Francesca Rudkin: Kiwis ending the year with a spring in our step

So this is our final show of the year, and what a year it’s been.2020 has brought uncertainty, and challenged us emotionally, mentally, financially and physically, but we’ve made it through.This week my kids have been socialising, we’re watching cricket and have been wowed by the America’s Cup Christmas Series, we’re packing for trips away and planning Christmas Day – a day we can spend with as many of our family and friends as we wish.It’s tempting to say we’re very lucky, and we are; but actually it’s not luck that got us to this place – we did.Being a small remote, island played helped. It seemed almost unbelievable at the time, but of course the obvious thing to do in March, as Covid 19 spread around the world, was to shut up shop and hunker down.It was a little harder to get our heads around a hard lockdown for 51 days; but when we realised the supermarkets weren’t going to run out of toilet paper - just flour - and that couriers still delivered, many of us embraced the never-ending summer, time with family, and a simpler and less stressful life.The government may have asked Team New Zealand to stay home, but it was the consideration shown by New Zealanders for New Zealanders which got us here.Sure, not everyone agreed with everything, there’s been many missteps, and we’ll continue to debate what’s next; but we did what we were told and in a pragmatic Kiwi fashion just got on with it.  For some, it’s just been a year of inconvenience, for others the impact has been greater; job losses, businesses on the brink, and families and friends indefinitely separated.But we’ve all learnt from 2020, and over the last week it’s been lovely hearing your stories on various Newstalk ZB shows, highlighting the positive things that have come out of the year.And that’s when I realised just how much we have adapted to, and in most cases accepted, what the year’s thrown at us.And with a vaccine beginning to be administered around the world, 2021 brings a sense of hopefulness, and it will be spent repairing sectors devastated by Covid 19, getting people into jobs, and reconnecting face-to-face with friends and family around the worldWe’re ending the year with a bounce in our step.Bring on 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.