LAST year was a topsy-turvy affair for my family. We spent much of it trying to get used to my sister's emigration to New Zealand, with house contents, brother-in-law, nephew, niece, and car.

I said my goodbyes at their farewell party, not able to face the grim trip to Manchester Airport.

But for mum and dad, there was no such escape, and it was hardest of all for them, pensioners trying to smile as they kissed their only grandchildren goodbye.

It's very difficult wishing loved ones all the best when they are setting off to a land as far away from you as it is possible to be. Your motives get just a little bit suspect.

You want them to settle, to slot into their new home, to find friends, for the kids to fit in at school... in short, for them to succeed in their new life.

But do you want it with all your heart? For me, there were grey areas.

A sister who is also a good friend goes from being 40 miles away to being so physically distant she is awake when you're asleep. When you do manage to talk, the gossip you exchange involves people you may never meet, and web cam or no web cam, it's impossible to judge how she is really feeling.

Two kids grow up somewhere you can't be when they lose a tooth or grow out of cuddly toys, and get too upset to talk to their granddad and grandma when they can see them on a computer screen, but can't reach out and touch them.

I must confess there was also an unworthy envious streak within me that wondered why New Zealand should find it more useful to open its doors to people, such as my sister, who had practical skills, rather than to feckless journalists like me and my Other Half.

Mum and dad both did their best to stay cheerful and hope New Zealand would work out, but there were four fewer faces around the dinner table each Sunday lunchtime, and it became very quiet in the house with no babysitting duties to fulfil.

So when, last November, news suddenly came that the emigrants had decided to come back for good, it was impossible for part of me not to let out a massive internal 'hurray!'.

I felt instantly guilty. The hopes and dreams my sister and brother-in-law had nurtured for years had ended in disappointment. The massive upheaval they had made would now have to be made again.

They would lose money on the house, the kids may end up behind at school, they would be back to square one.

But New Zealand's unspoiled beauty can also be its curse, and my sister said it was the isolation that did it for her. She knew we were still here, but she wasn't with her family and friends, and when she looked into the sky, there was never a vapour trail; never an aeroplane bringing people in or taking them back home, or connecting her new homeland with the outside world.

They were back in time for Christmas. When we all sat around the turkey, some things, naturally, were left unsaid. But we could all tell each other, with all our hearts, that it was good to be back together again.

Updated: 09:30 Wednesday, January 05, 2005