The earthquake's back

We had a lovely relaxing December and a glorious calm Christmas Day. Swimming, barbecue, relaxation, calls to family elsewhere around the world -- it was great.

On Boxing Day in the early hours of the morning we had a very big aftershock. Then at 8am we had another. Then at 10.30am we had a 4.9, shallow and located right under the city and therefore both frightening and damaging. People are freaked out and lots more buildings are cracked or otherwise damaged, but thank God nobody was killed (despite bricks raining down around tourists in Cathedral Square), and the infrastructure is fine.

Here are some photos from today. Lots of damage high up on buildings, cracked parapets and fallen bricks.

(Note: the street in the first photo was already damaged before Boxing Day, but not as badly as this.)

What will this weekend bring?

This weekend will be the three-month anniversary of the earthquake. We had big shakes on the one-month and two-month anniversaries. I wonder what December 4th will bring! It has been really quiet over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean there aren't more big aftershocks just gearing up to give us a wobble. The North Island got a couple of good-sized earthquakes a few days ago, but they get earthquakes quite regularly and nobody seemed to bothered. I do wonder if something down here triggered something up there.

One other thing this weekend will bring is the third anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand. It's hard to believe that it has been three years already. We've had our ups and downs, and we miss family and friends and Ireland, but still: no regrets. Moving here has been a wonderful experience overall, and I hope it continues to be one.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Two months on

Things have been relatively quiet recently, but two months on we are still getting aftershocks. Just after midnight we got a 4.2 and just before seven this morning we got a very shallow 4.1 which woke most people up. It reminded me of the bad old days in September when I was woken before my alarm on a daily basis. The first time that I slept right through until morning was wonderful!

Two months on and the rebuilding process has barely begun. The nightmare of red tape for doing anything with heritage buildings or any other work that needs consent is way more than I can go into here, but it is badly affecting a lot of people. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some building owners end up committing suicide because of the pressure they are under from all sides. Safety barricades are blocking the roads and preventing access to shops and businesses, people can't live or work in dangerous buildings, businesses can't reopen, the insurance companies won't pay out until they know what they're paying for, rebuilding can't happen without consent, consent can't be granted without money to pay for the consenting process, building owners can't pay out of their own pocket because they don't have any money left... It just goes on. I don't know what is going to happen to the unlucky folk caught in the middle.

I'm still waiting for the time to change on the clocks that were stopped by the first earthquake.The clock tower on the old train station on Moorhouse Avenue still reads 4.35ish on two faces (I think the other two read 6). It's a constant reminder of what happened.

NaNoWriMo 2010

Some of you may remember that last year I took part in NaNoWriMo, which is a one-month whirlwind of fiction writing. People across the world take part, writing a 50,000 word first draft of their novel during the month of November.

I finished my novel last year (well, I finished editing it last weekend, and am still not 100% happy with it) and decided to go for it again this time around.


I am still working on the plot, but here's the back-cover blurb. It could well change a little, a lot, or completely between now and November 30th, but it's a start.

Rose Cooper has almost everything a girl at the end of the nineteenth century could want: a loving family, a handsome suitor, a fulfilling social life, and a great future ahead of her. The only thing she doesn't have, the one thing which threatens to drive a wedge between her and the most important people in her life, is the vote.

The women in the fledgling colony of New Zealand are fighting to overthrow the Victorian oppression of the British Empire, and become the first in the world to have their say at the ballot box. Despite the misgivings of her family and the treachery of her opponents, Rose is determined to stand tall with her suffragette sisters as they fly in the face of everything society expects of them.  But is the price worth paying when every political move she makes threatens to tear her personal life apart?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Manchester Courts

Manchester Courts is a seven-storey building on Manchester Street in the city centre. It was built in the early 1900s and at the time was the first "skyscraper" in Christchurch. It's a listed heritage building, but unfortunately it was badly damaged in the earthquake and is very dangerous at the moment. A 5.5 or bigger aftershock would probably send it crashing to the ground.

