Author: Rachel M

I got a cute photo of Elizabeth giving a reluctant Daniel a kiss last night:   A friend of mine just moved up here from Christchurch, arriving yesterday. We caught up this morning and I can see how far Daniel and I have come to feeling at ease. One of my friend’s kids still jumps…

p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } People outside of Christchurch ask me “why would anyone buy a house in Christchurch?”, when I tell them we’ve got a contract on our house. It does seem strange but there are hundreds maybe thousands of people in Christchurch with badly damaged homes and they want to stay in the…

I’ve met some extraordinary people in Auckland like the bus driver who drove us to Mission Bay for free. Today I received another random act of kindness. We are without a car and in need of food so I walked down Parnell Rd in search of some basic grocery items. I wandered into a Dairy…

The flat we’re staying in has a garbage disposal unit in the kitchen sink which Daniel has shown a little more interest in than I would like. Today I had it running and he came over to watch so I told him never to put his fingers down there or it would chop them off.…

Yesterday I took the kids to the Parnell public library. It is in a very grand, old brick building:   I would never enter a building such as this in Christchurch and indeed I doubt it would withstand a Mag. 6 or greater earthquake but I know that the chances of that happening here are…

When we were walking along the beach at Saint Heliers the other day, I saw this house across the road with a nifty outdoor lift going from the garage up the hill to the house:   close-up: Yesterday we went to Point Chevalier, a suburb west of the city. The playground there is fantastic. One…

I took the kids to a playground down the bottom of Gladstone road today which is about a 20 minute walk away. After a little while of watching the kids happily playing I suddenly found I needed to do a poo. The park area had a public toilet and on going inside it I was…

After Ben left yesterday we all went down to the French markets for some cheering up. It’s a lively place with fantastic food and drink and live music. On our way back we took a short-cut through what was sign-posted as a reserve. This is what we found:   This was in the middle of…

I am still in Auckland with the kids and Ben is flying back to Christchurch as I type. I feel very sad about it all and really want us to all stay together but I’m so terrified in Christchurch all the time. I’m forcing us all to sleep in a caravan for goodness sake! In…

Happy children at Mission Bay. Glorious view of Rangitoto. Paradise.

This morning we took the kids to the Auckland museum which is an imposing structure high on a hill overlooking the city and harbour. The Christchurch museum is in a neo-gothic stone building and has been out of action since February 22nd and I was too scared to go inside it prior to that anyway,…

We are in Auckland! I haven’t posted for a few days because things have been frantic. We decided to put our house on the market in the hope some of the red-zone people might be on the prowl for new lodgings so the past few days have been a desperate effort to get the house…

I’ve got a sequence of photos of the Merivale shops beginning with damage following the earthquake on September 4th 2010: Following the February 22nd 2011 earthquake: Now: It seems I was wrong about the Art Deco building holding up well. It’s gone. Like everything else.

I nearly didn’t take Daniel to his swimming class today and deliberated about it right up until the last moment. What if there’s an earthquake while we’re there? The changing rooms are tiny cubicles surrounded by ceiling-high besser block walls and it’s easy to feel vulnerable when you’re naked and it’s freezing outside. But I…

I’ve just realised that the amount of money we’ve spent on caravan rental this past year could’ve bought me an ipad. Dammit! Daniel’s anxiety has lessened the past few days and he’s happy to play inside the house again. Whenever we drive around Christchurch now he provides a back-seat commentary on which buildings have damage.…

People have different earthquake-coping strategies. I like a glass of wine at dinner time. The difficulty is getting the right balance between being relaxed enough to not freak out for smallish aftershocks whilst maintaining enough coordination to cope with big ones. There was just a small Mag. 4.2 as I was cooking dinner tonight. This…

People in Australia have often asked me what an earthquake feels like. Most Australians have never felt one before. It feels a little like being on a roller-coaster ride but without a seat belt on. If you’re inside a house the furniture rocks, slides, or tips and you can hear things fall and smash. If…

I took this photo of a house not far from ours in St Albans. For those who know Christchurch, the house is on Springfield Road.   And people wonder why I don’t feel safe at home. Timber houses collapse too. New Zealanders are very stoic but this is not a philosophy I adhere to. If…

We drove back to Christchurch yesterday afternoon and received a nice welcome in the form of a Mag. 5.3 earthquake just after 10.30pm last night. Thank you, Christchurch. Fortunately we were all in our newly rented caravan and the kids slept through it. The caravan is my earthquake bunker. I feel safer in there and…

We are now cosily ensconced in a dog-friendly holiday house on the Dunedin Peninsula. It’s a magnificent part of the world with lovely harbour views and lush steep hills (hope there are no landslides). The kids are very happy as the house has an outdoor spa. We had been here less than hour when Daniel…