Crockery shards- Thursday

The lines for the house got drawn today. Bit of a freak out. The foot print...bigger than it looks on paper. Gotta get my head around a new shape and size. Two dimensions look different. As Kevin says, "You've got a lot of verandah space." 

Lunchtime and I find Mark who's putting out the string which outlines the footprint. Says there's lots of crockery shards. Probably a midden, an old dump for domestic waste. We pick through it and I put some shards safely on the pile for found objects under the tree at the back. Zeb turns up and the boys lunch on KFC in their van.

After school I track down Allan who I organised to make corbels at least a year ago. He's still up for it and is going to make a sample. He's an ace wood crafter. His view on the crockery: hard fill used to get tossed into the swamp that is Christchurch to firm up the ground. 

Back at 22 College Ave, Kevin has arrived to check his digger for tomorrow. We chat about the trees I'm trying to save and he promises to deposit earth where I need it at the back- the levels are a bit up and down where the garage was. And before that too. As he's digging he covers up the bag of cat food I left lying around. But after a think drags the jaws of death over the ground and finds it; tattered but nevertheless enough for Pierre, my cat's, dinner, tonight. 

I cross the road to borrow a red bin. My neighbours, Dan and Shelley, are rebuilding too. Both our houses got EQC'ed, around $130 000 each. They are no more. Thanks EQC, that was a waste of time and money. About the crockery, Dan reckons people used to discard it out the back door. We chat about rubbish and dumping. Stories about Agent Orange in the Mackenzie Country and dumps close to rivers.

Folk lore. This is how it starts.

Tidying Up

Demo day two. And there's a lot of bricks. The house was built in 1939 and apparently builders used bricks to save on concrete. No wonder the foundations shook to bits. ....epoxy glue would never fix that, EQC. The boys are happy to be snapped at lunch and I return at the end of the day to a spacious ghost section. The boys have done a perfect job of separating the shed from the compost bin and have thoughtfully placed the camellia and Cecil Brunner rose to one side. Cheers. I'm stoked to have my disintegrating house and the garage, standing by virtue of ivy and borer holding hands, gone.

My House is a Mess

Demo day #4. Steve and Kurt have got it sorted. I decide to don my bike gear for health and safely. Yeah right. The house is demolished in a relatively short time. Feelings...relief, it's taken a long time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get here.

Labour Day

New Plymouth

Friday D Day

Third demo day and I arrive at 7am to huge machinery- and a big bit of metal that looks like the jaws of death. I'd arranged for Pete from Ambrose Heal Furniture to help me get wood out of the house Wed, Thurs but he can't come this morning so I negotiate a lunchtime start. The demo boys' accommodation of my slightly emotional plea is much appreciated. Luckily they have another job to finish. I'm not sure when Pete can come so I'm a bit on edge. I find a coffee and head to Oderings to buy plants- I'll have an empty fence line in a few hours and I need to fill in time. This is my day off to be at the event.
Lunchtime and I get the text the boys won't be here till Tuesday. I busy myself in the garden and wait for the plumber. When he arrives we go over the plans so he knows where to put the plumbing outlets. Pete arrives and we grab loose bits of wood.

Demo Day #2- but wait, not yet. A weather delay. Typical spring- four seasons in one day. Rain delays Kevin and his digger yet again. So I get started on windows and doors- these need to happen before Xmas to keep Kirk, the builder, happy. After moving at a snail's pace for years, suddenly the pedal is down.
NK Windows and Trinity Glass- we need to make the lead lights fit and we need to get them ready. Some have mould, they've been in a damp house: gaps in the frames. In a storm the living room curtains move, the back door rattles. Nine cold winters. I go to see Kay at Trinity Glass- she's super busy. Fingers crossed we can make the deadline. I ask NK about a cat flap. No problem.
Back at 22 College Ave where water is leaking from a hose by the loo. I turn it off at the Toby box on the street.
All's good.
I leave.

Wednesday's pics

First Demo Day- postponed due to demo man getting held up with another job. Morning hail and rain and a job interview meant I was quite happy about that. Blue skies in the afternoon and the garden looked glorious. Fellow gardeners rest assured the back garden and the driveway garden are staying- Kevin has instructions and I'll be watching! I can't wait to get in after the garage has gone- with the ivy holding it up and the creepers growing through the walls on the north side, it is almost part of the garden- to plant this space.
Just so you know- the garage did not qualify for EQC or insurance, no worries, but EQC told me that, although levels were out throughout the house, they were only going to replace 12 piles because the rest was historic. Check the front of the kitchen- pic 3. In the end they did 6 more in the kitchen because I argued the damage didn't stop at the kitchen door.
Last pic is me with the last pick of flowers from the garden.

Weatherboards recycled, my room and more holes

Getting lead lights out and Musgroves recycling

Prequel

September 4th 2010- the beginning of the end. September 30th 2019- the end of the beginning.

After 9 years I am ready to rebuild my quake damaged home. In the intervening years it has deteriorated and in spite of wanting to fix it, I know the best option is to demolish and start again. I've been watching the floor levels gradually plummet, been hearing the doors rattle in a good storm, been smelling the mould and been saying goodbye as the old girl gives up.
Like all of us who were asleep and unsuspecting, I was jolted upright at 4:35 am on Saturday nine years ago. There was a deafening roar like a train screaming through the bedroom. I yelled at my son, Kahu, to get under the bed but my voice was lost in the thunder. The Greendale Fault was jolting into life.
The house rocked and rolled for an interminable 45 seconds. Chaos. Solid objects flew across the hallway and off the shelves. Glass panes creaked and groaned in wooden frames. The earth roared underneath us. Silence. I called to Kahu and his friend Jaspar, eight years old. The frost was settling so we piled into my bed to wait for daybreak. Kahu shaking like a leaf and Jaspar needing to go to the loo. "Guess we won't be at school on Monday." I tried to cheer them and myself up.
The sun peered cautiously over the horizon so we rolled out of bed to crunch and tiptoe over broken trinkets and the remains of the plate cupboard. I locked the cat door so Pierre, our cat, couldn't come in. Like many of his kind, he had gone to ground. In pyjamas the three of us piled into the MG. Electricity was off and I needed a cup of tea. I also needed to get Jaspar home.

September 4, 4:35 am, magnitude 7.1, epicentre near Darfield, depth 10 km.
February 22, 12:51 pm, magnitude 6.3, epicentre 6.7 km south east of Christchurch, depth 5km. In the ten minutes after it hit there were 10 aftershocks of magnitude 4 or more.

Devastation in the central city as buildings collapsed. Upstairs in the English block at Papanui High School we were tossed around like a load of washing. Apologies to the Year 10 boys I had in lunchtime detention for not completing their poetry anthologies. They are my earthquake kids. When I finally got home I was biking through water. And slithering over liquefaction on my driveway, knee deep. A stream gushed up from under the house and the back garden flooded. Water streamed for another five hours but the driveway sloped towards the street.
I waited. Where was Kahu, Becky, Aiuki? They straggled home, it was relief for everyone to reunite. We ate with the neighbours, huddled together in shock. Food and TV as we attempted to pull ourselves together. The news filled in the gaps but drew us into the city's trauma. Sirens wailed into the night, helicopters whirred, rescue attempts succeeded and failed.