This is how it looked before September 4th:

This is how it looked straight after the earthquake:

And this is how it looked last time I saw it:

 

That is normally one of the busiest streets in the city centre, and it is very strange to see it blocked off and completely empty of cars and pedestrians. Obviously the businesses in the immediate vicinity have been forced to close as well, which must be causing a lot of problems for their owners, staff, and customers. I found this out the hard way when I went on a lunchtime trip to Dick Smith's to buy a new pair of earphones, completely forgetting that Dick Smith's was located on this corner.

The demolition was bitterly opposed by those who thought the building should be saved at all costs, although I don't remember seeing any useful suggestions about how to raise the many millions of dollars that would require. If the building had a steel frame there might have been some hope for it, and newspaper reports from the time it was built suggested that there might actually be a steel frame, but that turned out to not be the case. Engineers used radar to scan for a steel frame and saw nothing, and then they drilled into the supporting pillars and found nothing but brick. The only steel is in some horizontal beams and internal columns, not in any of the load-bearing features.

The demolition is expected to take six weeks or so, assuming that Mother Nature doesn't speed things along. There is a webcam here where you can follow its progress (use that link, don't rely on this photo updating itself):

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: A very bad aftershock

Just before lunchtime on Tuesday we had a very violent 5.0 shake, shallow and close to the city, that caused minor damage in my office building and forced the evacuation of all staff for an hour while structural engineers were brought in to check the place. I understand that it caused more damage around the city to places that were already vulnerable. I took a half day from work so I could go home and check our own house. We have some more minor cracks and damage to plaster but nothing that looks serious.

I found this clip of a liquor store during Tuesday's aftershock. (For comparison, here is video from another branch of the same chain on the morning of the 7.1 earthquake.)

I can't help but feel that I partly brought this one on! I was at a vendor presentation that morning by an Australian company who are hoping to sell us some very expensive software, attended by about 20 local staff. The two presenters had just arrived in Christchurch and I thought to myself, "I hope we have an aftershock just so they see what it feels like." Twenty minutes later, BAMMM! The place felt like it was about to come down around our ears. Of course we had to stop the presentation because the building was evacuated, and I never went back. I wonder if the presenters (who had never felt an earthquake before) were able to hold it together for the rest of the session when they had just seen half their audience panic and run for the doors!

The panic reaction was quite interesting. I am not a panicker by nature (except inside my head), but I could feel the actions of those around me influencing me. A couple of people lost all dignity in their haste to run for the door and they spurred me into action, although in retrospect that was not the smartest thing to do at all because you're meant to duck and cover where you are even if there's nothing to duck under (I had been aiming for the nearest wall). At least one chair was knocked over and one lady had to be escorted out of the room afterwards because she just fell apart. If there had been a larger audience today that could quickly have become dangerous if the crowd lost control of itself.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Ongoing in October!

We still rock and we still roll. It's not to the same extent as last month, thank God, but still noticeable.

On Friday night I was playing pool with a few friends when a shallow 4.6 struck. The whole venue wobbled noticeably, resulting in what would have been a hush if the band hadn't kept playing, and the slight displacement of all the balls on the pool table, then a sudden burst of conversation. I have to say one thing about this earthquake: it has given us all something to talk about. No matter who you are, what you do, or who you know, there is common ground ripe for discussion. Over the last few weeks I have had heartfelt chats with friends, colleagues, cleaners, taxi drivers, neighbours, sales assistants, and random strangers at the bus stop. It's way better than the weather as a subject for small talk!

Most of the weekend was quiet, but this evening we had a 3.something that made the ground wobble as if we were at sea. Most of the aftershocks are shaky but some of them have a very rolling motion which leads to queasiness. It can go on for 30 seconds or more and leaves me feeling a bit strange for quite some time.

