I’m (Chrissie) currently on parental leave caring for my new bubba Elliot, who was born at the end of September. We spent the first 6 weeks of Elliot’s life in lockdown as the Delta strain spread into the Waikato. Needless to say it was a challenging time with a very energetic 4 year old at home to entertain while we got to know our new pēpi and adjusted to the familiar exhaustion from sleep deprivation. We’re all doing very well though and enjoying having a new addition to our whānau.

Despite my absence, the Painting lab is still busy, with Michaela handing in her MSc thesis at the end of 2021, and Lara soon to complete in mid January. Simon has been having a productive field season collecting spiders to run his mating experiments, and has been lucky to visit some beautiful sites in the South Island despite COVID doing its best to thwart plans. Rene’s work on the effects of temperature on pollination behaviour has also been held up with last year’s lockdowns, but will be progressing again in the new year. Grant’s off on a very exciting adventure in the waters around Antarctica as a fishing observer, but will be back soon to continue his MSc.

I’ll be back in the office/lab in September 2022. Feel free to get in touch before then – I’m still keeping an eye on my emails in between baby cuddles and pottering about in the vege garden.