Broken

I felt ok taking a photo of this 'red stickered' house (awaiting demolition). No one was living in it when last month's earthquake hit (nor in September when it sustained minor damage). It was a lovely old home but without the context of people living in it I'm more comfortable showing the starkly broken structure of it.

It us the house in front of where my bike man lives. They can't use their driveway until ts house is demolished, in case it collapses in an aftershock and risks injuring or killing someone. They have removed a section of their side fence and for now share the neighbours driveway.

After work I juggled getting new wheels fitted to my bike along with a quick service, with a visit from a builder to inspect the back wall of my house. The bike work was the cut down version of what was interrupted at the time of the quake when the bike shop collapsed. The builder checked for possible structural damage where I have damaged sliding doors.

Happily my bike is in better order to deal with our rough roads and my house is ok to get the exterior painted. Yes there is damage to be fixed but nothing to stop the planned painting.

I guess I'm making some sort of commitment to living in Christchurch, for now at least. Life does go on and there are some things that just have to be done. House maintenance is one of them.

Tomorrow a plan is in place for limited numbers of staff to enter the building I used to work in. 5 mins to vet in, 5 mins to grab essentials and 5 mins to get out again, all accompanied by trained emergency people.

I'm ok with going in. I have my list, a big pack to load it into and I'll block out every thought and just focus on what needs to be done.

My weekend away is looking increasingly attractive. While I'll be out of Christchurch I'm really only swapping one complex of active seismic faults for the fault that originally moved in September. It's a mere 700m from the Hunter's house.

Such is the reality of living anywhere in NZ.