Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 29.

Tuesday 22^nd March 2011 – Day 29.

Ruth had to go to a meeting in Merivale at midday. I drove her over and, as she was going to take two hours, I had the opportunity to do a few things by myself. I drove down to the Verkerk’s Factory Shop and bought a few packets of their excellent bacon, then made my way around to the Northlands Mall.

It was huge, and bustling with shoppers and children in school uniforms. I had to drive around a while just to find a car park. The shops were doing a good trade, mostly. A place that offered shiatsu massage was not exactly bursting at the seams, but most of the others – Warehouse, Pak’n’Save, Whitcoulls, various chain stores – were humming. Outside, while there was considerable damage to shops in the wider shopping area, and whole rows of premises were fenced off, there seemed to be plenty of life. Traffic along Papanui road was bumper to bumper, and I carefully planned my route so as to take right hand turns at controlled intersections otherwise I would have been experiencing long delays. There was no gridlock, and traffic was moving continually, but it was very busy on the road.

Merivale Mall, likewise, was alive with shoppers, with the supermarket and associated shops trading steadily. The shops along Papanui Road, as I have said elsewhere, had sustained heavy damage, but there were plenty of others still operating. Even the Brewer’s Arms, where I stopped for pint before collecting Ruth at 2:00 p.m. had a healthy little crop of loungers. The car park behind the Mall was almost full, and as at Northlands, I had some difficulty in even finding a space.

The moral of all this? The Christchurch economy is alive and well and living in the suburbs. The newer shopping malls are going to thrive, and any new shopping precincts will be built in such a way as to ride on their success. Is anyone going to go into the central City to shop? I doubt it, and the longer the Civil Defence Controller keeps people out of the City, the less likely will it be that ordinary trade will resume there. People will quickly become more and more used to shopping and doing business in the suburbs, and new routines will be built up around suburban shopping and activity as opposed to that of the central City.

The main hotels are in the centre, and the main banks and business houses, as well as Government departments, will likewise remain there, so there will always be people there. A concentration of pubs and cafés will quickly return to cater to the civil servants, bankers, solicitors and others, and to the tourists staying at the main hotels, but normal retail trading? I really do not know. Ballantynes, God Bless them, have vowed to rebuild and return to central City trading, and they will. They may well provide a core about which a new retail area can coalesce, but this is going to have to be very, very carefully thought through, and will require very careful nurturing. Can it be done? I do not know, but if it is done, it is going to take a very long time, and whatever it is when it finally comes it is going to be nothing like it was before.

To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 28.

Monday 21^st March – Day 28.

Very little has happened here inside the cordon. Nothing has changed since yesterday. The police and soldiers are still at their checkpoint on the bridge, the armoured car appears from time to time, and the police caravan is still in place. There is no sign whatsoever of the cordon being pulled back towards the City centre. It is wet and miserable and cold, conditions that match my mood entirely.

Grand Chancellor Hotel from the intersection of Fitzgerald Avenue and Cashel Street.

I managed to make it to the mail centre without incident, and I was able to stop on the way to take a photograph of the Grand Chancellor Hotel. Even from the very considerable distance of at least a kilometre from the intersection of Fitzgerald Avenue and Cashel Street, the damage is apparent. The eastern wall with its great windows now askew looks for all the world like some vast doleful face with a droopy eyelid. Impressive, but depressing at the same time. I did not linger.

If there is little new doing within the cordon, there is certainly a lot of controversy looming about it and its possible effects. A revolt by business owners who have been forced to remain outside while their businesses, together with records and chattels, are summarily and often without consultation demolished and hauled off to the tip, is gaining momentum and there is talk of demonstrations, even of storming the checkpoints. The Tory government, known for its preference for autocracy over democracy, is talking of a State of Emergency for months to come. This will allow it to virtually rule by decree, possibly installing all sorts of social and economic changes that it would never ordinarily be able to initiate.

Memories of the arrogant and autocratic dismissal of ECan, the Canterbury Regional Council, because it was taking too long to make a decision and was, moreover, veering towards a decision favourable to the environmental lobby, will long remain in memory. We can only wonder what decisions will be imposed on us, decisions that can be effected with the wave of a ministerial hand but may take years of legislative wrangling to unravel. Meanwhile, the Civil Defence National Controller is El Supremo, capable of overriding the elected governing bodies of Canterbury, a position that surely will be deeply satisfying to a group in Wellington who see in our present pass fertile ground for the creation of a whole new world in their ideological image.

