Colour My Thursday

A day in the life. Uneventful which is a good thing. Everybody getting on with their job, including me. On the way home Kahu and I drop into Resene paints to start choosing colours. This could be a long job or it could be relatively short. I've looked at lots of colours in home magazines and the Resene publication, and still like the Karen Walker range. Muted tones which look good in any room. Not sure about the hallway along the bedrooms because it's a long stretch with good lighting from the french door. I've learned that colours change with light. There's no doubt the purple heart wood on the verandah is looking bright but it will silver off with time. 

Our volleyball game is punctuated with a man from the opposition walking off the court because we called him for carrying the ball. That's like a forward pass in rugby or stepping with the ball in netball or handball in soccer. We're in the bottom division but we've got to draw the line somewhere. Life doesn't need to be a drama.

Wise Choice

Another busy day at my two jobs. I leave the builders and Lance a banana cake and when I arrive at the end of the day they are hard at work. The verandah is looking great, and the house is fumey. I don't go inside as it gets into my lungs, so peer in through the glass. The bathrooms are done, paint Lance says you can wipe this paint and it stinks, acrylic I think. He's got the door and window closed so no dust comes in. I worry about his lungs but he has clearly done this before and he's the professional. I leave him to it. 

Kahu decides to go to the school ball which is on Friday and sorts out a ticket. We discuss clothes before he finds he can't get a ride to the venue with his friends, no space, or from the ball to the after party, no space, or even go to the after party at all, no space. At this point he gives up. Wise choice. 

Covid update from the Ministry of Health: Today there are no new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand. It has been 82 days since the last case of COVID-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source.There are no new recovered cases today, which means the total number of active cases in New Zealand remains at 27.There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.

Claiming the Lamington World Record

And the verandah goes on. So does the painting. I drop off the remains of yesterday's carrot cake, a large one, to keep the team happy at morning tea. I ease into school and managing 100 kids and their needs, educational and other, and tackle next house jobs: floors, door handles, laundry, kitchen, hot water cylinder, heating system and garden. I've got a feeling it's all going to happen at once. When I drop in after school the hole for the vent in my room has been recut just behind the door. I'm happy it's less visible. There's not much that's attractive about a plastic vent but they are an essential part of the ventilation system. I revise my front door handle choice...first choice is no longer made.

On the Covid front, I call Ally, Kahu's godmother, in Melbourne to see how she's going as the spike of new cases continues. She shows me fabric she's bought to make masks which are going to be compulsory from midnight, or a $200 fine. In good spirits and tells me the cases are on the other side of the city.

Breaking news here in Enzed, a team of bakers at Sylvia Park shopping mall are piling up sponge, jam and coconut to break the Ozzie world record for the largest lamington. It weighs 2,770 kg and is the equivalent of 50,000 individual lamingtons, made up of 13,000 eggs, 650 kg of sugar and more than 500 kg of flour. Good on ya, Kiwis! We're behind you. It's a serious effort to pull off something trivial. This one's for charity. On another note, a former student from a Year 10 class about ten years ago, contacts me to say hi. She tells me I used to refer her a lot because she was a little sh** And she wished she had made more effort to learn to write in my class. Brilliant. So nice to be appreciated. She reminds me of the time a radio station rang in class, I asked them if I could take the call, and sang a song about jeans to win a pair. She even sends me a voice clip listing the things I sang about rainbow jeans. I'm stoked she remembered something in my class. That event is a teaching moment for sure. I was just thinking about it myself the other day. Funny how life works.

 Kahu looking through my jewellery for finds

Back to Two Jobs

It's Thursday already and a week at school has set back my house jobs, including the blog. But a lot has happened in a work week minus one day. Namely the verandah, but NZ politics has seen scandals and besmirching of the parliamentary profession due to sex scandals. Well, one scandal and one affair. Two resignations, one MP scuttling back to his parents after sending indecent pictures to young women, another, the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Iain Lees-Galloway resigning after being outed for an affair with a colleague. Hmm-  a clash of interests, wrong portfolio. A third MP, a Pacifika woman, calling them out with a speech in the House asking the whole of parliament to pull up their collective socks. 

But that's to come. Monday saw me getting out of bed at 6:20 to get to work on time. Easing into the work schedule. Back at the house, the team, Jamie and Cam, minus Josh, are hard at work on the verandah. I drop in on the way to school to talk about how I want it to look. Not so many steps and planter boxes. Cam takes it on board and Jamie suggests something different. I tell him to go with what looks right and to call me if there's any issues. When I drop in after school Jamie says they've talked it over and gone with what Nicki and I set out. It's all good.

Sunday Tidy Up

I walk up the hill to get the Suzuki. It's a good climb and I meet a friend on her way down. Christchurch is big but it's small. Peter's working on the arch again so I drive over. He spends time finishing off the installation. It's neat and tidy and looks like it's always been there. I admire the care he takes to get it right. Peter tells me he did the plaster work for the restoration of the Theatre Royal, one of the glorious old buildings of beauty saved from demolition after the earthquakes, and the new Convention Centre. He must have a head for heights. 

I potter about in the garden and tidy up rubbish. There are nails and small bits of building waste everywhere. I figure the more I pick up, the less will end up in my garden later. This build is not exactly eco-friendly. Too much concrete and concrete composite in the exterior boards, the gib, the slab. Then there's the plaster, the plastic spouting and all the other plastic which ties everything together and smothers the building materials when they emerge from the factory. Yuck.

I make Kahu lunch, workers work better with a full stomach, then put him to work filling nail holes. Meanwhile, I weed along the south fence hoping I don't stick the garden fork into an electric cable. The sun makes a brief appearance and I absorb some Vitamin D. Winter must surely be waning. But Chris is on a ski holiday down south so is hoping for snow. Up north, the rain has been bucketing down and their dire drought has turned into a dire flood. Water cascading down the hills has caused slips and some communities are cut off. Today is also notable for the most Covid cases globally, over 250, 000 in one day. Countries worst hit are US, Brazil, India, South Africa, Russia. New Zealand has 22 cases, one new today from a returnee in quarantine.

At home, it's dinner and preparation for a new school term. I can't find senior marking I need to do, and I may have to change another senior course. Not something I can fix right now but gets me into the work head space in a not so good way, one day early.

The Shaken Theatre Royal

The Isaac Theatre Royal was subjected to severe shaking during the earthquakes of 22nd February and 13th June 2011 and sustained considerable damage; this damage was exacerbated by the constant and frequent aftershocks throughout 2011 and subsequent significant earthquake of 23rd December 2011.

The Back of House and Stage House which were newly built in 2004/05, suffered only moderate damage and were repaired, but the 1908 auditorium and 1928 foyer spaces were not considered repairable in their original form, due to the dangerous nature of the original unreinforced masonry walls. It was noteworthy that the structural earthquake strengthening carried out in 1999/2000 prevented complete collapse of the Theatre and enabled the retrieval and salvage of key heritage items and stabilisation of the Edwardian façade prior to deconstruction.

The Theatre re-opened on 17 November 2014. The project was significantly more elaborate in design and complexity of construction than originally estimated with the Theatre essentially being rebuilt from Façade to Proscenium Arch. The rebuild and restoration had significant challenges throughout, making it one of the most intricate building projects in the earthquake damaged Christchurch CBD with an overall rebuild cost of NZ$40M.

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