Cheese scones, card games and picnics on the grass - Local Democracy Reporter Felix Desmarais caught up with Bay of Plenty and Waiariki leaders to find out how they're spending their downtime in lockdown this time around.
Tauranga MP Simon Bridges
Simon Bridges said so far he'd been kept "pretty busy" with emails, phone calls and Zoom calls.
"It becomes a bit hard to juggle them alongside family responsibilities and kids' homework and classroom Zooms as well. I am having to remember maths skills from 30-plus years ago to help one of my children. I'm not sure how well that's going to be honest."
However, he said the sun was shining in Tauranga, where he lives with his wife and three children, and his lockdown would also be spent with his mother.
"This means card games from my childhood in the early evenings, which is really nice.
"We play a game handed down through the generations called Nominations. [It's] great fun.
"While people can have arguments about how we got into this position again, nevertheless it's crucial people obey the rules. Otherwise, we will end up with a far worse problem in the form of more and more people suffering from the Delta variant of Covid."
Tauranga City Council commission chairwoman Anne Tolley
Commission chairwoman Anne Tolley. Photo / NZME
Anne Tolley is spending lockdown in Ōhope with her husband.
"My husband always enjoys lockdown because I have a bit more time to do some nice cooking for him. He's going to have cheese scones for lunch and I'm making a tagine for dinner, he's perking up his ears at that."
She said there was a fair bit of work rearranging council meetings, and she was worried about her daughter in the UK who had just been admitted to hospital for a netball injury that had caused internal bleeding.
She said it appeared to be non-life-threatening but her daughter would still likely need an operation.
"Like many families with family members overseas, it's really a struggle.
"My natural instinct would be to get on a plane and get over to her … it's hard, it's very hard.
"Like any mother, it doesn't matter how old your children are, you want to be with them. I'm sure there'll be lots of other families around the area who identify with how we're feeling at the moment."
Tolley said she was a gardener so would be getting tomato and lettuce seedlings under way for spring planting, and was also enjoying reading detective fiction.
"It's very important [to stay home]. We have to keep ourselves safe and this variant is extremely contagious.
"People need to follow the rules, be sensible about it. The more we all follow the rules and let [contact tracers] get on with their jobs, the sooner we'll be able to get out and get on with business as usual.
"Don't go panic-buy and stock up, the shops are still open and they've got plenty of stock.
Rawiri Waititi is spending lockdown on the farm in Whangaparaoa with his wife Kiri, four kids and two elderly parents.
"We're still working, still doing interviews, still keeping in touch with our people through social media.
"This is an opportunity to press reset with your own whānau, quite often we send the kids in the morning to school, and we all go to work and come back and there's not very much time spent with kids during the day.
"I'm looking out there at the moment and the kids have made a bit of a picnic out on the grass there, and they were riding horses this morning."
He said he had been cooking with his family and "teaching the kids different kai ingredients and things like that".
"It's going to be hard for many families, and we've just got to be kind and loving to each other and patient.
"If you think you need a bit of a break, have that conversation with the whānau and say 'I'm going for a bit of a walk and I need a bit of a break'. But the key thing is we must stay within our own bubbles and make sure that we don't have contact with anyone else, because all this virus is wanting is a host and a carrier.
"The more we limit the ability for it to be carried around to find a host, the stronger fighting chance we have of mitigating this from our community."
He said it was particularly important to contact elderly whānau members and make sure they had medication and things like milk for their cups of tea.
"We've got to put a plan together to ensure we can support each other in this particular space."
Bay of Plenty regional councillor and Lakes District Health Board member Lyall Thurston
Bay of Plenty regional councillor Lyall Thurston. Photo / Supplied
Lyall Thurston exclusively reads non-fiction books, but the stack of them had been getting pretty high, so he's taking time in between his work for the regional council and DHB to start working his way through them.
