Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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We have a garden but due to flooding digging a long-drop was impossible (a week post-quake and we still hit water a spade-length below ground). The nearest public park (across two busy roads) has worse drainage than our garden does so would have been a poor choice for a shared dunny. Buying a chemical toilet meant we were able to actually live in our house (and I am staggeringly aware of the privilege that allowed us to drive to a shop and buy the thing).
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I'm back in the shaky city and almost recovered from Russell's concept of host responsibility ("there's just time to go to the bar before we start up again") and Megan's compulsion to keep the Cantabrian glasses brimming. It was so lovely to meet so many of you (if far more briefly than I would have liked). I hope I get the chance to do it again really soon.
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It looks to me like Shirley-Papanui ward (in which I reside but whose precise bounardies I didn't know) sits right on the border between the areas which were hard hit and those that did OK. My street (which is near the southern tip of the ward) seemed to get utilities back around the 50% mark (though our sewage is sluggish again after the rain) and we experienced some liquifaction but nothing like what they had further to the East.
Edited to add: anyone who thinks most of the ward is representative of what is being referred to as the "Eastern suburbs" will obviously have a very skewed view of what is needed over there.
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4.8 centred under Redcliffs. I think it felt bigger than it was and seemed to go on for a while but nothing actually fell over here.
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Keown is definitely a twatcock of the highest order. There's a huge economic component in being able to "help yourself". We've been able to manage due to having relations with a second car we can use for as long as we need and the ability to drop considerable amounts of money at various hardware and camping supply outlets without compromising our ability to feed the kids - that's just not going to be the case for many people in Aranui.
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Since I reaslised that going up to Wellington would give me the perfect excuse to stop in Nelson to hug my Mum on the way home I'm pretty much committed to coming. I could use some accommodation recommendations - perhaps near to where other PASers are staying?
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Hard News: Mind Blending, in reply to Russell Brown,
Let's put it this way: there's no way you wouldn't be getting in.
Thanks so much Russell. Hopefully I'll have a bit of an idea what's happening with school late this week or early next. If school's going to be out for a while I might send the boys off to Nelson for some Grandparent spoiling which could work in my favour.
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When do we have to RSVP by? I really, really want to come up but it's going to take a while to figure out if it's feasible. I'm expecting my partner to be back at work but my kids may be still off school at that stage so childcare may be an issue.
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I'm amazed at how much of the inner-city damage I was unaware of as I walked through it (Colombo St by Cashel mall through to the Square and then up Worcester to the botanic gardens). One of the kids I was walking with had bare feet so I was concentrating on keeping his every step glass-free.
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My kids' school is also in the bus exchange building (mine are at the primary school, Emma's at the secondary next door) so if, or whether they will be going back to that site is a discussion for a loooong way in the future. I feel, however, that we are much luckier than those damaged schools in the eastern suburbs because our school community is built on a shared philosophy rather that a neighbourhood so school really is wherever we meet.