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.