Another Day

If you don't live in Christchurch and regularly pass through the CBD, eastern suburbs, or hill suburbs, you probably don't give much thought to the landscape 6 years after major earthquakes began.

It's weird for me because it's both normal and shocking. In the vicinity of where I work hectares of fenced off empty land, or temporary parking lots with river gravels that crunch beneath tyres and feet is normal.

That's the foreground here. The non-descript buildings beyond the fences is the temporary home of the Central Police Station. We see a lot of call outs start from our desks. Next year they'll move to the new Justice Precinct being built several blocks away.

Then there is the police communications towers and further in the distance cranes working on the new Christchurch Public Hospital buildings.

The sky is a classic Nor'west Arch formed by moisture loaded air coming in off the Tasman Sea on the west coast, rising up over the Southern Alps where the moisture falls as rain or snow. On the eastern side where I live, the arch of lenticular altostratus clouds forms in the lee of the mountains.

The arch tells me the temperature will rise shortly, humidity will drop, and the wind will blow warm and dry.

Such were conditions when I ran earlier with the mercury pushing 30. I stayed within the confines of my local park, hugging the shade of big trees and close to home if my temperature got too much.

And that's my environment, pretty exciting above and below ground ;-)