This blissful morning...

he he he, more chicken legs....

The girls at Paper Moon (Shan had a basil pesto chicken thing and Meg had a chicken/brie panini. I had the best bagel with avacado, cream cheese and raspberry preserves. YUM! I'm going back tomorrow with Maria :)

Now that's what I call a lemon tree!

It drives me nuts that these pictures always come up backwards... so here is Lucy and Liz on the trampoline - in reverse.

I have a carpet burn what hurts....

In action :)

More action (scroll up now to see these in their right order)

Seb and Will (in the speedos) getting into the spa at 10am. It was way too hot so they got right back out again but I had to post this pic due to the totally hoicked up togs on Will, wah ha ha!

Sebas the Graf Artist (just like his Unka Jack and Unka Cage Fightin Tom)

Shanny ready and rearing to go for a run, ha ha ha ha ha

Umm it looks like balinese dancing but really she is just playing around being Lulla-belle....

The gang (Sebas William Shanny Meg Liz Lucy Charlie)

At yoga my teacher has this awesome song/track that says "I am mortal I am blissful" and I loooooove it. I should have been singing it this morning when I went for a run along the beach. It was warm but not hot. There was a nice breeze and Rangitoto was right there smiling at me. You can't ask for me.

The kids and Charlie (the dog) came down to the beach so they played while I ran. Seb did his graffiti thing on the beach then buried himself (of course), Lucy played in the water with Liz and Meg took photos of everyone. See, bliss!

After my run (and Shan ran a bit with me which was great) the girls and I went to Paper Moon (aka heaven on earth) for brunch. Maria was cooking up the most amazing dessert for her Master Chef audition tomorrow... it is so amazing. I won't put details on the web for the obvious reasons but suffice it to say she is going to get on that show AND WIN!!!

Lovin' it in Dork-land

Ahhhh, home! We are having a great time up here on the North Shore :) I went to work today over in Mangere and I have major campus envy!! Westmount Auckland has a purpose-built campus that is brand new and beautiful. It totally trumps The Bunker and The Tin Can! Large vista windows, a photocopier that works really fast, did I mention windows??!!! Sigh. Anyway we got tons done, and it was great to meet with the other French teachers.

But on to more exciting news, Maria made it thru the interviews for Masterchef! Woohoo! She is now planning what dessert to make for her cooking thingie on Thursday. She only has *one hour* so good luck to ya babe!

The kids had fun today. Lucy and Lizzie went to the beach with Ash and Lucy can't stop telling me how fun it was. Tomorrow is going to be filled with lots of lovely practice desserts (it's a hard job being the taste-tester but someone has to do it) and the beach and... oh yer, lesson plans for Thursday.

We miss you Dom xxx

I forgot some photos! Chuck & Sistas this is for you xx

Fields of bluebells...

Paths thru flower beds...

Amazing weirdo tulips (Grandad loved tulips best)

The Peacock Fountain next to the museum (with some rather sparce looking plantings, but they will fill in soon)

A blue and white flower bed for those we love in Quebec...

The kids are supposedly getting ready to go to Auckland. Bags are packed, Meg is dusting, Lucy is begging for food (what's new?) and Seb is doing the worse mowing job I've ever seen on my lawn. Why oh why did I think I could let someone else do it? Oh well we will be back in a week and I can re-mow it back to it's golf course glory. *deep sigh* as she looks the other way and pretends she is okay with the debacle....

Spring run at Hagley Park

This photo is for Nana, she loved the Magnolia's in Spring... xxxxx

Yer so I said, "Look at the cool scarecrow - it is dressed like you lot - get over there and I'll take a picture" and guess what, they look worse than him. :(

I ran through several fields of daffidols this morning :)

Don't you love the way it looks like Seb has on purple leggings, American Cutie socks ($1 from The House of T in Washington DC) and red sparkly Wizard of Oz shoes? He he he he he, nice photography Meg!

This is the home stretch back to the car.... don't you just wish you were there? It is like running through pink snow because the blossoms are usually casting petals into the wind....