Looking back at the 7.1 and the immediate powerful aftershocks, the worst memory for me is the lack of any way to get away from this. There was no refuge, nowhere to flee to. Roads were broken (at the time we did not know how badly), the airport was closed, the port was out of action -- but even if those places had been available I would have been too scared to travel to them because the ground was so unstable. There was literally nowhere to go that would get me away from the earthquake. It's a horrible feeling to be scared and insecure in your own home. If your home isn't a refuge then what is? That first night I made a nest for myself in the bedroom, with emergency food supplies, torch and batteries, cellphone and charger, laptop and charger, and I holed up in there for the night. The ground woke me up on probably an hourly basis, but I felt safe there because nothing had fallen on the bed during the 7.1. Other things did fall in the room but nothing actually fell on me. I was by myself for a day and a half, until my husband got home from Ireland, and I barely left that room the whole time. I just didn't feel safe in the living room or kitchen, where so many things had already fallen over, and it took about a week for me to relax in those rooms or anywhere in the house outside the bedroom. As I said, it's a horrible feeling to feel insecure in your own home. I hope I never feel like that again.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: And still we rock and roll

Three hours after my last blog post we were hit by a 5.0 aftershock, the biggest in weeks. Clearly this isn't over yet.

At any other time a 5.0 would be a newsworthy earthquake. But because it followed a bigger one we have to just shrug our shoulders and put it down as an aftershock. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: One month on

It's hard to believe the earthquake happened a month ago. It all seems so long ago, and yet it's fresh in my mind too. We haven't had any noticeable aftershocks in a couple of days, but that doesn't mean they've stopped -- they're still going on and there's no guarantee that we won't have any more big ones. The three we had last Saturday night did some visible damage to the plasterboard in our living room, so I do hope we don't get any more like that, but nobody really knows.

Damaged plasterboard with the panels visibly out of alignment (ignore that bit to the left of the light switch)

The city feels largely back to normal, but of course it isn't normal at all. We're just doing better at looking past the broken buildings and the rubble. Many people still don't have basic sewage services in their homes, or even homes at all -- every day there are more stories of people packing their belongings and moving on. It must be very difficult to spend such a long time not even knowing if the house can ever be repaired, or even if the land can be built on again if the house is demolished.

Our City O-Tautahi -- an old council building, propped up from all angles

There are many businesses that can't reopen yet because they are beside or underneath something that has been damaged to the point of being dangerous. Ordinarily those dangerous buildings could be pulled down (although that is a huge job in itself), but the difficulty lies in deciding what to do with the ones that are a valuable part of the city's heritage. It could take years to make those right, but what happens in the meantime to the people who are affected by the very presence of a tottering mass of bricks?

The old Civic Building, with smashed and boarded-up windows

Just about everybody has minor damage to report even if there aren't any structural problems. As well as the damage to our plasterboard at home, there's clear evidence of it at my workplace and in just about everywhere else I've been. Of course it's hard to tell what cracks were there before the earthquake! But I'm sure most of the damage to concrete and brickwork is only a month old.

Emotionally I'm doing okay but not great. Loud or sudden noises make me flinch, and a rumbling lorry going past gets my attention now where before I wouldn't even have noticed it. It's hard to keep my mind from going back to September 4th and reliving the terror and uncertainty of the hours after 4.35am, and I don't know if it would be better to let myself think about it or to try and shove it away. Cycling to work through the city centre (my route takes me past many broken buildings) brings me to the verge of tears almost every day -- I feel wound up like a clock that is almost but not quite wound too far. All it will take is one more turn of that key and I'll go BOINNNG!!! and it will all come out.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Still ongoing

You may think that the aftershocks would have died down three weeks after the 7.1 earthquake. You'd be wrong.

Within the space of 15 minutes tonight we had a 3.8, a 4.1, and a 4.0 -- within 5km of us. They were centred on Oxford Terrace which is smack bang in the city centre. I wonder if they did any more damage to the buildings in the CBD... They really rattled our house quite vigorously and made a couple of precariously perched items fall off their perches.

My day up until this point was extremely relaxing (an aftershock woke me up at half nine but other than that it was a fairly quiet time) and this has completely wrecked my peace. Adrenaline is still pumping more than half an hour later!

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: More than two weeks later

The earthquake was more than two weeks ago now -- 17 days, almost -- and at last I find myself thinking of other things for most of the day. We have yet to go long without detectable aftershocks, and we had a 4.6 magnitude less than 24 hours ago which left the whole house wobbling for at least 30 seconds afterwards, but they are definitely less frequent.

