Editorial: Noisier is nicer for home life

My quiet bachelor life has come to an end and I must say I am glad to see the back of it.

Before you ask, I am not getting hitched again - I did that 18 years ago and am still happily married.

The big change to my domestic situation is that my 15-year-old daughter Astrid has moved from Auckland to live with me and attend school in Havelock North.

I have been editor of Hawke's Bay Today since mid-March this year, but the plan has always been for my family - a wife and three daughters - to remain in Auckland until the end of the year when they would relocate to Hawke's Bay.

However, plans have changed and it was decided that my family would come down to live here from the start of the fourth term.

This would have made life difficult for the 15-year-old, who is currently in year 10, so the decision was made for her to start the third term at school here.

Well, one week into the school term and things are going well. We are still on speaking terms - getting on brilliantly in fact - and we have settled into a good routine.

The main thing is the talking - I have been doing too little and she has been doing considerably more than I have been used to recently. In the past four months when I have not been at work or out, I have been alone at home. Obviously, I have not done a lot of talking for a number of reasons. Firstly, there has been no need to and secondly talking incessantly to one's self normally leads to a visit in an in-patient care facility.

So whereas I have grown accustomed to a quiet home life, my oldest daughter has come from a very noisy Auckland household where she lived with her mother and two little sisters.

It has been a big adjustment for her and she keeps asking me if she is talking too much and commenting on how quiet I am.

From my point of view I have had to constantly remind myself that there is another person living in the house and I have to lift my communication levels.

It did make me realise how much I had missed human interaction in my home life. I suppose that is why many of us get married and start families.

There is a lot to be said to opening the front door to a smiling face. It makes the apartment feel more like home.