20 months later the house is being fixed

Shift in paint on the floor from when the
house was built shows the floor movement
on the other side of the crack

The message on my phone, said call home urgently. I rang Karl and he said he had finally found out at 1pm, the date we needed to be out of house for repairs to start - the movers were to come the next morning at 8am.
To rewind, the date we had initially been told was 2 April so we had packed up most things, (with the help of my fabulous in laws) and had been living for the last two and half weeks trying not to reopen already packed boxes. The standard answer when going to do anything was a frustrating, "it's been packed."
Now it was all on. With the help of Sam we finished packing everything up and surprisingly were ready for the next morning. I went off to work awaiting a text to tell me where to bike home to in the evening.
Yet again wonderful friends came to our aid and looked after the kids so Karl could help the movers. The earthquakes have definitely showed me we can't do this living thing alone, we need each other. Without help from family and friends, we would not have even been ready.
That night we finally settled in a motel for four nights. The kids had gone a bit crazy, with the uncertainty of it all. They went north to Nelson.
The builder began working on the house.
I thought it would be like being on holiday, but it was not. We were trying to live our normal lives and then there was a whole extra level of detail going on regarding our house, finding accommodation and adjusting to living somewhere different.
When EQC came after September and again after February they did all the assessment, we showed them things we knew were caused by the quakes and they found other damage. Then that report went onto Fletchers. Now they had started fixing things, EQC seemed to want to change things or at least seemed to be trying to make us feel guilty for the repairs. Because our slab was cracked right across the width of the house - through the toilet and bathroom, hall and bedroom - it was decided to pull up the carpets to see what was happening. You could see where the floor had moved one way, while the wall had remained. We knew when the carpet was pulled up either it would be good news and there would no more cracks or there might be more, but we were happy it was coming up so that could be checked. Thankfully there were no further cracks but then EQC questioned why it had been done. We were already tired, and trying to get on with work and life, it seemed like another attack from the quakes. My brain felt overloaded with everything
I knew at the end our house would be repaired and lovely. We were taking the opportunity to pay extra to get work done, we had been about to do before the February quake hit.  We had been waiting for EQC to repair the quake damage before we could do what we wanted.

We have now been out for  a week and are currently staying at the neighbour's. Today we organised motel accommodation for when the kids return because it would be too many to stay here. We finally have all the nights we are out of the house accounted for. This was the annoying thing about the dates being moved, we couldn't book accommodation in advance as we had initially planned.
Two years ago if you had asked what I thought about sending my daughter to Nelson during school term time for a week and half, I would have wondered why and how much she would miss her friends, but it was the best thing to do. They have had a chance for a break from the craziness we are living through.
When looking for accommodation, one motel asked us who we were insured with. They smiled and said we would be fine and would be looked after by our insurance company, it would appear others are not being so helpful. The motel guy said the bigger units were in constant use by families moving out for house repairs.
There are so many houses to be repaired and it seems despite agreeing to work EQC are prepared to keep shifting what they believe needs doing. It is hard when you are tired and just wanting to get back into your house. For those further down the track, I am guessing the fighting will have to be more vigorous.
After the house, there is still the driveway, that was looking good to get repaired, right up until the December 23 quakes and then it all went quiet from the insurance company.
It is a long journey for this city.

Sunday Again

This morning, while standing in church, I was suddenly remembering a year ago.
A year ago on this Sunday it was a sunny day in Nelson.  I am a planner and that week I had packed for Nelson at 3am - pretty useless packing job it was too and we had left Christchurch that morning with no real plans of what would happen after that.
We had gone to church that Sunday at my late Grandparents old church. It turned out quite a few people from my past go there now and it was like being surrounded by family but it was also foreign. They acknowledged what had happened that week in Christchurch and then moved on with their service. It felt so far removed from the turmoil of feelings inside me.
Every time someone had opened the doors at the back, the rattle had reminded me of an aftershock and my heart had leapt. We were in the process of finalising our decision to shut our relatively new retail business so it could become an online only shop for awhile, we had already enrolled Lucy in the local primary school in Nelson and were planning to head back to Christchurch the next day leaving our children behind in the safety of Nelson and their Grandparents, the first time we had left three year old Tristan without us for longer than overnight. At that stage we knew our home still didn't have water or power.
This year it is so different. Tomorrow is also a new beginning as we swap over, Karl taking over the online business to build it up further and caring for the kids during the day and I am off to work. This time we planned the change.
We needed a new change, we've been living a temporary, dealing with things way of life since last year. Putting up with decisions made in haste or changed because of Feb 22. Tomorrow it is our change.
The quake backdrop will still be there though, the first task for Karl is to pack up everything ready for moving out in just over a month to move out so the house can be repaired.

