Finally... Mothers Day Part 2

At last I have a moment to catch up with you all.  I have missed blogging about our everyday life here in Christchurch, but I have still made time during my day to read your inspiring blogs on my blogroll. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about what YOU have all been busy doing.

The last five weeks of self-employment have gone by in a blur, we are still in the black and coping fine.  I am elbows deep in  GST receipts and invoices, but loving every minute of it.  The best part is that the income is our very own, where we can make a day to day difference in our "at the moment very frugal lifestyle" and get ahead a little.

The heading for my blog has changed YET AGAIN! I know, I know... you must think "here she goes again!" I wanted to go simple, me thinks I went too over-simple. Well I must be honest and say there was a veritable stampede from family (my lovely and terribly honest sisters that is) telling me how much they missed my animal photos, reading lists and general busyness going on in my blog.  Well, point taken ladies and I have tried for something new.  I can't seem to help myself really, I'm a self confessed change-a-holic and doomed to a life time of constantly moving around furniture and updating blogs.

I have been meaning to bring you some photos of the damaged city centre that we visited on Mothers Day, so below I have selected a few to show you.

 Bridge of Remembrance and Cashel Mall behind.  Looking east a bit further is the 26 storey Hotel Grand Chancellor which is being demolished from next week.  Demolition will take until next year and cost at least 10 million dollars alone.  500 mutli storeyed buildings are due for demolition. This is as far as we could go from here.  The mall has been tidied up considerably since the earthquake, where rubble completely covered this street.

Even the steps up to the bridge are cracked.

Lovely walking beside the river Avon

 The autumn leaves and filtered sunlight through the trees

We had a "moment" finding out about the man on this particular statue.The statue celebrates the life and death of Sergeant Henry James Nicholas, VC MM, born in Lincoln in 1891 and died in action France on 23rd October 1918.  A Victoria Cross recipient who sadly died 18 days before Armistice Day.  Those poppies were obviously a leftover from ANZAC Day

Henry Nicholas

Beautiful art deco wall on the Hereford Street bridge cracked

The old Christchurch Public Library very damaged

Liquefaction still remains on the street where it bubbled up out of the ground.  It's at least 20cm deep.  Our Police Headquarters is on the left.

The children view Clarendon Towers.  Because of the drop zone around the building, it isn't safe to get any closer.  Even businesses around this building can't get access because the risk of this building falling is too great.  Such is the danger, no one has entered it since 22 February. Imagine having your papers stuck in there!

Visitors Centre only just being held up

The beautiful Christchurch Arts Centre.  Today our newspaper mentioned that it could take up to 15 years to completely restore.

Typical scene tourists come to Christchurch for.  The river Avon meanders through the entire city, but is particularly beautiful through the inner city.

In contrast to the iconic river scenes, many people gather at this intersection to glimpse a close up view of the destruction on Colombo Street.  Autumn sunlight baths this scene in an eerie glare. That queue of traffic did not stop the whole time we were there.  In fact you could hardly get across that one lane for cars.

Destruction can clearly been seen from this vantage point.  A mainly silent crowd just stood and just watched.  In this one block of street, 13 people died.  This was the part where the 2 buses were crushed, and on the left side of the road many pedestrians perished.  This was apparently due to the buildings being made from un-reinforced masonry.  The buildings on the right, built very recently, were left unscathed.

On the ground the scale of rubble seems enormous

People's clothing and household items still sitting where they ended up 3 months on from that day

Bye for now
Blessings