I am back to my normal job in my normal office building, although not at my own desk. The earthquake damaged important things like fire stairs so some areas of the building are still out of bounds. I'm currently sitting on the fourth floor mezzanine, with a huge concrete beam and cracked plasterboard directly above my head.

The city is no longer in a state of emergency, as things have been downgraded to a state of urgency. This is probably small comfort to the people who have been made homeless, or who still don't know if their house is safe enough to live in. In some cases they are hoping for a demolition order, which will at least allow them to take the insurance money and move on. The alternative is living in a damaged house on a street that nobody will ever want to buy on, but there will definitely be people stuck in that position too. Property values for houses that border on demolition zones are going to plummet, as with every subdivision built on land that we now know is prone to liquefaction. Who is going to want to buy a house there? Nobody who can afford to live elsewhere, that's for sure.

Walking around the city centre is surreal. Life is going on as normal almost everywhere, but then there are pockets where it's only a matter of time before the demolition equipment moves in. These buildings are just around the corner from my old office building (the one we only moved from a week before the earthquake). It's hard to see the damage in the second photo but up close the building is cracked and broken. There is a red placard on the door and little hope that it will be made safe for business anytime soon:

And here's my old office building itself. Poor old girl, she has seen better days, but she's still standing! I don't know what the future holds for this 1934 structure but I do hope it escapes demolition despite the current damage. It's a heritage building so worth saving if that's possible.

Although we are still getting aftershocks, the last fortnight is starting to feel like some crazy dream. It's not a dream that I ever want to experience again in my lifetime but it's starting to feel like this is almost over for me. I am one of the lucky ones, for sure.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Other people's stories

I didn't compile this but I did contribute to it. It makes interesting, and occasionally distressing, reading.

Earthquake Map

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Civil Defence

I thought last week that I wouldn't be on Civil Defence duty much as I didn't see how I had any practical skills that would be useful, but I was wrong. As part of my normal job I spend a lot of time working with people from all parts of Christchurch City Council, and I (and the other people in the same role as me) knew many of the people working at the Emergency Operations Centre. This made me a natural choice for working on the front desk, acting as an  interface between the public and external organisations and the inner sanctum of the EOC. I've put in more hours there this week than I would put in at my normal job, but it's all to the good. I've been delighted to be able to help.

The first shift that I was there, I brought supplies of fruit, water, and muesli bars with me, but I quickly realised that wasn't necessary. We have proper catering! Staff at the EOC get a proper meal at lunch and dinner, and I've heard there's a proper breakfast as well but I have been doing shifts from 1pm onwards so missed that. The food has been excellent and is a vital part of the whole operation, keeping staff properly fuelled rather than relying on energy drinks and junk food.

The response from the public has been incredible, too. We have had all kinds of people coming by with offers to help, offers of free/discounted services, or heaped plates of goodies for the staff. Lots of people who don't know how else to help have been baking cakes and biscuits and scones and muffins and bringing in sweets for us. There was also a lovely lady going around giving us free shoulder and hand massages to ease the tension! It really does mean a lot to know that we are in their thoughts, and the generosity has been astounding. If I am ever on the other side in this type of situation I'll try to remember this.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010, day ten

I can hardly believe it is Day 10 already. Ten days of trauma, stress, aftershocks, Civil Defence, uncertainty, and unity. We are still getting detectable aftershocks, but not as strong (nothing today has exceeded 4.1 so far) and not as frequent. I hardly dare to say it but it seems like we are getting back to normal. The scientists say there's still a risk of another 5 or 6, but with every hour that passes that risk lessens.

Today was a day off Civil Defence duties for me and Skry. We spent a few hours righting in the inside of the house (putting the bookcases back up if undamaged, throwing out the broken one, replacing things that have been on the floor for more than a week), and then enjoyed a couple of hours reading on the deck in the sunshine. It felt like summer holidays, not a state of emergency. He is off for another day but I'm back on the front desk tomorrow afternoon. I have been doing front desk duty at the Emergency Operations Centre, directing people to the right place or finding the right person for them to talk to. The army is helping me -- army reserves in camo uniform man the sign-in/sign-out desk -- and it has been quite enjoyable knowing that I am doing something genuinely useful. It can be upsetting when people come in who are facing the loss of their business or all their rental properties, but thank goodness I haven't had to deal with anybody who is losing their home. That must be horrible for everybody talking to them as well as the person themselves.