Megane did a great job taking pictures for me this morning... including this one of me with my BUM POKING OUT! while Lucy was impressing me with her monkey bar skills.... she is so strong! (The kids always have a go on these bars before we get in the car to go home. They can all go backwards and forwards on the flat bars and on the "hill bars". I can do one length of the flat bars *on a good day* (okay so I've only ever managed to do it once and I'm hanging onto the memory... so sue me!)

Lucy catching a ride back to the car (from the monkey bars) sitting on the bag of pine cones we picked up for the neighbours fire....

Ha ha ha, yes, it's true - kiwi boys are born tuff, they d0n't need shoes! He was doing jumps and crazy scootin' stuff when I noticed the shoes (probably some tourist was staring at his feet so I looked too), or lack thereof and remembered how often in America and Canada people were horrified at our bare feet :) old habits die hard!

Me, Meg and the car. It was the most beautiful run!

We welcome all visitors (Chuck & Co!!!!) xxx

We are going to Auckland today!

The kidlets and I are going to Auckland for a week to visit my lovely friend Maria (and her family - the kids *can't wait*). I love love love the North Shore. From the first time I went there I felt at home, and just drawn to the place. The above photo is of Rangitoto Island. It is a volcano (after shock) just off the coast... We went there once in the middle of summer and hiked to the top (carrying Sebastien because he was only 3 and couldn't walk on the path due to the heat radiating off the volcanic rocks). There is no water on the island and basically it is like walking over BBQ coals... But we loved it. Anyway... Maria lives 2 minutes walk from this beach and I fully intend on spending plenty of time there doing yoga and enjoying the good company (Maria, the kids and Rangitoto)

And here is the lovely city of Auckland. Yes, it really looks that pretty. It is a world away from English looking Christchurch... We could never support Auckland rugby but I would move back there if the opportunity presented itself. (Hang on, to the North Shore, not Auckland... let's get this straight. And if you ask Lucy where she was born she will tell you "Takapuna" not "Auckland"...)

Precious!

Will you look at that!!! The kids and I took hundreds of photos of this duck family in the River Avon the other day... We have never before seen a yellow ducking! Isn't she gorgeous!!! (I hope the river rats and eels don't eat her...) Do you think she will stay yellow??? No, eh?

And voila, the "Earthquake Cake" Megane made with Lucy and Kadin (boy from next door). They spent about 3 hours making and decorating it on the 6th September. They wanted to make it look more destroyed, but it was just too much fun making it look cute :)

Meg is so arty..... :)

Photos from this week

This is the church next to the Central Fire Station on Kilmore St. Our ancestors, John Webb Bastion and Charlotte Sheppard Bastion, that came to Christchurch in 1864 used to go to church here... They are trying to prop it up so it can be repaired...

This is part of my driveway. While it looks like one part of the driveway is made of tiles, it is not. That is pressed pattern in solid concrete. It got *wrenched*.
This picture facinates me because I thought this crack was nothing. I also thought the other cracks in the chimney firewall were nothing major. However they keep getting bigger and crackier and now the center of the chimney firewall bulges out a bit. Apparently this is a Bad Sign. I suppose I should have guessed this by myself. Brick walls shouldn't seperate in the middle...
This lovely picture of total squallor is *under my house*. I took this picture so you can see what the concrete piles look like. The solid wall on the left is basically just a thin plaster "wall" which we call "the foundations of the house" but really it is like that pretty decorative paper you wrap around a birthday cake - all good-looks and nothing structural. Our house sits on little concrete nubs! One really good shake and I bet we could just be bumped off them! (not according to the structual engineer but what does she know??? they are SMALL!) And the REFUSE is there from when the house was built. I guess the builders thought no one would ever go under there and see the debris they left behind. Wrong!

"hey Mum, my high-brows are burnt off!"

Lucy is having a very weird conversation about "my eyes were going all silly and I thought the high-brows was burnt off". Eh? She takes after her father...

Today was the most beautiful spring day. Glorious weather and blossoms everywhere. Only a couple of aftershocks and we had hot water today :) Ah, the little blessings of life!