We live in interesting times indeed.

To be continued…

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 27.

Sunday 20^th March 2011 – Day 27.

As with all post-quake Sundays, the day was very quiet here inside the cordon. It was grey and wet and chilly, so we could not do much outside – not that there is anywhere much to go, of course. We had, however, heard that Pomeroy’s Pub in Kilmore Street had reopened so we joined our friends Hazel and John from next door and set out to find out what was happening around the corner.

We walked around the devastation that used to be the Kilmore Street – Barbadoes Street intersection, through the checkpoint which was being manned by two very bored-looking young squaddies, and along the middle of Kilmore Street. There was a little activity, people passing to and fro, or doing things about damaged roofs and toppled walls, but mostly it was quiet.

Pomeroy’s was open and welcoming, its usual range of excellent real ales available in all their malty multiplicity. I stuck to the Whole Malt Dark, a good, hoppy, cask-drawn beer with plenty of smack. We chatted, and more people came in out of the cold. A healthy hum of conversation permeated the bar. Time passed quickly, and we were painfully aware that we are still under curfew, so we headed home as the hour approached 6:00p.m.

For me, Pomeroy’s is definitely the better choice for a quiet pint or two. Speight’s Alehouse up the road is fine if there is nothing else doing, but it is much larger and has very much the feel of what it is – a franchise, like a McDonald’s or the old Cobb & Co chain. It has no real personality of its own. Pomeroy’s is smaller, more organic, with much more of a local feel to it, and there are familiar faces there even if I cannot always put names to them. A real pub, in fact, and an ideal place to waste a couple of hours on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Just in case we were about to get too complacent, however, we were jolted by a sharp and quite prolonged tremor at 10:45 p.m. or thereabouts. It registered 5.1 on the Richter scale and was centred close at hand at Wainoni, an emphatic reminder that it is not over yet.

To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 26.

Saturday 19^th March 2011 – Day 26.

When Ruth returned from her morning jaunt to get the ‘Press’ from the dairy, she had to pass, perforce, through the checkpoint on the Barbadoes Street bridge. The soldiers on duty, recognizing her, passed her through but she was told by the WPC in command that she had to show her red sheet of paper. On querying this, she was told that ‘they’ had changed the rules and things were being tightened up, which meant that if I wanted to pass through the checkpoint I would have to have a red sheet of paper as well.

Later that morning as we drove out to do some shopping, we stopped on the bridge just to double check, and it was just as well. Apologetically, the WPC explained the edict had been countermanded half an hour later, as I rather expected it would be, and all that was needed was the usual photo identification and proof of residence. It seems that she had sent several people up to civil defence, and I suspect that they had experienced what we experienced a couple of weeks ago. When they got there, they were told that bona fide residents did not need red sheets of paper, and CD officials had passed the word down the line to rescind the order to insist on them. As if we have not enough stress without this bureaucratic hopping from foot to foot. I sometimes think that progress is being made in the City not so much because of the bureaucracy but in spite of it.

Greatly relieved, we continued on with our chores, first to Merivale to the optician to repair Ruth’s glasses and go to the Supermarket, then on to the shopping centre at the top of Marshlands Road where there is a Bunnings, a Henry’s, a GlobalPC, a Payless Plastics, even an Asian supermarket of sorts, as well as several other standard chain stores which, bland and totally lacking in flavour or local content, can supply the goods that we need. The place was packed. Whatever is happening in the City, suburban Christchurch is seething with activity and all the neighbourhood Blokes are doing their handymanly projects with vigour and determination.

Bentley has come out of hiding and is gradually taking command of the household. Not only does he accept homage, he is beginning to demand it, vocally. The master and servant relationship that is at the basis of all cat and human interaction is falling into place easily and naturally.

To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 25.

Friday 18^th March 2011 – Day 25.