It will be a long time before Christchurch is back to normal, but for now I am just enjoying the normal feeling that we got today. I can deal with the ground shaking so long as nothing else falls down.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010, day seven

Did I tell you about the 5.1 mag earthquake we had on Wednesday morning? We thought we'd had a terribly strong aftershock from the original quake, but it was actually a quake from a new fault only a few kilometres from here and did lots more damage around town. Buildings which survived the first quake with no damage didn't all survive this one, and it badly frightened a lot of people including me. For many of us this quake was just the last straw. The Civil Defence emergency headquarters at the Art Gallery had to be evacuated while the building was assessed (thankfully it stayed safe), and staff members were reduced to tears.

The 5.1 struck just before 8:00am when we were asleep. I dived off the side of the bed onto the floor, and Skry froze where he was to see what would happen. The whole house was rocking quite violently and making a tremendous noise, but although it was bad it was nothing like Saturday's earthquake. Nothing fell on the ground, probably helped by the fact that we haven't put anything back up that fell on Saturday. It's all just lying there, waiting for the aftershocks to stop.

My nerves were completely shattered by this and I couldn't bear to stay in the house just waiting for the next one. Skry came with me for a walk around the neighbourhood instead, where we saw many chimneys just barely keeping their balance, and some big cracks right across the road at the bottom of Linwood Avenue where it reaches the river. That is the edge of the Avonside area which has been very badly damaged this week.

By lunchtime it was obvious that I needed to get away from what was going on for the sake of my mental health. Skry and I joined the steady stream of people leaving the city (the queues at every operating petrol station were impressive) and fled to friends in Scargill, about 1.5 hours north of here. The aftershocks were barely detectable at their house, which I always love anyway because it's so relaxing in the countryside there. We had two wonderful nights of unbroken sleep and my nerves feel in a much better state now. I am so grateful to have friends in a position to give us the gift of sanity!

We are still getting aftershocks on a regular basis, of course, but I feel better equipped to deal with them. I know that many people haven't been lucky enough to get away, and the strain is definitely starting to show on those who have lost homes, businesses, or both. It must be devastating for them.

Here is a picture that I pilfered from the Stuff website. It shows the aftershocks we have endured this week. An impressive collection, isn't it?!

Christchurch earthquake September 2010, day four

When I said yesterday that the aftershocks were smaller and further apart, I was wrong. We got slammed last night.

11:24pm 5.2 mag
11.38pm 4.0 mag
11.40pm 5.4
11.47pm 3.7
11.54pm 4.2
00.21am 4.7
00.47am 3.5
00.51am 3.9
01.39am 3.4
02.52am 3.1
03.14am 3.7
03.24am 5.4
04.17am 3.5
05.14am 3.9
05.17am 3.3
06.22am 3.5
08.14am 3.6

As you can see, there were three aftershocks overnight of magnitude 5.2 or higher. These are big enough to qualify as earthquakes in their own right -- any one of them would be newsworthy, and we got three, along with plenty of smaller ones. These aftershocks caused more damage to the buildings that have already been damaged, and led to a refuge centre being evacuated, the airport's domestic terminal being temporarily closed when cracks appeared, and damage appearing in houses that had seemed unscathed up until now.

We are very fortunate to still have no visible damage to our house. The garage is damaged, but it was damaged already and it's hard to tell what was caused by the earthquake and what was caused by subsidence years ago. When we bought the house the garage was already cracked and broken along both long walls because one end of the building had sunk a little, but that could have happened any time since it was built. Anyway, we now have a broken window pane along the side, and I'm pretty sure the gaps around that window frame are bigger than they used to be, courtesy of either last night or Saturday morning. But honestly the garage should really be knocked down and replaced anyway, and we should be grateful that it's still standing after the battering it received this weekend.

Skry and I both ended up at work yesterday, helping at the Civil Defence headquarters based in the Art Gallery. He works in IT support and is very useful to them, but I don't have any skills that are particularly in need right now. I thought I'd end up making cups of tea for people, but even that was all in hand! It's a very well run organisation and I have great admiration for those in charge and all the volunteers doing their civic duty.