A year on but still in it

A sand sculpture we made on 18 Feb
2011, when we had a different 2011
planned to the one that it became
on Feb 22 2011 at 12:51

It is hard to believe it is twelve months since the fatal quake hit Christchurch. The big quakes of September, June and December were nothing like February.
Its ramifications haven't gone away. We may have got through the first lot of temporary measures but for things like Lucy's school displaced from the city centre, there are the ongoing decisions of what the future might look like. So many times today, I realised things were different whether it was what I do with my day or driving down a road, now changed daily with traffic cones so one way is always two lanes, or driving past buildings that are gone. All of these little things I don't notice anymore but they are all due to February 22 2011.
The weather this afternoon was eerily like last year. When I think of the big September quake, I think of a loud mixture of noise that reminds me of Dr Who's TARDIS on the move. When I think of February I think of incessantly sounding alarms and that night of the silence between aftershocks - no power, no buses and little traffic on the road and the numbness of knowing people were dead.
I am still buoyed by the awesomeness people showed in those early days. The vast majority helped each other, whether we knew each other or not. I will never forget that. It took away my often cynical view of our city - when we needed each other, we really stepped up in a multitude of small ways.
I briefly saw a snippet of one of the memorial services on the television this morning and the sign guy was signing and it made me smile, how he became an instant hit. Flowers in the traffic cones - a little idea that spread city wide - have made me smile all day.
It is hard to know whether good or bad decisions are being made here about demolitions or cordons or city planning but it is a city where we all have to live intentionally. Small businesses have been hit so hard in the last year and without support, could easily disappear. Many other organisations and schools that have suffered are also working hard to keep moving forward. It really is a place that what we individuals choose, does make a difference to what will be here in the future. I think that is why I liked the flowers in the cones, in many small ways, we can decide what the city will look like.

Lego man vs the weeble wobble - Christchurch aftershock headlines vs real life

We went away for a week in early January. I was checking the Stuff website most days first thing in the morning, to see if Christchurch was okay. I just wanted to know it was still there.
While we were away there were headlines about Christchurch suffering more shakes. There were about three 4.8s, a couple of 5s, a 5.1 and a 5.5 as well as all the usual littlies that you don't really feel. The 5.5, surely would mean the earthquake art had rearranged itself - we had set it up again after the larger shocks on 23rd December. I wondered what else had fallen over.
We got home and very few things had fallen. Even the little canvas picture that usually falls off in anything over a five was still sitting merrily on its little shelf.
This was the earthquake art.

Before we went on holiday

After all the shakes while we
were away

Yes, that was all, one little lego guy took a tumble across the desk. The weeble wobble was still sitting merrily on its rickety tower.
That is the weird thing with news articles, of course they have to tell the worst but it doesn't really tell you what it is like, which you think it should.
These current aftershocks were now out further east. We were the furtherest we had ever been from all the shaking. So at our place, it would appear things were pretty good. I didn't realise until this whole sequence started back in Sept 2010, how unique is everyone's perspective, even when a natural disaster hits an area. The shakes feel different everywhere. I have heard quite afew people be reassured once they have felt a shake in a new location - it gives a reference point to know how that building behaves. It helps you know how to react.
So the short articles of widely felt aftershocks told me very little about my house and if you ask someone who is there, the reply is standard and it is one, I say all the time too. "It's fine. They are no big deal." But I guess if you are the lego man - it does feel quite a big deal.