A memorial service was held in Hagley park this afternoon, and today was ordained a public holiday. Ruth and I, along with many others, did not attend. It is much too soon for a memorial service. The dust is still in the air, there may even be bodies still in the rubble; a lot of people are still missing, and although it is a while since any have been found, yet they may still lay there. It is indecent and premature to hold mass memorial services now. Many will have attended, of course, as HRH Prince William is here to have a look at things, and Hayley Westenra has come home to sing. Perhaps a concert in the park is timely, but not a mass memorial service.

Ask me again on the 22^nd February 2012.

I spent the day talking to Bentley and trying to coax him out. He took refuge under the bed as soon as we got him home and out of his bag. He came out during the night for a drink and some bikkies, and I was able to scoop him up and put him on the bed. He very much enjoyed cuddling with us, and stayed, dozing, for a long time, but eventually he returned to the safety of his hidey-hole. He is still there, just within arm’s reach. I can stroke him and he purrs and obviously enjoys the attention, but he does not want to come out yet. He will, in time. And we have plenty of time.

To be continued…

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 24

Thursday 17^th March 2011 – Day 24.

A golden beginning to St Pats Day

So much for rumour. The cordon is still in place, exactly where it was yesterday. The armoured car is still across the road, and the police and soldiers are still lounging around their check-point on the bridge. On the other hand, it was a gorgeous daybreak; as often happens when we have low cloud, the light of the sun breaking through above the eastern horizon is reflected across, suffusing everything with a soft golden light. The trees in particular are washed with a lustrous glow, reflecting out from countless moist leaves. The effect is but brief, and it fades swiftly into gloom again, yet it is a harbinger of hope, an omen of what may come.

And this dawn breaks upon no ordinary day but upon that of the blesséd St. Patrick, a day of especial importance in Christchurch, a day that is normally marked by a celebration of all things Hibernian.

For many years past Bailies Bar in Warner’s Hotel has been the focus of St Pat’s celebrations, beginning with a breakfast hosted by Stan and Lynne O’Keefe. There is much conviviality, a gathering of old friends who chat and discuss the world and its problems. Dancers kick up their legs to a clattering of hard shoes and the singing of the fiddle, Irish Stew and soda bread are served all day, and the Guinness flows freely. For more than a quarter of a century now, St Pat has been honoured at Bailies behind the Cathedral. Others have taken up the festivities, and it has become a City-wide event, but Bailies has always been it heart and its home.

Not today. There would no doubt be something happening at the Speight’s

St Pats Day breakfast

 Ale House up the road, but it would not be the same. Just an excuse to drink a lot of Guinness – and I do not need an excuse for that. I can do that any time. Instead I had a Guinness by myself on my back patio. I cooked myself a nice breakfast and had another Guinness, and sat and looked back on happier times and forward to St Pats Day 2012. Then I got on with the business of the day, the primary event of which was the arrival of a refugee.

We have taken in Bentley, a large brown cat whose home on Mt Pleasant is abandoned and in a poor state. Our friend Denny has been travelling up to an hour each way every day to feed him and keep him company for a while, which is a severe burden for her, so we offered to take Bentley in for the duration, and he arrived in the afternoon. He was not very happy about the transition, but we will make him very welcome, and he shall have lots of company from now on.

To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 23.

Wednesday 16^th March – Day 23.

Rumour has it that the cordon is going to be drawn in a little further as of tomorrow. A Red Cross worker came to the door to check if everything was in order here, and he produced a map that would indicate that the cordon is to be withdrawn back to Kilmore Street and Madras Street. Freedom! I must admit to a sense of lightness at the thought of impending liberty, but a countervailing caution imposes a caveat. We have known plans to change. What is true at midday is not necessarily true at mid-afternoon.

Being at something of a loose end after lunch, I decided to walk up to Speight’s Ale House in Bealey Avenue for a pint. I asked the soldiers on duty at the checkpoint on the bridge if they had heard of a change to the cordon, but they had heard nothing. So they said. There was no point in asking the policeman on duty there. Policemen are trained to say absolutely nothing of any use whatsoever to civilians unless under direct orders to do so. None of them would have given any information even if they had any, which they quite probably did not. If anything is becoming clearer in the organization of this disaster is that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, and neither would tell the other if they did know.

