort of half hour technical fail as I try to post photos extremely badly.

But this October, my birthday month, usually filled with dinners out and perhaps a little European long weekend thrown in, crisp early Autumnal air and the clocks going back, has been quite the exhausting thing, centred around a very quick trip back to New Zealand to see my parents, sister, and brother in law for just over a week. It has sent everything very off-kilter.

The first surprise

A few days before flying the 33 hour trip there, we decided to bring Noah along as a surprise for my parents. He couldn’t get onto the same flight as me – London to Doha, Doha to Auckland – instead having to add hours and airports onto his trip by flying London to Munich, Munich to LAX, LAX to Auckland, where we would meet up with my sister and make our way to my parents. But LAX! Oh, the stories I have heard – the drama, the scariness, the mean US immigration people, the huge airport and the confusing transfers and the not knowing where to go…it was the worst thing sending off my recently-only-just 18 year old sweet second born. I was so annoyed I didn’t work harder to find a way we would travel together but the cost of that was just so high, and so it was LAX or not come along at all.

Panicky but resigned, on my actual birthday I was up at 4am to set Noah off on his first long haul flight on his own, hoping that the transfer at LAX wouldn’t be the undoing of him. My phone rang an hour later from the check in desk where Noah was a bit spooked, having been asked to fill out NZ destination forms and not really knowing them and understanding very clearly that he should have had his NZ passport with him. He was all 5am-and-alone stressed and so was I, but photos of his NZ passport seemed to keep the desk people happy and I went back to sleep knowing it would be my turn in in the afternoon. But first, a 7am packing session, a little birthday brunch with Vicki, and then off to the airport for my first leg to Doha.

Halfway through brunch I get a phone call from my airline telling me that my flight through Doha was full, and the only option left was that I fly the other direction through LAX. And I needed to get to the airport an hour earlier – did I accept?

LAX though – cha ching! Woop! I said YES I WILL ACCEPT THIS SURPRISINGLY FORTUITOUS YET RIDICULOUS PROPOSITION WHICH PROBABLY SUITS NO ONE ON THAT FLIGHT BUT ME and ran all the way home to have a bit of a panic attack about it all, running out of time which was exacerbated by the last minute need to register for an ESTA visa which of course was a bit tricky to actually do in the few minutes I had while also freaking out and finishing the packing situation.

Exciting though – with the main character energy I like to haul around with me, I figured I could land in LAX at about the same time, get through customs, walk into the correct transfer terminal, spot him at the McDonalds or something, and go and tap him on the shoulder and surprise him with his passport and my actual presence. An appropriate movie theme tune would totally be playing in my head. What larks! The brilliance of this plan kept me going through the 12 hours from Heathrow to Los Angeles.

So I landed and called Noah from the bit where you pick your luggage up from one carousel and stick it on another to ask him where he was in a kind of cute, cagey way. He sounded so panicked though, with clearly no time for my games…he told me that he was about to be sent off to a scary room because he didn’t have his New Zealand passport with him or a New Zealand visa, and his entire holiday money had been used up purchasing a digital visa for non-NZ citizens which would take up to 72 hours to process. He was very worried he wouldn’t be allowed to board his next flight. I was, just for a second, a bit put out that I had to blow my cover, thinking “Hmmmm, should I tell him I am here? With his passport? Or will that massively ruin my big moment when I find him?”But even this utterly self-absorbed mama knew that this was no time for am-dram theatrics.

“I’m here! I’m in LAX too! With your passport!”

The sweetest nine words I have ever screeched into my iPhone 6.

It was only one escalator down to find him, all dusty and rumpled from the trip and the flight and the stress, with a massive relieved grin on his face. This is a photo of our collective relieved faces:

And then we hugged and were so happy and we could show US Immigration that Noah was actually a New Zealand citizen and could we please have that money back and they said no but we were so relieved we didn’t even mind and so I bought him a massive sandwich and I got changed into a track suit and he said ‘that’s not a great tracksuit’ but we were so happy I didn’t mind.

It even turned out we were on the same flight home. I told the lady it was my birthday (because it still was, 30 hours later owing to international date lines) and could we please sit together and while she did not care one jot about my birthday she did indeed give us seats next to each other.

How about that?

The second surprise

There was ONE surprise left. We had been careful not to tell mum and dad that Noah was going for London with me so to give them a surprise (oh I do love these multiple surprises). After we landed, we had a day in Auckland with best friends and some pies and a beach trip, and we met up with my sister and brother-in-law who were flying in from Australia, and drove to Whangarei by way of an Orewa dinner stop and various trips to the dairy for lollies (IYKYK). We had a plan – to drop Noah off (by now delirious with no sleep and jet lag) five minutes from my parent’s house where he had only been once when he was 4 years old and direct him through the dark to where he could maybe/hopefully find their front door. We would go and meet with mum and dad first, and then Noah would knock at their door and give them the shock of their lives. It looked like this:

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A post shared by Jodi Bartle (@harridan1)

Was it all worth it? YES IT WAS! It was such a great, exhausting, fun, busy, stressful time – like three months compressed into seven days – and Noah was the most wonderful companion, son, nephew, second cousin, friend, and grandson. I love him even more now, and so do lots of New Zealanders who go to meet him.

Here are some pies:

Here’s a photo of my totally hot husband I rescued from our storage (most of them had to go to the dump)… (photos, not hot husbands):

Saying goodbye to my mum and my dad:

There’s so much more to say about October – but I’ll leave you with this. We have been told our flat is going to go on the market so we have to find somewhere else to live. We have now sold our New Zealand house and will be no-chain buyers in two weeks. We have found The House we want to buy. We have been pushed and pushed by the agent and have given them the highest offer we can manage. We will find out whether we get it tomorrow. Everything feels like it rests on this house. We can think of nothing else.

I shall report back.