A New Year

Like so many in Christchurch my thoughts at this New Year are different from the start of 2011. My friend sums it up so well on her blog here.
Last year we were very glad to see the end of 2010. With its September quake and for us other stresses and strains, we couldn't imagine a tougher year. We were so keen for 2011 to start.
2011 made 2010 seem like the appetiser, (I can only hope that means 2012 is the dessert).
Everyone is at different spots in their quake experience. Some of my friends have moved house and moved on. They have already started new lives, post quakes. The start of our 2012 looks like it is going to be messy with floor coverings all being lifted to check the extent of our damage and moving out a few months later to fix everything once a complete picture of the damage has been worked out.
All this makes me feel a little tired before we have even started.
And the quakes seem to be continuing. I think they are now saying we are having the pleasure of a 1 in 10,000 year event. Lucky us!
But despite that, we went camping after Christmas and it was stunning. We had the area mostly to ourselves. We went to sleep and woke up to bird calls. We spent a morning on a beach with only a seal for company and the odd kayaker and boatie. I felt lucky to live on these shaky islands because regardless of natural disasters, they are hard to beat.
Our malls and our airport may have shut temporarily on the 23 December but it was temporary and it was proactive. The buildings weren't falling down, they were shut for them to be checked carefully by engineers and then reopened if safe. The majority of the houses keep standing through all the thousands of shakes.
There are some things that are harder to control - like the body. I am still reacting to rumbling noises, even if not in Canterbury, before my brain can catch up and tell my body it is okay and there is no need to be on edge. This past year has definitely given me a better understanding of my body and other people.
The story in this radiolab podcast at 9 minutes 20, by Steven Johnson explains why my body reacts as it does to sounds that might be quakes. I understood this podcast because I feel this all the time at the moment.
There was another story in a podcast from the Moth in which Elif Shafak describes the response of her neighbours after they had a big quake in Turkey. I was listening to this and I knew the ending before she gave it. I knew how humans acted after such events.
It may have been a really crappy year but I learnt a lot. I don't know what will happen in 2012 but I think we are ready to roll with whatever is thrown at us and support each other.
It seems strange to have found some sort of inner peace in the most disturbing of years.

We can go to town!

Typical Colombo Street -
a bit like pre February.

This week was a week of anticipation. We knew at the weekend we could go back into part of Cashel Mall. We took a walk to check it out on Thursday and it was busy with people and equipment frantically getting ready. I wondered how I would feel. Would it feel scary? Would it feel sad? Would I be prepared to sit in there and have a coffee?

We are now having aftershocks only rarely. Three weeks ago we had a 5.5 but there was not the cluster of a lot of larger shocks afterwards as we have had before. Since then I have felt one small one and heard one. It feels like the earth is going quiet again.

Sunday afternoon we drove into the city. It was surprisingly exciting, to be able even to say we were going to town. We walked in down Worcester Street, over the road and joined a steady stream of people walking down the path by the river to Hereford Street. The fences had moved back up Hereford Street. We could cross Oxford Terrace. It felt like we were stepping into a new future. 

On the corner was the Vero building with the Boulevard Cafe under it. The building stands alone, the two on either side have been demolished. Three bulldozers still sit on the remains of the old Viaduct and the Bangalore Polo Club or whatever the latest names of those bars were - now they are gone I can't remember. The Vero building appears to have a green sticker but the Boulevard is not open.

On the other corner of Oxford Terrace with Cashel Mall, is the Tap Room. We peer through the windows. There was a table sitting with a glass knocked over and a hat neatly folded opposite it. Another table has two wine glasses standing, stained with evaporated red wine. Everything is covered in dust. As we walk up the mall with many others, we walked past a large carpark where The Bog and Cafe Bleu and shops used to be. 

On the other side of the mall are still some yellow stickered shops like Dimitri's and Radar Records. Radar is still all boarded up. We then came to the new part. The brightly coloured containers were fantastic and they are arranged in squares so it is not just a dull strip. They were so packed with people we couldn't even get in them. There were queues for the coffee shops. With so much gone, it takes a bit of effort to stop, stand and remember what it used to look like. It is definitely a new place. 

We walked up to Colombo Street, where the new fence is. Some people were crying, many others were looking happy. 

It didn't feel scary and I didn't feel sad. It felt lovely to wander with so many other people back in our city.  I could see the inner city being, again. But it was also sobering. You can walk down Colombo Street to Lichfield Street but none of those shops were open, it was hard to tell if their stickers were faded green or yellow. They were partly tidied up but still with piles of stock and shop fittings inside them. 

