Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Dear Auckland, I just wanted to say how glad I am that you're being allowed out again from tonight. I've kept in contact as best I can with people close to me down there, but sometimes you haven't wanted to talk and I completely understand it. Who wants to do Facetime of WhatsApp from their couch day after day...especially with someone in another part of the country where life's a lot more like normal. What you've endured in the region I know has been mentally exhausting and absolutely frustrating. I want to talk a little this morning about one personal friend who hasn't made it through the Auckland lockdown. I knew he was struggling and he'd talked about it a bit, but he tried to be stoic, and at the end he kept just how bad it was all to himself. When I first heard, part of me wanted to be cross with him about it. Then came the self-recrimination, what if I'd phoned when I was telling myself we hadn't spoken in a week. Sometimes we need to walk a mile in another person's shoes to really get it. There but fo