The Rugby World Cup: won, over.

UK-based Kiwi author Paula Morris on the RWC:

It's Tuesday, so I must be in Auckland. I'm sitting at the desk in my niece's bedroom in Mt Albert, looking out the window at yellow flowers in a hanging basket, a blue sky, the tin roof of the house nextdoor, the top of a cabbage tree. My niece is in Germany right now. 'Don't mess up my room,' she ordered yesterday, via Skype, from her university hostel. Stuck on the wall behind her: a giant All Blacks/World Cup chart.

When the final was happening, I was on a flight over the Pacific, waiting for middle-of-the-night text updates from a member of the crew on our TV screens. My niece went to an Irish pub in Heidelberg to watch the final. After the game, she had an 'Irish breakfast' of bacon, eggs, sausages, toast and baked beans. I just tried, unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep.

Yesterday afternoon, when 100,000 crammed into Queen Street to watch the All Blacks parade by, I was asleep on my niece's bed in Mt Albert - like Goldilocks with dyed hair, jetlag, and too many SIM cards.

Read the rest of Paula's reaction at her blog.

Welcome home Paula. Kia kaha.

Paula is home in NZ for the 31 October launch of her new novel, Rangatira.