It is going to be a difficult journey with different agendas fighting it out and I know some things will make me upset, I am already cross that Trade Aid wasn't there, seemingly not wanted.  But I left with a mostly happy heart and wearing my watch. I finally this week got my watch strap repaired (not in town, just round the road) - it broke a couple of days after the February quake and it has been sitting waiting for me to get around to getting it fixed all this time.

Changing Safety Announcements

There has been an interesting progression in safety announcements here in the, getting less shakey, city.
After September (we identify our quakes simply by month) at the beginning of an event, the organiser would say in a jovial, chatty type way what to do if there was another aftershock. They would mention the word aftershock and they would just very quickly point to the exits and say where the meeting point was. There would usually be a bit of laughter from the audience and we would all assume, it would be unlikely. Then everyone would move on.
After February there was no more joking about aftershocks. The announcement was given completely seriously, the word aftershock or earthquake was used but then the explanation was pretty simple "you know what to do" and we all did.
After June, it has changed again. Now we appear not to like calling them by name. Now the announcer says something like "If we have one of those..." or "If something beginning with 'e' should happen.." but while the first part is now very downplayed what follows seems to be an extensive explanation of just where the exits are, sometimes repeating this and what to do once you have reached outside. This part is quite serious now. There are no titters from the audience, but a careful note of where the exits are - just in case. There is never any mention of fire, which is what I always remember such announcements being for.
Maybe in the new year, it will change again.

Where's an extreme makeover when you need one?

Old lease sign on the inside,
red sticker on the outside

It was a weekend of contrasting cities.
On Friday night I went to a parent get together for Lucy's homebase (class). At one point we talked about February 22nd. It was the first time we had talked about it as a group and with Lucy's learning advisor (teacher). I learnt a lot more about just what it was like for Lucy on that day and what was going on the minds of those right with her.
On Saturday we joined a big queue to go onboard the US Globemaster - an enormous plane, heading down to the ice on the Monday. The US army guys were amused about how many people turned up to view it. Apparently they have never had so many in Christchurch come to one of their open day events.
Later on Saturday I flew out to Wellington and Sunday I was down on the waterfront. That afternoon was the Canadian, All Black game and fans of both sides were decked out. It was busy, exciting and entirely different to the World Cup experience in Christchurch. Not because we cannot have fun down here; the arts festival events I have been to, have been well attended and everyone was in a happy mood at the globemaster open day.
But there is an underlying weariness in Christchurch. We do get up and go to work and school and preschool, each day like before. It is a busy place but it is definitely not the same Christchurch of fourteen months ago.
I am not the same. On the Wellington waterfront I went to the toilet in one of the public toilet trucks. While in the cubicle, the door started rattling. I can still see the lock banging against its holder. I wasn't afraid but I became aware, that I had completely frozen and was just staring at the lock, waiting to see what would happen next - would it get bigger? Should I prepare? Then my brain caught up with what my body was up to. It was just somebody walking up the outside steps onto the truck. My body reacted without any thought from me. It was a strange thing.
Back here, as we landed in the city of fences, shipping containers (I never knew they had so many uses) and cones, I felt the weight fall on all of us.
I have been thinking about one of those episodes of extreme makeover, where in two days they complete a rebuild. But even just starting would be difficult - insurance would be the first hurdle.
Insurance seems to be especially hard if you are building or renovating. The easiest way around the problem currently is just to steam ahead uninsured. After the September quake there was the opinion that not having your house insured was insanity and only for the foolish - the quake being the proof. Now it seems the most logical solution to the current problems. How quickly things change here.
Almost everyday there are new consequences of the quakes. We have water restrictions about to start this week, for the first time in thirteen years. People, near abandoned homes still deep in liquefaction, are worried about the ongoing dust and how bad it will get with nor'westers this summer.  Even though we are fortunate to be mostly back to normal life - it is still thing, upon thing that keeps pulling us back to being quake town residents.