I've been meaning to write about the Structural Engineer that came to our house this week. She (very kindly) comes to Christchurch to help out for 3 days a week, until all this is over. I dare say she will be coming for a while. She said she went to Uni here so when she saw what happened she called her boss then got on a plane. He was not impressed, but too bad. In any case, she gave the house a good going-over and said that overall the HOUSE held up pretty well. The cracks in the walls etc were all due to one side of the house subsiding (due to the liquifaction = sand that came up from the bowels of the earth). Due to our house being made of wood she said it had a lot of "give" and the house itself is all repairable. However...
* there are cracks in the beams that support the roof
* the foundations all around the house are cracked
* the house will have to be repiled. Easy, she says, because the house is wood and they can just lift it, repile, and then set the house back down. However, we have to have a geo tech (??) soil person come and check out the land to decide what kind and how deep the piles have to go. (For those that don't live in NZ, our houses are like wooden doll houses... complete structures in and of themselves and they are sat upon concrete "piles" (like short posts) that are set in the ground. If you were to lift up the house and take it away you would see a lot of teeth like posts sticking out of the ground. Every 3 feet or so is a pile for the floor joists to rest on. I'll try to take a picture for you. So, if you look down the manhole in Lucy's wardrobe you will see dirt. Cobwebs and dirt, aka the ground - about a foot and a half from the floor. We do not have a concrete foundation. And yes, if you live in a house with no carpet the floorboards are quite cold in winter... but it isn't that cold here so it is fine.)
* the chimney firewall will have to be removed as it is cracked in the middle and might just give way and fall out onto the driveway in an aftershock. I'm not too sad about this - the fireplace is boarded up and plastered over... We only use the brick firewall to bounce balls on
* the doors don't shut and this will have to be fixed. NO JOKE! Amazingly the only door that does shut is the bathroom door, but it is squwiff so you can't lock it... The front door can't be opened or closed, the bedroom doors can't shut at all and neither can the living room door. As you can imagine we are all getting up and going to sleep at the same time.

She didn't comment on the other damage as she was only there to check the house structurally. So the plumbing, broken windows, cracks etc will have to be looked at by the insurance assessor if/when they ever get to us. Our road and footpath is still a mess. Some of the gaps closed back up and ended up overlapping themselves (how weird is that) and the manholes in the roads near us are all like molehills. The City Council has come and build up the asphalt around them, but driving down Manchester Street is like driving on an obstacle course. You can't really drive over them so you have to weave around them every 60m. It is so weird!

We drove thru Sydenham this arvo on the way home from church (our chapel is still out of action, and we don't know when it can be used again) and I was surprised at how many of the little old shops are red stickered. Colombo St, pretty much from Morehouse Ave to Cashmere is devoid of shops. Yikes! Only a few new ones are still there...

And the church were Nana got married... well I really don't know. They are trying to prop one side up (so it won't crumble into the road) but the opposite side is mostly rubble. As she would say "I'm glad I'm not there to see it."

Right well I am boring myself senseless again thinking/talking about earthquake stuff. It's like being pregnant - you can't get away from it and as much as you are over it you are stuck with it. And since I have some sort of weird mental block about writing about it in my journal I feel I have to write it here or there will be no record of it for when the kids get older and they want to know what happened... (Why do you think that is? Why has it not had a mention in my journal? I'm sure a shrink would have a field day with me)

Okay so I'll try to find some pictures to post. Maybe pictures will spice things up a bit xxx

Saturday morning and our blossoms are here!

Happy day! We have a few blossoms and my Japanese Maple is starting to get leaves. My back yard is about to become the Garden of Eden again and I can't wait. Photos will follow...

So what else is new? Megane has a throat infection and is on antibiotics (big deal in our house). Sebastien has a skate-a-thon this afternoon to raise money for his ice hockey team. He is very excited but so far he hasn't got any sponsors. We figured that our $700 a season contribution was plenty so he can look elsewhere! Lucy is in the orange reading group and she is very excited about it! And the little smartypants can spell "because". I remember getting that wrong on a spelling test when I was 8 (she is 5 1/2).

