If you ask a Christchurch person about aftershocks, we will tell you, we haven't felt any in ages. The point we might not make is that ages is probably different for you, than for us. We had a 5.5 only two months ago, but that is ages for the new Christchurch post Sept 4th 2010. It does seem the aftershocks have gone away. There is the odd teeny one, but they don't count.
The question we've been asking ourselves is can we go a day without being reminded about the quakes?
If it is a work day for Karl, then that is pretty hard because his workplace has still got fenced off areas where buildings are being repaired and some buildings have gone altogether. If it is a school day we can't help but notice that we are driving in the opposite direction to get Lucy to her school, rather than heading into the city.
At home life is normal because we have got used to living with taped up cracks in the floor and then sometimes I remember that we didn't used to live with things like that.
Thankfully our water is finally back to being delicious, Christchurch water so we don't need to use the filter jug anymore to get rid of the chlorine taste. Our tasty tap water has always been one of the things I loved about Christchurch and when it was gone, it was depressing.
A couple of days ago I went to get some things and I thought I knew where the shop was. But, of course, this is post quake Christchurch so when I got there, it wasn't there anymore. Fortunately because I live on the western side, another shop has ended up moving to our side of town and I could get what I was after.
But today we were driving over the other side of town and went passed a house that looked like it had been picked up and dumped off its piles. It still looked like a lovely house but it was on a huge angle. The yard was all overgrown. I couldn't help but think about the people who had lived here before. It looked like it used to be a well kept house. I wondered where they are this Christmas.
There are many things to be thankful for this Christmas but never before has it been the simple things of everyone in the family making it through to the end of the year and still having a house that keeps us warm and dry and has power and tasty water.
The one thing I will miss from 2011 was being helped and helping strangers. It was surprisingly fulfilling for differences to be cast aside, everyone being on the level and us all just being humans helping each other get through.
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