Memories

One of the things that I thought ghastly would be losing my memories, if I got something like alzheimer's when I was older.
I think of memories as a core benefit of life. Reliving funny events or even just tiny events that made up, my life. I love them and enjoy them in my head.
In Christchurch we have seen endless photographs and YouTube videos of the ever changing inner city landscape. I am a city person, I am not a mall person. Every day I was in the central city. Karl works there, we went there in the weekends to eat or shop or walk about.
I have been upset at the destruction of so many heritage buildings and concerned about what would rise in its place.  But I did keep telling myself they were just buildings. I started taking notice of buildings that would be repaired and thinking, it will be okay we will still have some old ones remaining.
But it was only last week as I drove past a part of the cordon again, that I realised quite what had happened.
This part of the cordon used to be a row of shops, half in collapse. Wood and bricks everywhere. Little bits of signage or a partial glimpse of a small section of still intact interior - a reminder of what used to be here. Now it is all gone. It is an empty piece of concrete stretching an entire two blocks.
I saw a clip on YouTube of a street I had been down many times but now one side is blank. Nothing remains. The other side is so familiar and though I try to dredge up what used to be opposite I can't.
I hadn't realised I had stored my memories in those facades. Now nothing is left, not a sign, not a piece of metal filigree, not a lump of stone or brick.
The memories are going too. There is nothing left to tease the thread to pull them back.
They are only stories from the past but people I have met starred in them and I had thought they were always safe inside my head.

Kids are weird

Tristan on 22 Feb

Last week it was pleasant, having not felt an aftershock for seven days. The kids were sitting on the couch together and then Tristan said, "I hope we get more aftershocks because I like doing the turtle." It seemed an odd thing for him to say - the boy who took until November last year to be able to go to bed without having be reassured it was safe. We even did fake aftershocks, by rocking his bed, to show him he would be fine.
Lucy joined in, almost slightly guiltily, saying she hoped there would be too. This was from someone who was in the city centre in February and whose behaviour becomes terrible if she sees footage from that day.
They definitely get an adrenaline hit every time a decent shake wobbles us.
After the big ones, such as the ones in June, rules get relaxed, we usually have a random tea of something easy to cook (if we have power), and very tasty. If the water is off, they get to wee in the garden - which Tristan thinks is fantastic. They get to sleep in our room, if they are scared. We have treats and spend time with our neighbour.
They are kids from the southwest, so don't fear liquefaction and for Tristan, quakes have gone on for a quarter of his life.
The idea of the quakes stopping, for them, seems now as unbelievable as if feels for us that they started and are still going.

Rugby World Cup Slight Cough

Bridge of Remembrance Fence

Rugby fever has hit the country and we in Christchurch have only managed a slight cough. We were watching the opening celebrations for the Rugby World Cup in Auckland and the mayor, Len Brown asked the crowd to cheer for Christchurch and they all did, very enthusiastically and I shed a tear.
It hit my heart, just how big this situation is. This is a party our city was to be part of. I care little these days for rugby, but the city would have been full of life. We were to have English and Argentinian supporters here for the first game. The atmosphere would have been great.
Instead I watch much of our city centre slowly being pulled down. Every time I drive past it, I see people standing at the fences looking in.
I think the rest of the country understands this was a big tragedy but I am not sure, in Christchurch, all of us quite get the scale yet. We are too busy dealing with the practicalities of it in our daily lives to sit back and take the big picture in. But despite the tragic big picture, all over, the city lives and works on - we are in the middle of an Arts Festival with a wonderful series of events. This is not a dead city at all.
When I hear support and sympathy from outside, the reality of just how big a recovery we have to make, starts to dawn. The officials are talking of a fifteen year strategy to rebuild the city. I love the new central city plan but I will be fifty three years old before it is complete. Lucy will be twenty one. If we stay here long term, her complete childhood will be in a city in transition and rebuild. I have to pause, - because I never added up the years before and it makes me very sad.
Yes, we are still going on about the quakes here more than the rugby, because it dominates our world. At least by talking about it, we keep moving on and it is easier to bear together.