Today Dom is putting my plate rack on the wall. I love vintage crockery so I have a good collection of pretty plates (that we use for every meal) and I've wanted a plate rack for ages. He was going to make me one but.... 2 years later I have *purchased* :) No hard feelings, as long as he gets it on the wall today! My plans include a run, ironing, lesson prep (yes yes, I know, yesterday was the last day of the semester - but I offered to do 3 days of holiday tuition for my students because the earthquake really got them behind) and maybe a French movie tonight.

Oh and if anyone can tell me how to get the photos to show on this blog while I am writing it (before it is posted) instead of some kind of blah blah computer language, i'd be very very greatful. xx

I'm here. I'm alive. I'm also *sulking*

Yer yer I know... I'm not posting for my non-existant readers. (Hi Sam) That's because I'm sulking!!! The earthquakes are back. We had a few days with nothing over 4 on the RS and then they decided to come back and rock my world again. Sigh. No big dead BUT my work is so far away from the kids school WAIL! I don't want to hike for two days in a SKIRT (I have to wear a skirt to teach, but I suppose I could keep jeans in my car) to get home...

I won't keep whinging. I'll write again when I have got over my foul mood xxx

Red, yellow and green stickers

After the earthquake structural engineers had to go around inspecting ALL the commercial buildings, schools etc and to show how they fared they have posted red, yellow and green stickers on the main entrances. It occurred to me today that #1 this was a MASSIVE job and #2 this is something we will forget about quite quickly. It has entered our vocabulary already - people ask "is the Civic Building okay do you know?" "Not sure, it has a yellow sticker at the moment..." (yellow means that there were problems that need to be repaired (or if not the building will be red stickered) or only part of the building is safe for use). Green means "go" of course and red is the kiss of death. Sam and J, the Firestone building at the top of Papanui Road is red stickered. A bunch of shops down Riccarton Rd are either red stickered or are already rubble. The Provincial Chambers are yellow stickered.

The other thing we are all just taking in our stride is having to go around barriers. On our street there is a brick chimney and firewall that are damaged but not yet removed so the whole footpath beside that house is cordoned off and we have to go into the road to get around it. When I was walking to the shops this morning it felt totally normal to walk down the footpath until I got to red stickered shops where the footpath is cordoned off and I had to again go in the road. I also found myself saying "green green red green gone gone yellow green red" as I drove past the shops in Riccarton. (oh, Theo's fish shop is in bad shape but I think they might try to save it and the dairy opposite the antiques and collectable's shop on Edgeware Rd is gone). And you know what is funny... the enormous, all-glass art gallery is fine and the BRAND NEW CITY COUNCIL BUILDING has all kinds of repairs do to. Honestly, it opened about 4 days before the earthquake. Argh!

Dad spent all day waiting for the insurance assessors (yes, they made an appointment with him). They didn't turn up... I have no idea when we will see someone. I want to get the lights in the kitchen (of course they are the ones over the oven and benches) fixed and have the darn doors shut again - but this is so minor that I'm way down on the list. We have worked out how to avoid the potholes in our street and footpath and drive around the mega cracks down our driveway so I've got nothing to complain about but Dad, he needs to know if/when to pull his house down and exactly what they will do to help him.

Oh and for everyone that asks, we should have another week or two of 4+ earthquakes. Sebastien says he is sad and will miss them. Gotta love that boy.

7 aftershocks last night

I hardly slept last night but I don't remember feeling the earthquakes so I was surprised to hear that there were *7* quakes in the night. I felt two of them... It was coming up for 11pm and I said to Dom "any minute now we will have a quake because they always seem to hit at about 10 to 11, or 11pm" and then voila, we had 2 in a row. I also told him that we would have some at 3am and at 5am, and I was right. How does the earth know???