It's strange to see the Art Gallery used for this purpose, and it's not perfect because of the lack of desk space and IT equipment such as printers and network ports, but it's working so far. And for a building with so much glass in its frontage, it has held together wonderfully. There is no visible damage at all.

Skry has been rostered to do more shifts but I don't think I'll be called in again. Last night I volunteered, but I am really not the most useful person to be in there. If something comes up that I can really help with I'll go back, but right now I'm leaving it to those better qualified.

Today has mostly been aftershock-free since this morning, but it always seems worse in the evenings and overnight. There is no reason that should be, that I know of anyway, but I'm not looking forward to tonight if the pattern holds. I suppose we'll find out.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010, day three

We are starting to feel a bit more normal today. Aftershocks have been fewer, smaller, and further apart. But does that mean this is almost over, or are we still facing a second big quake? Nobody knows.

All we can do now is get on with life as normally as possible in a city where the central business district is closed off, businesses in Christchurch must not open until they have been assessed and deemed safe by a structural engineer, and those of us lucky enough to have running water have to boil it for three minutes before using it.

My employer has advised us not to come to work until the 13th unless we are specifically requested to come in. There are lots of people who have been called in because they are needed to help with the assessment and cleanup effort, but I can't see how my skills are helpful right now so I probably won't get called. Will wait and see.

My colleagues are all fine, at least the ones in my department, but two of them are out of their houses. One (and his wife and family) had chimneys fall through the roof, not sure about the other. Other people are without running water.

My brand-new office building has structural damage, which must be hugely disappointing for the people who worked so hard to make it perfect for us moving into it last week. But I have heard through my friend Fiona, who is at work now to do heritage assessments, that it should be okay. Let's hope her information is correct. The building I left a week ago was badly damaged and nobody is allowed back in, not even the people who hadn't moved yet and still had all their things there. It's another example of how lucky we were that this didn't happen during the day as I can't see how everybody would have lived through it.

Here is what's left of one of my favourite restaurants:

At least the owners have retained a sense of humour. Here's what it now says on their website:

ALVARADOS IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT (and has been totally remodelled).
Was a must for authentic traditional style Mexican Cuisine.
New menu out now! (if you find it blowing around on the street, could you return it please?)

Was fully licensed and BYO (wine only).

Was open Tuesday - Saturday from 5.30pm

Alfresco dining apparently isn't an option. Something to do with the lack of access, water, power and hygiene.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010

So, I have survived my first earthquake -- the first one I was consciously aware of, anyway. And boy was it a doozy. Christchurch was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 4.35a.m. today, jerking me out of a sound sleep and scaring the wits out of me too. As soon as I woke up I knew what was happening, because the signs were quite distinctive: the whole house was swaying and shaking, and things were crashing to the ground in every room. There was no way this could be mistaken for a burglary, or even a car crash outside.

It felt like the initial earthquake went on for half a minute or so, although I can't be sure about that. I was in the corner of our bedroom which seemed to be a relatively safe place, so I stayed there rather than dashing for the nearest doorway. Advice about where to position oneself during an earthquake seems to be conflicting -- should it be under a doorway or towards the outside walls of the house? The doorway might be more stable, but if the whole thing comes crashing down there's a better chance of being dug out if you're near the edge. Anyway, I stayed where I was and that was fine. We don't have much in the bedroom that is likely to fall down, so at least there weren't things falling around me or on top of me. The heater fell face-down onto the carpet and my makeup danced to the edge of the dresser and plummeted to the ground, but that was all. When the quake stopped I turned on the light, grabbed my dressing gown, and went to see what damage had been done in the living room.

I could hardly get through the living room door because there was a heap of CDs lying on the other side of it, topped off by the bookcase they had been stored in.

The television was okay! I had been sure it would get smashed, but a few months ago we bought a really sturdy entertainment unit with a wide top shelf, and thankfully that was enough to keep things steady. But the DVDs and their bookshelf had both toppled over, taking the ironing board with them.