The Little Things

A few of the many hearts hanging in
the museum

While there are the big issues of insurance, reinsurance, red zone residents packages and land as yet waiting for a decision on zoning these are the little things that surprise me in their sadness and their happiness:

Things that make me sad:
- Watching the light turn green at what used to be a busy inner city intersection, but only my car goes through the intersection and the traffic waiting on the red are two huge trucks for carrying demolition material.
- The filter jug sitting on the bench. One of the things I have always loved about Christchurch was our beautiful water but now it tastes of chlorine and we use the filter jug to make it drinkable.
- Hearing on the news that of those hit by Hurricane Irene in the States only 17% have federal flood insurance. Living through Christchurch 2011 has made me feel much more for people in the aftermath of natural disasters. They linger in my heart instead of being replaced with the next headline. I now realise just how long and tragic recovery is.

Things that make me happy:
- Joining in the mass hug for Christchurch on Sunday September 4th - we talked freely with strangers and that lovely community spirit we felt after Sept 4th & Feb 22nd was right there again but without a shake.
- Laughing with a stranger in the supermarket at tall glass bottles of coffee flavouring on a top shelf. Had they learnt nothing in the previous twelve months?
- Slightly odd but thinking someone I haven't seen since just before Feb 22, was back in town. Are they really back? I am still not sure but as I try to find out - it makes me surprisingly happy to think they maybe.
- Seeing all the hearts, crafty people made for Christchurch, on display in the Museum. It is lovely being able to visit the Museum again. It is almost exactly as it was other times I have visited and that was so relaxing. Something that has remained the same in twelve months. The hearts almost made me cry. Someone had cared enough, from seeing our city on the news, that they had made a heart and bothered to send it over -it was quite overwhelming  and there wasn't just one, there were loads. Some had wee messages cards like, "thinking of you and praying for you all from Val, Oxfordshire" and the one from Pat in New Orleans. They may seem frivolous and not practical helping, but our spirits need help too. Since I saw them on Sunday, I keep thinking of them and that people cared when we were broken and it makes my spirit glad.

A week on from the start of the quakes - this was what I was thinking last year. It feels so long ago now and so innocent of just what we had ahead of us in February.

Almost one year on

It is hard to believe we are almost a year from September 4th 2010 when our region started its sporadic shaking. On the day the headline in the paper was about the increased cost to EQC we had our house assessment. We had heard so many stories of bad EQC assessments, so were quite nervous about what would happen. It was like our house was sitting an exam and we waited, hearing snippets of comments and answering questions. Our house will be repaired and the EQC guys were excellent. But we are also part of the increased amount EQC need to pay. We have gone from damage of around $1600 to damage over $10,000 from the February quake. We now join another queue for Fletchers to fix it back to how it was a year ago. It may be a year but we haven't got very far to being back where we were pre September 2010.
It is so very strange, I still find it hard to face what I lived through. I can't believe everything that has happened and how afraid I have felt in my own bed at times. I now understand just what aftershocks mean. I am disappointed that even as the aftershocks get smaller, my reaction to them as not grown smaller with them. We had two fours on Wednesday but they made me feel uneasy for a few minutes. Fours never used to worry me when we were having them all the time. I think as we get further and further out from the big shakes, the emotions come more to the surface. I haven't been dealing with those while busy dealing with getting on with normal life. Then last night we were woken at 3.30am by a 4.9. Long and rolling and we could hear a few things fall down. The kids didn't come running in like they used to in the early days, they are used to this new world we live in. They said on the news this morning we'd had twenty-five shakes in the last week but I felt three.
Christchurch is such an unusual place so much of the city is going as it always was, making it ridiculous for any suggestion the city should be completely abandoned. Other parts just aren't. Anyway insurance doesn't let you get out that easily and we have jobs and much of the city is busy like any other in New Zealand. Driving around I see restaurants or shops from the central city relocated and open, it is like visiting family and finding old friends are there already.
One good thing to come through this whole experience has been the community spirit. It is okay to help strangers and to ask strangers for help. But it is also sad to see the cracks start to appear and the media try to push us all apart. East verses West. We have enough issues without taking it out on each other. I really hope we can all keep caring for each other - not passing judgement on each other's experiences and thinking before we speak whether what we say will put others, already under stress, feel worse. It is hard to hold everyone's comments lightly. We are all tired and even it we don't admit it, emotionally affected, by the last twelve months. It is easy to say one thing now and feel different later. Things are constantly changing here.
I am glad for the lights they are putting up in the central city to mark the anniversary. It is so sad to look in at a desolate, dark central city when it should be alive and bright on a Friday or Saturday night. The light will stop that stomach clenching sadness.
On Sunday we will go and join in the hug Christchurch - the place definitely needs a hug but when you hug someone, it is in support and you do it because you know together you can pull through anything.