The other night I was in bed reading (Dominic was at ice hockey) and I was so engrossed in my book (about a woman from Afgahastan) that I didn't notice the time and then we had an aftershock that made me really jump. Usually our roof creaks and then a second or two later the cupboards start clacking and the house shakes. This one though just went BOOM (and it was an upward thrust), shake shake shake shake shake. The earthquakes themselves do not scare me at all. It is like the kids jumping on the bed in the morning... I've felt it hundreds of times before but I didn't expect this one so my whole stomach clenched up so hard it felt like I had been hit by lightening. I actually thought "heck, I've been electrocuted???" and then realized it just a fright. How weird is that?!? I also broke out in a sweat and my heart was racing - all in about 1/2 a second. Needless to say the kids slept thru it. Megane however groans in her sleep when we have an earthquake. After about 5 seconds of shaking she always groans or moans so I know she has felt it but hasn't woken up. Seb sleeps thru the girls getting ready in the morning... he wakes for nothing!

Dom said at the ice rink the building is very rigid so it clangs and rattles - he notices that but not the ice moving up and down. I guess that is because he is so speedy :)

At my school, Jayne in Yr 9 went under her table during an earthquake and the rest of us just looked at each other. She didnt' want to come out so I told her I was fine for her staying under there for the rest of the period. When we did partner work Saskia went under the table with her. How sweet and caring is that :)

So, beside me is Sweet Dom. He is working on a computer programme for me to use at school. Because I teach at a school for Exclusive Brethren children they can't use the internet or anything like that... so Dom is making me a pile of French language games they can play to practice their homework (verbs, vocab, demonstrative adjectives etc) that runs on Excel. I told the kids about it the other day and they were really excited. With any luck Dom will finish it this weekend and then I will submit it to the CEO of the school to get it approved then we will load it onto the library computers for them to play in their spare time. I can't wait. While he is working on that I am planning my French Carnival. As an incentive for studying we are going to have a day at school where they get to do a ton of fun activities (in small groups that rotate) that all involve answering or doing things in French. They will have a big French foods lunch (from around the world, not just French from France foods) and I hope it will be a great day. It is going to require a lot of parent help but none of the mothers work so... I am not too worried about that. It is very important for their community to assure the children have a joyful childhood - I love that! So if anyone that reads this has any ideas for fun games, let me know.

Chuck!

Oh my gosh CHUCK! My Nana is turning in her grave!!!!! I only wear her rings and they are *not* CZs!!!!!!!! I was with her once when she had them cleaned and she gave the girl a lecture how the saphires where "not Singaporian" and when she came back to her rings they had "better have the same stones in them!" I was soooo embarassed. I draged her out of there and gave her a darn good lecture on how to treat shop girls! I might not believe in diamonds but she sure did. Gulp. You had better hope Jessica didn't read that comment either, cos she is a terrible jewellery snob too.

I'm working on a list....

Since we had the EQ I've been working on a list of things I've learnt... Some of them will probably be "duh, everyone knows that" kinds of things to other people. Before I start I should mention that ever since I was tiny Dad has told us "if Something Big happens, I'm gone. You won't see me for 3-5 days at least. I'll be immediately on-duty and you will have to be patient. I can't just come home. However, all other fire personnel will help you all they can, but I can't come home"... so we were raised to #1 Not Panic and #2 Do What Needs To Be Done. Dad taught us a lot of stuff just by his daily life that got us prepared for this too. Some of that will be in the list, so maybe I should call it "List of Stuff You Should Know/Do in an Emergency"

1) Always sleep with shoes/slippers and a dressing gown/clothes next to your bed. (Dad used to go to bed with his clothes lying on the floor, ready to jump into them. I know he does this at work but I don't think he does it at home anymore??) When the electricity is cut off (for whatever reason) you cannot see what is on the floor and you don't want to waste time or energy having to look where you put your feet. You want to get out of bed, slip your shoes on and go get your kids... There could be glass, sewerage, splinters... anything on the floor.

2) Keep your rings and cellphone in a (closed) drawer so they don't go flying around the room (Chuck, you scoffed but I still have my rings)

3) Have a 72hr kit handy (we keep ours in the car so if we travel we have it with us and if we are at home then it is safe because our garage will never fall down... and if it did it is easily moved away)

4) Tape a magnetic/wind-up torch to the underneth of your table. That way when your kids want torches for their games and they steal them out of the 72 hr kit you will still have one that no one else knows about, and in a very handy spot.

