Ah bless you, mates. Thanks for the kind thoughts.
My family is OK. There is, of course, the long agony of living in a
grievously wounded city but compared with Japan, this is manageable.
Our house is wounded too (nothing's level, doors and windows won't open
or shut properly, interior plaster is stuffed, my garage now sports a
new inspection pit across the concrete floor etc). We're at the happy
end of our street though. The other half will soon be retired from
residential housing and returned to wetlands and parklands which is what
it should have been all along. We had drinkable water and sewerage
restored three months ago. Some local roads still barely passable.
We lost five friends and acquaintances in the city during the February
quake. Crushed in streets or workplaces.
The 300TD survived OK, apart from a heap of dents where gear in the
garage toppled on to it.
Not so my 2003 SR5 Hilux. The September 4 quake shoved it hard into one
corner of the garage where fittings etched the seismic profile in the
paintwork down one side. It was in the panel shop being repainted when
the February 22 quake tore Christchurch apart. The panel shop collapsed
around it. It was one of only two wagons which survived. Was fearful of
it being bulldozed with the shop (like everywhere else is in the city -
no access to retrieve anything before demolition) but the panel shop
owner looked after me. Still, it was two months before I got it back,
because the shop was in the CBD lock-down zone.
The June 13 quake flung it through the garage tilt-a-door, despite its
handbrake being on.
Just as well I didn't bother the insurance company again because I took
it hunting soon after and a herd of steers exercised their horns down
both sides. The deeply scored panels may have improved laminar flow but
my insurance company took a dim view of this modification. Finally won
that fight but by now the insurance excesses were starting to mount up.
Got it back after a complete repaint and some new panels.
A snow-laden branch peeled off a tree in the last snow-storm and took
the driver's-side rear vision mirror clean off. I haven't phoned the
insurance company yet.
My workmates are running sweepstakes on the timing and type of my next
misfortune. Got that covered. I'm cycling to work now.
Euan
On 7:59 a.m., Mitch Haley wrote:
He's alive!
We thought the earthquake got him.
Mitch.
Euan wrote:
Euan
Christchurch
NZ
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