It has been more than two years since I started with Award Force and a year since I became a product manager. I love my job, my role, the company, and all my colleagues. I am so fortunate in all respects and am particularly grateful to have a full-time job at a time when so many others have lost theirs.

In a company meeting recently we all wore red and made love hearts with our hands as a show of thanks and support to our managing director for providing stability, having the foresight to plan ahead for a financial downtown, and basically being awesome. None of us have been furloughed or have lost our jobs thanks to his good management. Award Force is a caring and supportive company with integrity and a social conscience. I’ve found my home.

Ben has declared war on the dandelions in the backyard. He doesn’t usually take much interest in gardening but has a tendency to become obsessed with certain weeds. In Christchurch, it was the convolvulus. Here it’s the dandelion. Yesterday he pulled out enough to fill a small football stadium but today there’s more. We think somebody might be sneaking into our backyard overnight to plant dandelions. Is there a word for the opposite of a thief? Someone who, rather than taking something you want, gives you something you don’t want?