5) Keep candles/matches/torch/blanket in a cupboard near your table (so you can get them without leaving the room when the kids are whimpering under the table)

6) Raise you kids so they trust you. Always be calm and in control in difficult situations. Never start yelling, or panic. This is so if you tell them everything is okay and that you will look after them they instantly stop worrying and just do as they are told.

7) Have water storage! Not just bottled drinking water from a shop that you can safely open and drink without having to do anything to it, but gallons and gallons of water (fill up your empty milk bottles or juice bottles and store them at the back of the pantry or under the stairs) so you can wash, flush the toilet, clean up stuff that has fallen on the floor, rinse dust out of clothes etc etc etc.

8) Check on your neighbours - they are probably freaking out and could do with a Voice of Reason and a bit of a laugh.

9) Declare a State of Emergency in your own house. You have no idea when the electricity or water will come back on so tell your family NO ONE OPENS THE FRIDGE/FREEZER (or the cold will come out and the food will rot), we walk everywhere because we need to conserve petrol (this means no cruising around town sightseeing the damage), the gas in the BBQ is not to be touched (and certainly not for heating water to make coffee... come on people!), we will only eat food that can be eaten without any cooking (so we can save the gas in the BBQ bottle etc) and comes from the cupboard, we do not "make dirty dishes" because we have no idea when we can wash them propertly and we do not want to stink up the kitchen with dishes piling up in the sink. You may pee in the toilet but nothing else! (and this means no toilet paper in the toilet either). If you are smart you will have a large supply of zip lock bags... Let them poo in that, then double bag it and throw it away in a sealed container. Toilet paper also goes in ziplock bags. (Buy up big on ziplock bags right now!) You must ask for a drink until told otherwise as we have to ration the drinking water. The cellphone is for contacting family and emergency calls only. It is not a source of light. We do not play games with it. We do not take photos with it. Any kind of battery powered thing is only to be used when totally necessary. If it is cold outside we keep all the doors and windows shut as much as possible to keep the heat in... This is because everyone else around you will be acting like someone is going to turn on the electricity/water/internet and open the well stocked shops any minute now.... hello people, our shops have been open for a week but the shelves are empty because the warehouses are destroyed, the railroad is warped, the road leading thru the mountains to our fair city has a massive landslide over it and they are trying to dig it out and when there is no electricity there is also no security alarms/lights/EFTPOS so you can pay for your purchases etc etc and no one wants to go to work! Until all the services are back WE PRETENED THEY MIGHT NOT BE BACK FOR A MONTH.

10) Start pointing out/talking about the positives IMMEDIATELY. Everyone is alive. The air is breathable. We have light (candles, torches). We have shoes on and jackets so we are well clothed and protected. (aftershock... just a wee one) You can see a lot of stars when there is no electricty in the city and the street lights are out. We contacted our family and everyone is accounted for. The sun will be up soon. When we all snuggle together we are warm. We have a cellphone. We have lots of zip lock bags.... :)

I'm sure I'll think of more but right now I have to go and prepare for my French classes tomorrow. My poor students are getting SO BEHIND because of the earthquake etc and it kills me!!!

Monday 13th September

Well we made it thru Day 8. I've turned all superstitious (like a certain friend that thinks she is going to die at 43) and I wasn't counting on surviving the earthquake until after Day 8 (because that is when Haiti had another Big One)... so now I am official alive and living on borrowed time. Good on me!

