A shaky intro to a blissful Christmas

 

Well, a 6.0 earthquake coming your way is something to behold!  Thankfully we were at home (missed the first one(s) because we were driving), but you weren’t going to miss this one.  I can understand how people could have been knocked off their feet (I lost my balance), and after the first jolt, the land shook and wobbled around like jelly which REALLY doesn’t look right, believe me!  Shelter belts shook unsteadily on their feet and the noise is by far the worst, it’s menacing.  It must be one of those things that is just programmed into your primal psyche, like nails scratching on the blackboard, a fear of heights, and an instinctual aversion to snakes.  Even Steve was highly impressed and animated with it, and he’s been here all year!  Technically, as an engineer, he was quite excited.  Like ‘finally, I’ve felt a biggie’.  Interestingly Kasper had already been feeling the ones leading up to it.  We’d been going ‘yeh, yeh, yeh’, but when I saw the paper and the timings, he was bang on.  So I won’t ever be doubting him again, I should learn to not doubt him full stop because he’s been right about a lot of other stuff despite not yet having turned seven.  Our resident seismological activity sensor / baby engineer and scientist.  The kids took it fine although they are scared at night if they wake up and I notice that Hanna in particular is really struggling to get to sleep at the moment.  She’s feeling it and needs TLC (no doubt all the changes don’t help).



Ooh, Christmas is tomorrow!

 Earthquakes are certainly a good way to meet all the neighbours!  We’ve scored there; they were over in a flash to see if we were OK.  Both sets.  I can see we’ve fallen on our feet with the locals, kind and straight up, solid people.  Even the local café is fab, Steve still took the kids down there on the quad bikes as planned.  Life goes on.  Certainly by now.

 

On the day of the earthquakes, we were dreading Steve being called back into work in the CBD Red Zone immediately.  But it appears it can now wait to Boxing Day since his buildings involve other buildings on either side having to be checked first.  At least we’ve found a spot with enough cell phone reception for phone calls a 5 minute quad bike ride away.  Always good for emergencies.  As per how people are feeling about the earthquakes, I don’t think in general people are worried about personal safety anymore, but I’d say the dominant feeling around is just despondence, at just having to sit out another six months until the insurance companies relax.  Another six months before people start feeling a bit confident about investing emotionally and construction wise again…  People have just needed to completely readjust their life paths, businesses and values to cope.  No point investing too much in ‘nesting’ home based activities: it’s either not going to happen for you or it’s going to get wrecked.  And that sucks, it’s just a bad hand that’s been dealt to you and it makes people grouchy.  I bet you there’s a lot of drinking and travelling going on.

 




Thanks for the new camera Auntie Nicola!

Earthquakes aside the last few days have been absolute bliss for us as a family and in terms of where we’re at.  The weather has been fantastic and Steve has outdone himself in getting the place set up.  We now have shower boxes, lots of storage shelves, solar powered lights and music / phone chargers, a sink with hot and cold running water, doors on the indoor bit and a new wall to shelter us from the easterly on the covered yard bit.  We have read, painted, relaxed, drank expensive champagne, primped and preened, pottered, and we are currently cooking roast lamb with veggies and hollandaise sauce on the BBQ.  Followed by the traditional Christmas pudding (pavlova, cream and fruit).

The kids and I have had a really enjoyable experience moving the horses between paddocks at various times over the last week or so and watching the hay being made.  Agriculture is such a large part of life around here and kids love watching all the stages and machinery etc (so do I for that matter, doing agricultural science was always my first choice as I was growing up).  Hanna has already decided she’s following in Mummy’s footsteps and going to Lincoln University.  Guess she’ll be around for a while yet then!  As for Kasper, no doubt it will we involve building stuff, like Dad.  He’s obsesses with Dad’s power tools, nails and wheels. 



And now for the trailer to go with the quad bike...



 So Merry Christmas everyone, we love you, you know who you are!  I know missing everyone in Wellington is going to start gnawing at us soon when we get back to ‘normal’ life.  Right now it feels like one big holiday.