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Got woken just after 3am by a 5.3M earthquake last night. It woke Daniel also and he started crying. Knowing I wouldn’t fall asleep again straightaway (heart thumping), I went online to Geonet to see what size it was. They took ages and ages to upload this time so I checked out twitter and discovered…

I went to Merivale mall last week and took a photo. Not much has changed since February 22nd: I find it interesting that the Art Deco building next door survived remarkably well. There’s a similar pattern throughout town with lots of Art Deco architecture relatively unscathed. I want our next house to be Art Deco.

We decided to start giving Daniel pocket money yesterday; $2 per week. Does that sound about right for a 4-year-old in 2011? Ben asked him at bedtime last night what he’d like to do tomorrow. He replied: get more money from mummy for piggy bank. He’ll go far.

There’s a little boy at Daniel’s kindy who lost his mother in the February 22nd earthquake. She was working in one of the buildings that collapsed; only worked three days a week and was planning to quit. At kindy this week, a teacher read a story called “It’s Okay to be Different”. One of the…

Daniel is very taken with the Royal couple, Catherine and William. He discovered a photo of them on the day after their wedding and was so smitten, that Di cut out the photo for him and it’s now pinned to his wall. Perhaps he’s just a sucker for an attractive girl in a pretty dress.…

Just as I was dropping Daniel off at kindy this morning there was another pesky earthquake. Only a 4.0 which surprised me as I thought it was bigger. Daniel was already a little anxious about attending kindy today probably because of the mean kids from yesterday, so the earthquake was bad timing. He’s coping pretty…

Daniel’s cast came off on Monday and all is fine. He also started morning kindy which is 5 mornings per week for 4-5 year olds. From outside appearances, Daniel seems to love it: he smiles when we drop him off and smiles when we pick him up and there are no complaints before or after.…

They say Christchurch is munted. According to the Urban Dictionary munted means f***ed which is a pretty good description of the place. We arrived back this afternoon and I walked through the door expecting to be tossed about the very instant I set foot inside the house but nothing happened. The ground has been quiet so…

Dunedin Botanic Gardens Cheeky

Rumour has it that the original occupants of this house raised 9 kids in it! Dunedin railway station.

…you walk around Dunedin examining chimneys rather than admiring the views. We went to Glenfalloch Gardens yesterday hoping to let the kids burn off steam on their Springfree trampoline. But when we got there we discovered there was no trampoline anymore – it was vandalised last year and not replaced. So we walked around their…

About an hour north of Dunedin is a lovely little spot on the coast called Moeraki. It’s not the beach that draws the tourists though, it’s the rocks, otherwise known as the Moeraki Boulders. They are a weird assortment of spherical rocks sitting on the beach. No-where else in New Zealand has formations like these.…

“Mummy and Daniel good at finding things; Daddy not good at finding things”.

Fletchers finally sent some contractors round yesterday to seal up the hole in our roof left by the fallen chimney from the first earthquake. They decided to remove all the bricks right down to the ground for safety as the entire stack had moved very slightly. Before: After: They will eventually return to replace the…

Ben told Daniel last night that when he grows up, he might become a daddy too. He then asked Daniel whether he’d like a boy baby or a girl baby. Daniel replied “boy baby”. So Ben asked why. “Because baby girl takes my toys away”.

Heritage buildings throughout Christchurch have been badly hit by both earthquakes and on the whole, modern buildings performed quite well. But this does not hold true in all cases. The two buildings that collapsed on February 22nd and claimed lives were not heritage buildings and were fairly modern having been built in the 60s and…

Queensland was struck by an earthquake on Saturday, a 5.2 about 20 minutes before our 5.3. The epicentre was 124km Southeast of Townsville at a depth of 10km. Earthquakes are very unusual for Queensland. I certainly never felt any in the 30 or so years of my life spent living there. I phoned my friend…

an earthquake. When I booked our tickets, I studied the seating maps of the CBS Arena for ages and ages, searching for the seats that I thought would be the safest. I decided upon a balcony seat so as to avoid being seated beneath a balcony and a potential hazard that could collapse on top…

It’s the sound. That’s what I hate the most. The deep rumbling, the clinking of glasses, the rattling of doors, the smashing of crockery, the screaming. Actually, I haven’t yet heard any screaming during an earthquake. I was at Daniel’s kindy on February 22nd and the children were all very calm. My hairdresser however was…