Ah yes, Auckland. It’s only been four years since we lived there, but oh! How I have become so very accustomed to the quiet. To me a crowd now means tens of people, not hundreds (the teeming hordes in the food court at Westfield Albany sent me into a mild panic Saturday lunchtime).

Noise is the bulls bellowing up the back, skylarks hovering way on high, magpies staking their territory, moreporks finding a mate and tui chortling in the kowhai, as opposed to some complete moron hooning his Nissan Skyline past our bedroom window at 100kms an hour just after 2 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Our life is rolling acres of green instead of the ranks upon ranks of suburbia. Neighbours that are hundreds of metres away, not just a stone’s throw. Slow, considered living, instead of rush rush rush.

Not to say that Auckland isn’t a great place to live. In fact, it ranks 4th equal in the world, according to Mercer’s Quality of Living Survey, who seem to know a thing or two about the old quality of living.

And I’ve lived in two other much, much, much bigger cities (Sydney and London) and they are fabulous, wonderful, exciting places, at the right time in your life.

It isn’t Auckland as such.

It’s just ‘cos it’s a city, and I’ve become so very accustomed to living in the country.

So much so, I don’t think I’ll ever go back.