Wednesday, February 1, 2012

February Again

Yep, that shop looks pretty closed to me.
It is an odd feeling coming to February again. February has been such a loaded word for twelve months.
I thought as 2012 was a new year we could leave quake stuff behind, which I could while on holiday but not once all the normal yearly things kicked in. Lucy is back at school and it is still at its temporary site and while this suits us very well, in the future decisions will need to be made about its permanent site and where that is and what it looks like.
I am going to start working and the jobs I am doing have really come about because of the quakes.
Our house is still to be fixed. I am starting to come to grips with how much everything has really changed in this city.
It is perhaps with a little trepidation that I take part in all the annual beginning of the year things that I did last year. I realise how little of the year we had before it was turned upside down. I remember the things I was thinking at this time last year, that became irrelevant in a few short weeks.
It is in doing these things again, that I see how crazy last year was. The things that just became normal and I didn't question, I am starting to see were not normal before February at all - like helping strangers and accepting help from strangers or showering at other people's houses.
There is so much still to be done in this city and sometimes it feels so much easier just to leave it all behind but I also know the events of the past year are stuck inside me too.
And we still have the CBD red zone cordon with us - see below for city comparisons and we are twelve months on now.
Christchurch's current CBD red zone no go area cordon
Wellington if the cordon was there

Auckland if the cordon was there


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5 Favourite Sights Seen

  • 1996 Watching tropical lightning turn night to day, outside a little wooden church in a small village in Sabah.
  • 2004 Flying down the Rainbow Valley at 8000ft in a cessna on a clear blue day.
  • 2003 Seeing and hearing Michael Schmacher rolling out of the pit garage in his Ferrari in Hungary.
  • 2009 Chancing upon 100 or more dolphins just off the Kaikoura Coast swimming around, jumping out of the water, doing somersaults and generally having fun.
  • 2006 Finding a pool at the bottom of a waterfall in the bush at Kaikoura that was full of playing baby seals.