I started back teaching at school today. Period 1 was okay. I've got Yr 10 kids which are an earthquake in themselves so we didn't notice any aftershocks (apparently there was one or two). I made it thru the hour and was super greatful that I don't see them again until Thursday (I mean, I love them but, heck they are WORK). Period 2 I had a non-contact period where I listened to the other teachers freak out about their destroyed houses and how insurance companies are going to try to avoid paying (blah blah, what will be will be). Period 3 I had to teach via Video Conference to students around the country. Only... the audio cables in the back of the TV screen were snapped off. It seems they are what stopped the unit from crashing to the ground. They were stretched so tight that the little gold wires insider the plastic were longer than the plastic casing. It is hard to explain. So that lesson was cancelled... Poor kids, they are now going to be 7 periods behind the rest of the country (that were not in the quake zone). My last 2 periods of the day were... interesting. We had a few aftershocks and the kids were nervous. Actually, the girls were nervous and upset. Every aftershock had a few of them near tears. It didn't help that my classroom is in what i am *convinced* was once some sort of metal container. It now has glass sliding doors, a couple of windows and carpeting... but it is just a metal box on piles. NICE... this means it shakes when the boys come romping in every period and when you have actual aftershocks it moves. In the one big one I said to the kids "really? do you think it is an aftershock? yer, probably is... so, what would you like to do? Get under the desk, or shall we wait and see if it stops soon? Personally I'm okay with just waiting it out... but if you want to go under the desks then go for it" and by that time it was pretty much over (except for the swaying) and they stayed where they were. I mean seriously, we can't be going under the desk for every little aftershock. We will get nothing done and every five minutes I will have boys screaming "earthquake!" and disrupting class by insisting we all go under the desks. No, my policy is to keep reassuring them that our little tin can will just shake a bit (aftershock right now) but nothing bad will happen. We are much safer there than in the "bunker" (main building - which was a mental hospital before it was rented out as a school building... and is really like a concrete bunker with no windows). So yer, tears, quakes, and lots of talking about what happened at their houses. One girl fainted when the earthquake happened. Lots of others lept out of bed and narrowly avoided being squished by 6ft bookcases. Because of their religion (I am at a private school just for Exclusive Brethren children, otherwise known as les freres plymouth) they seemed very fatalistic about it all. If you die, you are dead. Nothing. Lights out. It's all over. (no reunion with God is seems??) and these things can happen at any time so there is no real reason to panic or live in dread... This is a more peaceful mindset than what I imagined they might have.

In any case, I had made a powerpoint about the earthquake (showing the different buildings and structures in town that were damaged so they learned all kinds of "en ville" vocabulary) and also another about how to have a 72 hour kit. Of course here I made a major faux pas. NO ONE IN ANY CLASS knew what a 72 hour kit was... and at one point I said "sheesh, how do you not know what a 72 hour kit is? Don't you watch TV or something??? Ummm, ooops. Sorry. You really don't watch TV. Okay, let's start at teh beginning...." and we went from there. DUMB! I should have thought this thru a little more before I asked if they were Quake Safe.

As for me, I felt unsettled most of the day. I didn't want to go out to school as it felt really far from the rest of the family, and if anything happened it would take me a good 24 hours to hike all the way back into town. But my kids are well drilled on what to do, so I knew they would be okay. It was hard to focus and get back into teaching/learning/assessment mode because the last teaching period seems so long away. Like MONTHS ago. The kids felt the same. By the end of the day I felt desperate to get back to my own children and make sure they were okay, and give them hundreds of kisses. I am not scared of the actual quakes, but I think deep down I must be very aware of how easily it can be to be seperated (permenantly) from your family, but something than can strike with no warning... and that is totally out of everyone's control.
However, you can't live your like thinking that you might fall under a bus, or an earthquake might strike, or the ring of volcanoes around your city might decide to burst forth, or a tsunami might drown you. Que sera, sera.

So I came home, got the kids and took them to the supermarket so we could make their favourite dinner (chicken tacos). And no, not because it might be The Last Supper, but because they love it and I like it when they are happy! We took dinner down to Dad and the boys at the fire station. I love living 2 minutes from Dad's work :)

9/11 2010

It was a sobering reminder to go to the memorial ceremony for 9/11 at the Twin Towers steel sculpture this morning of how hard emergency personel work for the rest of us. There were only a few fire fighters there and they had to leave immediately after to go and help with the Quake clean up. The speeches were great, and Dad did a wonderful job as MC (as usual). I think the pictures say it all
xx

Earthquake, aftershock - who cares, I fell in the gutter!

I just got back from a midnight run to the supermarket with my friend Leslie and as I got out of her car I went to step up on the kurb but somehow missed, or slipped or fell and ended up lying flat on the wet (super soggy) grass by the side of the road. I got laughed at, then I came in the house and Dom said "heck, did you just feel that earthquake?? It was a big one!" So, that's what did it to me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I have no idea how else I ended up lying with my groceries on top of me... out by the road.