There was some other minor damage -- a pot plant upside down on the carpet, baking trays on the kitchen floor -- but we really got off very lightly.

Just as I was assessing this, another quake struck. This one was a mere 5.3, but still very frightening. I didn't know if it was a proper earthquake or just an aftershock. Anyway, it wasn't enough to send anything else flying, so I calmed myself and continued around the house. The only other real destruction was in the study, where my big heavy bookcase had fallen down, breaking the short bookcase opposite it as it fell. We were very lucky that it missed all the expensive stuff in that room and took out the crappy piece of flat-pack furniture instead!

You may detect a theme here, and you'd be right. We have far too many unstable bookcases in our house. These all need to be screwed to the wall as soon as possible; if we'd done that already the house probably wouldn't have shown any damage at all.

Structurally things appear to be fine. I'm no expert, but I took a walk around the house and couldn't see anything that looked different from how it used to. We didn't lose power or water, and the sewage lines aren't obviously damaged. There have been aftershocks regularly ever since, for the last seven hours, but I'm hoping they will tail off. They make me feel frightened and seasick, and they scare the chickens.

The rest of Christchurch didn't get off so lightly. There has been terrible damage to some of the older buildings in the city centre. You can view photos here and read the current news articles here. I haven't ventured out of our street but I'm sure I'll see plenty of damage on my way to work on Monday.

That's all for now. I will blog more on this subject over the next couple of days.

Musings on handkerchiefs

Handkerchiefs -- or is it handkerchieves? -- are something that I have never used. That may partly explain why I don't know how to spell the word in the plural, so I shall just call them hankies from now on. My dad is the only person I can think of who always carried one and probably still does. I remember a few times when I was a little kid and was trapped in church with a runny nose. Dad would pass me his hanky, I would blow my nose heartily in it, and he would put it back into his pocket. The things fathers will do for their children obviously includes carrying their snot around for them. Nice.

For my whole adult life I have used paper tissues whenever I've had a runny nose or needed to quickly wipe my hands. I wonder how many tissues have gone into landfill purely on my account. Lots, I'm sure -- my nose is almost constantly wet, like a puppy, any time that the weather is cold outside and I'm moving between outside and inside. Temperature changes set it off every time! And most of the time it just needs a quick wipe and I'm good, but that's a whole tissue gone.

Now I'm thinking that it might be time to obtain a supply of cloth hankies and see how those work out for me. Some people think that it's disgusting to carry a used hanky around, and I totally agree with that if it's been used during the throes of a bad cold, but most of time there won't be very much actually going onto the cloth. Just grab a couple of clean ones every day, or more often if necessary, shove them in a handbag or pocket, and that should be it.

Now I just need to find somewhere that sells them. I know the Warehouse does, but they might not be the best quality. I want something soft, durable, and that washes well. Cotton or maybe linen. Actually I have no idea if linen would be soft or not. More research may be required!

Spring is in the air

It has been a long, wet winter, but things are starting to look up at last. The mountains are still covered in snow and we are forecast some icy wind and rain for the next few days, but at least today was warm and sunny. The daffodils are showing themselves, the cherry trees are in full bloom, and the weeds are growing like crazy.

We have what I believe is a greengage tree in our garden. It is attracting bees at the moment, which I love to see. Bees are great.

We also have some variation of box tree which smells like cocoa butter when it's in bloom. Yum.

This chocolate-smelling-tree (as I call it in my head) is a real indication for me that summer isn't too far away, and if I get the chance to sit out on our deck in the sunshine and smell it wafting over me then I'm going to do just that. I've managed it for the last two years so let's hope I manage it this year as well. I can hardly wait!

A self haircut

My hair was getting very long and scraggy, but I hate going to the hairdresser. It's so painful getting my hair washed at those basins where you have to lean backwards and put your neck onto that rock-hard porcelain. So I thought this time I would do it myself.

I didn't have the wit to take a proper "before" photo, but here I am with my hair parted (badly, it seems!) in various places, ready for snipping.

Snip snip.

Ta-da! I look cross, don't I? Think the light was in my eyes or something.

I was very cautious with this haircut because I hadn't tried anything so complicated before, but I'm really happy with it so I will cut it again soon and put in some more layers around the back.