Echoes of the Day

We are getting well into the swing of our new post quake lives here but then something catches you out.
I was driving through Sydenham the other day, because it was the quickest way to get to where I needed to go. I hadn't been down that part of Colombo Street for some time. I have shopped on and off in Sydenham over the past thirteen years so I had a good handle on what it used to look like. It was not somewhere I thought of as pretty. In many places it was quite run down and a little icky - it needed a bit of a decluttering and a clean up.
Now when you drive up Colombo Street between Brougham and Moorhouse - much is gone. It is about four blocks and each block on one side of the road or the other, the majority of the block is just empty space - nothing there at all. I crossed the intersection of Sandyford and Byron Streets and three of the four corners were blank, demolished spaces. I nearly cried. I was surprised at my reaction but it just seemed so sad that history and little businesses had been totally erased.
On Tuesday this week at 12:40 ish there was a sizable aftershock south west of the city. I didn't feel it at all as I was in the car. It was quite close to Lucy's temporary new school location. It was a Tuesday again and at a similar time of day - lunchtime and to her, it started in just the same way as the big one on February 22nd. She cried. I didn't realise any of this until I went to pick her up after school. She was fine by then but it was the first thing she told me about. How she had made herself into a turtle and covered her head and listened to the shelves with rocks and shells rattling in the cabinet beside her. That is the weird thing with these aftershocks they are so psychological. For me it was as if nothing had happened that day but for her she was back with some of those scary feelings from February.
I can easily tell people our story of February 22nd and what happened but I don't revisit the feelings and emotions. Sometimes I see them as if through a door crack and I don't want to get any closer to them - they are something of the past and even now almost beyond my comprehension.

Quake aftermath

This is what I . wrote last time, a week after the quake.
It is not like that this time. We are sleeping better because the aftershocks are not as frequent or as large but everything is different. Last time I said the aftershocks "are now just part of life". It is not the same now. We had an aftershock last night and my body reacted so badly - my heart was racing and the adrenaline started pumping and although I don't want to admit it I was terrified. I think it is because last Tuesday, I thought it was just another aftershock and I didn't initially react and as the shaking got worse and we huddled under that counter listening to crashing glass, I still didn't really believe what was happening. Now my body thinks any of these aftershocks could develop like that. My head can tell you all the scientific data and the logical sequence of aftershocks but my body no longer trusts the brain and reacts all on its own before any signal from my thoughts.
We still do not have any water. We thankfully have power. Last time I was already talking of moving on and getting on with life. I was preparing to go back to the central city for Lucy's school the following week. There is none of that this time. Instead I get messages from people no longer coming back to Christchurch. They have lost their businesses or their jobs. Many people have left town temporarily. Our future is completely different too, with the shop shutting and working out how we can do markets and keep the webshop going.
Today I was looking in the boxes of sticky products, I was straight back there with the smell of sauces combining and the crashing and shattering of glass.
This is going to be a long process - for our city and for our hearts.

