Sick Day

I can't get out of bed. This happens almost never. I sleep till mid afternoon and wake up thinking I need to get up and perk up as I have to drive across town and feed Pierre. It's a slow process but I've also got to go swimming too. "Got to" because it's a physical challenge I set myself from December 1st till the end of Term 1.
I get a call from Kirk to say he and his team have marked out the walls of the rooms of the house on the concrete slab. Another incentive. It's late afternoon when I get in the car to go to the beach. I'm aware I need to decide on the colour of the roof and this will influence the exterior of the house. To avoid traffic I take back streets and check out older house colour schemes.
There's a brown stripe in the sea a few feet beyond where the water is breaking. It's silt carried by the Waimakariri as rain swells its banks up in the mountains. The nor westers we are enjoying mean there are storms and heavy rainfall in the Alps and on the West Coast. It cools the sea water close to the beach so today's swim is fresh but it helps push the bugs through my system. I feel like I've shaken a few off by the time I get to the outside shower by the surf club.
Back at 22 College Ave, I look west and see hazy evidence of the New South Wales' bush fires.

Electricity At Last

It's bin day Thursday and I've got time before work so I stop to tidy the garden into the green bin. There's paving activity across the road and I make a dredlock connection when I ask for a photo. One thing leads to another and with my union hat on I ask about pay. He tells me he grows food for his family but prices go up faster than wages. Another low paid job we couldn't do without. When I get to school I chat to Eddie fixing a door in the English block as I'm putting away my bike. He's from Ireland and remarks on how high our living costs are, and lower wages. I'm wondering about the relatively high costs of building. Just how does our economy work?
I return to feed the cat mid afternoon and find contractors connecting the electricity. At last. This application started the Tuesday after Labour Weekend- five and a half weeks ago. I thought computers were supposed to make things more efficient. One part of the process is lines management- Orion, another is traffic management- the Council. These guys are happily going about their work and happy to have me record this house moment. I leave them to it and head to the beach.

Round the corner

Gearing Up for the Framing

I get an early call from Kirk regarding trusses. I have to drive to Kelly's office to pass on the message as I've deleted his number. Good to see the staff again. On the way back to work I drop in at my place and chat to two girls sealing the driveway asphalt across the road. I ask for a picture and they confess they've sneaked in through the fence to use my portaloo. As my father says, "Locks are for honest burglars." They ask about the flower next to the loo, blooming among the plastic and the gravel. It's a poppy, a good seeder, hardy and has survived both the demolition and trench digging. I take them on a tour of the garden .
On the way home I do another mission to find roofing samples. I end up on Stevens St, home to Lancaster Park. One of the last of Christchurch large public buildings to be demolished. Seeing the piles of rubble over the fence takes me back to 2011 when there were piles of rubbish everywhere. As I'm in the area, I call back to the decking yard to ask more questions. Andrea knows his decking range and obligingly poses with a sample of Purple Heart.
There's a couple more calls from Kirk regarding interior door size. I'm using salvaged doors and we need to get measurements accurate for framing. The leadlight windows have also needed to be checked and rechecked.
It's been a long, hot day and I head to Taylor's Mistake for a swim.

Other People Losing Homes

Australia is burning.
I can't imagine how it would feel to lose everything in one go. In the earthquakes, I lost stuff, then the house started falling apart. But I had a roof over my head and lots more stuff. The bush fires are voracious, devouring everything in their path in a storm of heat and flames. I have immense sympathy for the people of Australia who must flee for their lives, surrendering their assets and future security to the flames, and returning to ruins of smoldering ash. So I'm reposting this story which came via Greenpeace, Australia to spread their message. The consequences of climate change are real and governments must act now. We are the last generation who can save our planet. Future generations will judge us on the future we bequeath them.

My partner Dean, myself, and the remains of our home out the front of Parliament.

Hi Jillian,

My name is Melinda, and my beautiful home of 38 years was destroyed in the bushfires that swept through Nymboida. Right now, I’m standing on the lawns of Parliament House with the remains of the home I lived in and loved.

I won’t ever forget the morning I left my home for the last time. I’d been picking tomatoes in the vege garden when I got the message from my sister in law “I think we need to get out”. Minutes later, the official emergency warning came: “If your bushfire plan is to leave,  now is the time to leave”.

Nothing can prepare you for that moment. I got the photos from the fridge, some precious artworks, clothes & supplies and stacked them into the car. The sky thickened with smoke and turned dark. I couldn’t believe this was happening. 

I got out. I was lucky. But after an agonising two days wait a friend who had walked into our property called us and confirmed our fears: we’d lost our home. Our beautiful slice of paradise in the bush had turned to ash. 

Today, I’ve brought the very rubble of the home I loved to the steps of Parliament House. 

Our slice of paradise in the bush. Turned to ash.

No one should have to go through what I’ve gone through. But what makes this tragedy so impossible to stomach is that we’ve known it was coming. Scientists and firefighters had been predicting it for years.  

I could see it myself, in my own backyard. The ironbark trees and the spotted gums were losing their leaves on mass. Afternoon summer storms had become a distant memory. The gullies dried up, and we couldn’t hear the frogs croaking anymore. The natural world I cherished so much was sending us a message - yet our leaders refused to listen.