I've got a sore ankle from it, can I claim that as Quake Damage?

Friday 10 September

Lucy is beside me eating a honey sandwich (that she made herself... I can't wait to see the state of the kitchen) and just told me that it isn't her breakfast. She will have her breakfast next. I asked why the honey sandwich can't be her breakfast and she said "because breakfast is something that can have milk in it." Interesting...

Dad is working hard today trying to cover the holes in his roof, then he has to finish organizing the 9/11 commeration that is tomorrow morning. Because the fire fighters have a list of over 400 calls yet to attend to they cannot be present (even though it is at the World Trade Centre steel sculpture outside the central fire station) so he really hopes a good number of the public will be there. They will have people from CNN and the NY Times there. Imagine how it will look if there are just the officials! Eek! We will go of course. We go every year.

The drama of my day is that my gym is SHUT!! The entire building is shut... turns out there is something wrong with it. It is one thing to not be able to go because I've got kids coming out my ears, but because the building is condemned - AAAGH!

Wed night

Lucy said the cutest thing tonight... we were on the couch having just read a book called "Three days without light" about 3 Nephi 11, and she said "I really love Jesus, he is my very best great guy. I want to be like Jesus. He can fly and he has POWERS!" Waa ha ha ha! Now if that isn't a great reason to be Christ-like I don't know what is :)

My run around the park today was great. There was one part of Hagley Park that was blocked off (opposite the Arts Centre - not sure what damage has been done there, but let's face it, that is an old building and all made of stone. If you ask me it will only add to the Harry Potterishness if it is semi-fallen down) but we went thru the gardens a bit and popped back out near the Antigua Boat Sheds. Anyway it was great to be doing something normal! And it was 13C so it was the perfect temperature and Sebas was with friends so I only had to supervise 2 kids on scooters. Bliss! This is only the second run I've had this week, and I did go to yoga, so lack of exercise is partly responsible for my emotional state. (Mostly it is wishing I could play with Colt, but the other part is Cabin Fever)

The pictures I took today of Dad's house say it all. Both sides are being proped up by sheets of wood and bracing. The houses on either side have still got red stickers on them, but once Dad's house is more stable they can come back and live iin them again. The gap in his spare bedroom is bigger, and we've had light rain all day but the tarps seem to be keeping off most of the bad weather. When I went by today they had the slow cooker in the front room cooking some kind of chicken dish! Yes, you read that right, the front room! It's not that the kitchen is falling down or anything. I guess it just seemed like the right place to cook a chicken dinner? It just goes to show that everything here is backwards at the moment.

We really only had a couple of aftershocks (that we could feel) today. Phew. The ground feels like it is shivering however, so I don't know if it is somehow girding it's loins for another Big One or if it is just settling. The good news is that we can now drink the tap water again. Lucy and Seb keep coming and asking me if I can boil them drink, or if we have safe water in the fridge - and I keep replying, "it's okay, you can drink out of the nap now" and each time they both yell "YAHOO!" and do a happy dance but then ask 5 more times if I am sure it is okay. I am not sure when it will sink in that it is okay now, and in half an hour and after lunch and tomorrow... the water is safe again. It is touching to see how happy they are about water. Anyone that knows my kids knows that they drink water (their mother only let's them have milk on cereal and we never ever buy fizzy drinks or juice, but they can have it at a party) but their love of it was never as obvious before. Personally, I am loving having a dishwasher again. Steralizing the sink, heating the water, working out the washing/rinsing in one sink... it was a pain.

The kids are not looking forward to going back to school. They are not upset at all by the earthquake, they just love being at home :) Seb has had the best time out on the street with his various wheeled things playing with Kadin and Connor (identical twins that live next door) and Lucy has been with Laura (my "favourite daughter", from the house next to Kadin and Connor) and of course Megane and Grace have been inseperable. The good news is that the official school holidays start in two weeks. Bring it on!

I went for a run today :)