I Love Egg

A friend of mine sent me a link to a silly cartoon video for a song called I Love Egg, which discusses the virtues of egg eating. Here's a link if you want to see it: I Love Egg video on YouTube. He specifically requested that I play it to our chickens and capture their reaction, so I did.

I lined up the song and took my laptop out to the deck. The chickens were all milling about, and of course they were interested in what I was doing, so I thought they would crowd around the laptop and perhaps peck at the keys. I couldn't have been more wrong.

As soon as I hit 'Play', two of the chickens scarpered. Sean Henn was the only one brave enough to take a closer look. As soon as the music got going, she recoiled with a look of shock visible on her beak. Now, if you've ever spent time around chickens you'll know that they always look shocked. Things like daybreak, egg-laying time, feeding time, and dusk take them by surprise every day. But this... this was shock in its most genuine form.

Within a fraction of a second Sean Henn was legging it away from the laptop and the song.

She regrouped with Beulah and Cluck Norris, and the three of them turned their feathery backs on me. The song played forlornly to itself as the chickens retreated to the safety of the water tank.

I think it's safe to say that I Love Egg is not on their Top Ten.

A few photos for you

Here are some random pictures for you to look at.

It was feijoa season not too long ago. I'd never heard of feijoas before moving to New Zealand -- apparently they don't travel well, which is why they weren't on offer in Ireland. They are soft on the inside, eaten with a spoon, and taste like medicine. Germolene or something. I don't like them much...

We had a "Christmas dinner" at the end of June. Christmas in summertime just doesn't feel right to me, so we moved it to winter instead. Much better. There was a tree with tinsel and fairy lights, Christmas music, friends, gifts, and of course brussels sprouts.

This is a terrible photo of just about everybody (and doesn't even include two of us), so I probably shouldn't put it up, but it's the only group photo I've got. Sorry, folks!


The chickens dined well on leftovers the next day. They enjoyed the dinner, and ate most of the dessert but left all the strawberries that were in the trifle. They ate every scrap of cream and custard and jelly, but the strawberries remained whole and untouched. Weird little birds.

The weather has been very mixed recently. We had an unbelieveably wet June, but it seems to have perked up a bit recently. Yesterday was almost like summertime, and I enjoyed a walk past the Heathcote river.

This morning we woke up to thick frost. The chickens don't quite know what frost is, and kept pecking it.

Oh, and here's a beautiful gramophone that I found in a shop yesterday. If I had space for it (and the requisite $950) it would have followed me home. I did buy some gloves, but that's not quite the same, is it?

My antique sewing machine

It has occurred to me that I never blogged about my other main sewing machine, a Singer 28 which was manufactured in 1899. It is operated by a hand crank. Isn't it lovely?

Here's the hand crank that drives it. I thought it might be difficult to sew with only one hand to guide the fabric, but that really hasn't been a problem at all.

The bobbins aren't like anything else I've ever seen. Rather than being squat circular things, they are long pins which fit into a bullet-like "vibrating shuttle" that goes where a bobbin case would normally go. It's a bit of a pain to use because you can't look in and see how much thread is left without actually unthreading it, but the pins hold a surprisingly large amount of thread.

This is the bobbin winder. It flips up to touch the hand wheel when in use. There's a little cog mechanism that guides the thread back and forth across the length of the bobbin pin.

Here are two bobbins full of thread. They really do hold lots! It feels like they hold more than my modern bobbins on the other machine, but maybe they just last longer because the sewing process is slower on this one.

Obviously this machine does no fancy stitches because it's so old, but it can sew in a perfect straight line and that's really all I ask of it.

The beauty of this old Singer, apart from the fact that it is portable and requires no electricity or cables of any kind, is how much control it gives me. Because I'm cranking it by hand I'm obliged to sew slowly, and this gives me more neatness and precision than my electric machine. If a single stitch is out of line I can correct it before things get any worse. I use this machine for decorative top-stitching and any sewing that requires great accuracy, such as undersewing facings or repairing damage within an existing seam line, or sewing something very small such as a credit card wallet. I wouldn't be without it now.