When 23 former fire chiefs requested to meet with Scott Morrison in April with a warning for the fire season ahead, he refused to meet them. Their predictions came true, manifesting in an unprecedented start to the bushfire season - all before summer had even begun. 

Scott Morrison is telling me “now is not the time to talk about climate change” when I am a victim of its impacts. He offers his ‘thoughts and prayers’ when we’ve been calling on governments for decisive climate action for decades.

Even now, as fires continue to burn only a couple of hours away in the Tallaganda and Bimberamala National Parks, our politicians still refuse to commit to no new fossil fuel projects - even when coal is the leading contributor to this climate chaos. Well, if they can’t smell the smoke - I’ll make sure they see firsthand what their inaction has done to people like me. 

End of an Era

I visit IT in the morning. Our IT staff are stalwarts at Pap High. Now that we are so technology-based we can't live without them and they are often dealing with our frustration as we try to keep thirty kids in order, and connect to the projector. I'm there reasonably often trying to sort my pc out so TC is proud that I'm able to navigate the blog site so nimbly. I don't tell him there's been a lot of swearing at the kitchen table.
I do house stuff in the afternoon- decking and roofing. At the One Stop Deck Shop I encounter a nice young man and a lot of wood choice. I'm thinking Purple Heart but wondering if it really is harvested sustainably. I don't get very far with roofing because the roofing business has moved.
A quick change and I head across town to Christchurch Boys' High and the leavers' dinner. I'm one of the PTA waitress squad. I've done it before but this time it's Kahu's cohort and I find myself missing him. I wish he was here to help with some of the house choices but most of all I feel nostalgic that his school days are over. The little boy who used to save worms from the rain and find sticks on the walk to Waimairi Primary School is heading into the world. As I check names off at the door I see boys, now young men, Kahu has gone through school with: Oscar, Ollie, Jack. Jack stops and I have to fight back tears. They're such "fine young men." The village has done its job.
I've also made good PTA friends; the monthly meetings where we planned, plotted and pondered our roles as mothers. Not forgetting Malcolm, our resident grandfather. We've sat through some boring meetings but had a lot of fun doing fund raisers and debating how to spend money. Being involved has meant we learned how Christchurch Boys' High works, as well as having the opportunity to give feedback on the changing interface between adolescents and education.
I reflect on parenthood, how fleeting those growing up years are and how important a stable home is. Our kids are earthquake kids. They have lived through the disruption of the quakes with stressed parents doing their best to sort out houses and family futures. It's been a tough road for many as financial pressure exacted a toll on marriages and mental health. We've had to stick together. We lost our city and a whole lot more. Boys' High had a long fight to rebuild their hall, insisting on replacing what they had- a space where the whole school could assemble. They stuck to their guns and the boys tonight have the benefit of a magnificently designed space which feels good to sit in and works well for all sorts of gatherings. Just one thing- in spite of our best efforts, there's no kitchen.
Parents, teachers and boys alike, we have much to celebrate and the night ends with a rousing haka in another new space, the Old Boys' quad. It's the end of this era. But my nostalgia gets forgotten as I help clean up and it's nearly 11 before I leave to feed Pierre.
Standing at the back of my section in the warmth of a nor wester night, I realise how fortunate I am. My son is in Arkansas, well cared for in another family home while I re-establish family roots on land he learned to love as he took his first steps. Tūrangawaewae.

Leavers in the hall

Melinda, chair of the PTA, and vice chair

Boys about to start the haka

Rabbits

It's 1st December- time to start swimming. Tony, cocktail maker extraordinaire, has offered to help me pick up a bench I bought a while ago. Viv has restored it and I chat to her and meet her dog. She's a rescuer of old things and interested in stories,especially about houses. Her dog is interested in new smells.
We drop the bench off and I show Tony round. Later I go back and do some digging- more concrete and bricks come to light. I move some dirt and tramp it down. The ground level is gradually evening up but it's taking a lot of dirt and a lot of doing, by myself. I cool off at the beach where the wind is so strong I can hardly hold onto my boogie board. On the way home I drop in to see Nicki and we visit her building site. Her two houses are coming along at about the same pace as mine.

Te Ahi kā

The day starts slowly. The three of us had a few cocktails up the hill with friends last night. Chris assumes the recline position on the couch. Eventually I go on a house errand- to get my round window stored at a friend's. She's moving. I store it carefully in Chris's garage then head off to the English department Xmas dinner. I visit the section on the way to pick flowers and feed Pierre. I'm dismayed to see another cat push the rocks off his bowl and tuck into his food. Makes me worry whether the empty bowl means Pierre is getting fed or an interloper. I haven't seen him for ten days so I duck back after dark. Sure enough he comes out. He's very welcoming and lets me hold him for more than ten seconds. I'm relieved and reassured. He's managing the rebuild and keeping the home fires burning- te ahi kā. In te ao Māori, te ahi kā refers to the burning fires of occupation, continuous occupation, title to land through occupation over a period of time. Pierre maintains a presence and is the guardian for 22 College Ave.

Mother duck safely over the road

English department whanau