HOW NOT TO MOVE BACK TO NZ

Part of the reason it was so complicated for us to return to New Zealand is my whole passport situation. I too was born outside of New Zealand in London, UK to be precise. Though I really feel I did most of my growing up here. My New Zealand passports were always granted by descent, or because I was born of two New Zealand parents rather than in my own right. Which is silly So now when it comes to getting Edward into the country it becomes a little tricky.

Next comes the animals – and we accumulated quite a few. We had one more, a kitten who lost her eyesight in a brutal car crash outside hubby's office. I kept her in my bedroom for months after she was released from animal hospital. But our first cat Esme ran her off the property, into the jungle and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Though I would often hear her phantom cries in the wind and go searching into the night for a glimpse of her rabbit-white fur.

All our animals possess this mildly disturbing serial killer streak but Esme made our little kitu’s life a living nightmare. She hunted her day and night. Stalked her when she slept and tore strips off her at every opportunity. Or maybe Lemmiwinks shed tufts of hair in her general direction on these chance encounters.

Generally speaking, it’s my girl Neko who is the stone cold killer. Neko came home with us when we took Esme (I found on the street) into the shelter for her vaccinations. It's because of Neko I frequently wake up to dismembered animals strewn across the house to find Neko still prowling around some quivering morsel of flesh. Legs here, bits of torso over there – I literally have a lizard graveyard outside my bedroom door where I bury the bodies.

Try as we might to keep our animals protected from the snakes and scorpions, spiders and whatever else is lurking in our Thailand backyard, cats will be cats and when Esme chased Lemmi into a storm in the jungle it reduced the number of animals to move overseas to New Zealand from Thailand - which is a little bit trickier than you might think. More on this later - how innocent does this puppy look? You would never think him capable of weeing on the sofa. But he will and he does.

I digress. The amazing lawyers at McClymont & Associates have been absolutely indispensible at helping sort out Edward's messy citizenship status - still a visitor but at least he doesn't have to leave any time soon!