6.3 Christchurch's dark day

I was in our shop, talking with a customer when the ground began to sway. I wasn't worried we have had loads of aftershocks and the shop has always been the safest place to be. Nothing falls off the shelves. The customer started to looked stressed, I was about to say, don't worry nothing falls here, when the shaking just got worse and worse. I grabbed the lady and we hugged under the counter. I rubbed her back as if she was one of my children. Bottles crashed off the wall shelving, smashing on the concrete floor - filling the air with the smell of quality sherry vinegar and the tang of chilli sauces and sweet kecap manis.
The ground stopped and we stood up, our hearts pumping. We surveyed the damage and went outside. The traffic was building up, the lights were out and we had no power. I realised my cellphone was beeping. Lucy was at school in the CBD. I had no idea the damage there and just figured she would be fine but I didnt know how we would get to her. Karl was at home on his day off with Tristan. He rang and I told him the damage to the shop. He was off into the city to find Lucy. Texts came all out of order. Details trickled to us that things were quite bad around town. I started cleaning up, cutting my fingers on bits of glass. I checked on neighbouring shops. People checked on me and we talked and commiserated and passed on the small nuggets of information we had. Karl still hadn't found Lucy. TIme ceased to have any meaning.
The sun was gone behind the clouds and as it got darker, I continued to sweep up the floor. Then wham another large aftershock hit and more bottles crashed onto the floor. I sat under the counter in tears. I lost it - the mess was worse. The hours of picking things up and starting to clean up was wasted. A middle aged man was walking past. He came in and reached down and held my hand. I calmed my shattered nerves and got back to cleaning. Two Burnside high school students came in and helped shift all the stock down onto the ground. They stayed and help clean up.
Then Karl arrived with the kids and we hugged and I burst into tears. We were together and safe. We tidied up as best we could. The floor still slippery and smelly with flavours. Then we went home.
On the drive home I looked at my watch it was 4:30pm - where had the day disappeared to?
I had barely eaten a thing.
Our driveway had a small hill and a pile of liquefaction. Things had fallen and broken in the aftershocks since Karl had left the house. The toilet floor had a crack through it. Our neighbour was home and okay and we went over to his house, pooling our food resources before they were destroyed from no power. Then some work colleagues of his arrived with a packed car of belongings. Their house in Mt Pleasant was broken and so were many of their neighbours. They told us people had died and we realised just how serious it was this time.
As the darkness filled our home and the rain began to fall outside, we went to bed - all in one room. This time I was in bed in clothes - shoes & jacket by the bed. I listened to the radio trying to work out how bad things were. Tristan fell asleep but Lucy lay awake and so did we. Every few minutes we were shaken by more aftershocks. They kept coming. Lucy finally fell asleep around midnight.
Karl got the call to go pick up a doctor friend from his work at the Latimer Square triage - pressed into action after visiting Christchurch to run a workshop. Karl left not knowing how driving would be and how far into the city he could get.
I cuddled up in the duvet, in the dark and the shaking, my body still tense, waiting for him to come back. He came home with stories and we tried to sleep. I felt myself start to drift and then my body would involuntary jump and I would be awake. Cramp squeezed my legs and feet.
I finally fell alseep around 6 am and then at 7am Tristan was beside me, asking for breakfast. The aftershocks continued and we decided what we were going to do.
We fled to Nelson and then we saw the coverage - the damage to the central city, the very streets Lucy had walked down with her classmates to congregate at the botanical gardens.
It is unreal. We are trying to make decisions on our future and it feels like this is a new beginning. Nothing will ever be the same. We had an old life, now we need to work out a new life - whatever shape that will take.

Aftershocks

You don't appreciate the stress of aftershocks until you've experienced them. Being without power all day Saturday we only caught the end of a tv special on prime and Eric what'sisname and Barry bowtie guy were saying how they were from Hawke's Bay and Wellington so knew about earthquakes and were asking whether Christchurch people were nervous due to not being used to feeling earthquakes.
Umm no.
Sure the aftershocks were of a variety of strengths but the problem is that everytime one is a stronger magnitude, your body reacts to the memory of the big one. Adrenaline starts to flow and you are on edge once again.
Most people now don't even care about any aftershock under 4. Between 4 and 5, the conversation pauses, we wait - do we need to take cover or will it calm down? Over 5 we're moving to the doorframe and even if we don't make it, the heart is pumping and adrenaline is rushing again. We had a powerful jolt this morning that made some things fall down again. Afterwards we were shaking. Even though mentally we were okay, our bodies are really taking a hammering to the constant feeling of unease. Each big aftershock takes you back to sitting in the dark, hearing the rumbling and the banging of everything in the house.
The slightly less strong ones, there is the mmmmmmmm low rumble then shake, shake, shake and it passes on. Maybe 10, maybe 5 minutes or maybe an hour later mmmmmm shake, shake, shake again. And so the days go on.
Now on the fourth day, there are not so many little ones happening all the time, which is a relief for the nerves - just every now and then, bang. This can go on for days apparently! We are so lucky to be in a country with building codes such that many people are still in their own homes. I can't imagine going through this in Haiti or Pakistan surrounded by rubble and with nothing.
One day in the next month or so hopefully life will return to a more relaxed normal.