Leaving them to their duties, I strolled on up to the Alehouse and enjoyed a couple of pints of Old Dark. There were perhaps a dozen or fifteen people there, no-one that I knew of course, but the point of going to a pub in not so much to drink beer as to be with people. It was very pleasant to spend an hour looking out over the trees of the avenue and the passing parade of traffic, and to be amongst people. I very much miss Bailies Bar and all that it afforded me. It was the centre of my social world, and the chances that it has gone forever are high. Such is the face of our changing reality.

 To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 22.

Tuesday 15^th March 2011 – Day 22.

Three weeks. It seems more like three years, and such changes as have come we never saw even in thirty years before. A drive around to the Postal Centre in St Asaph Street clearly showed that. To drive from home to the intersection of Bealey Avenue and Barbadoes Street took a matter of seconds. The drive from there to the intersection of Fitzgerald Avenue and Kilmore Street, not a great deal greater in distance, took over twenty minutes thanks to the subsidence of the broad six-lane sweep of roadway. The damage there is going to make that a bottle-neck for a long time to come.

Down the road a bit further I turned into Tuam Street by mistake and had to drive around and around for a while before I was able to get to the St Asaph Street [who was St Asaph, anyway?] and the Postal Centre. This area, bounded by Fitzgerald Avenue, Hereford Street, Stanmore Road and the railway lines is all low-rise light industrial and was bustling with activity. There are a lot of places like light engineering works, bakeries, automotive repair shops, hospitality industry wholesalers, garment factories, and electrical supply companies, and life is rapidly returning but with a difference. Commercial buildings were alive with people doing busy things, but many were shut up. Roads were uneven and rutted, some blocked completely. A supermarket in Stanmore Road was open for business, while the block of shops next to it was being demolished.

Everything has changed. Everything is still changing, metamorphosing into – what? There are many directions in which Christchurch could go from here, and no-body really knows what that direction will be, the directors not the least. Whatever direction is taken, it will not be the one that we have previously travelled. It is a very different and unknown world up ahead. But we should not, must not complain.

The recent cataclysm in Japan clearly proves the old adage that no matter how bad it gets for you, there is always someone worse off than you. We can take a certain grim comfort in that we number our dead in the scores, they in the thousands, the tens of thousands. We have hundreds of homeless, they have millions, and a scale of destruction that beggars superlatives. Let us not rail against the Gods for the hurt we have received, but instead thank them for the lightness of our injury, and pray that they may show mercy to those more afflicted than we.

To be continued….

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 21.

Monday 14^th March 2011 – Day 21.

The business of the City has started up once more, which business is now the demolition and removal of old buildings, and the restoration of infrastructure. Trucks rumble back and forth all day, carrying God knows how many thousands of tonnes of history and memories with them.

As days go, it was not too bad; warm and balmy, with a high of 30°C on the back patio. Well, not exactly; it briefly hit 40°C for a few minutes when the westering sun hit the mercury for a few minutes. Most pleasant weather, enabling us to have tea outside for once. We did our chores and the things that we do to pass the time, doing what is now becoming our normality.

Whatever that may be, or might become.

Whatever else may betide, we can be sure of one thing; whatever we thought of as normal is one with golden age of Greece, nothing more than a pleasant memory. I remember talking to someone – I forget who – who was grumbling about everything and everyone only last Christmas. Nothing in the world was right, according to this source, and he yearned for the 60s, when ‘we had everything under control’. I mentioned a few things that we have now and which we never had in the 60s, and told him that ‘we are now living in the good old days’. He laughed scornfully. I never dreamed how tragically right I was.

And there is more bad news. For the last twenty-seven years Stan and Lynne have celebrated St Patrick’s Day in Bailies Bar. Many had hoped that they might be able to pull something together, perhaps a marquee in Hagley Park. Not so. It will not happen, perhaps not ever again. The owner of the building is dead set on demolishing it, I hear. Oh, for the good old days. 

Christchurch Earthquake 2011 – Day 20.

Sunday 13^th March 2011 – Day 20.

Unlike yesterday morning the day dawned in almost total silence. This phenomenon occurs very rarely, usually only on Christmas Day and occasionally on Easter Sunday. Normally there is at least some background noise. Today there was none. Then, after a little while, as the sun began to appear there came the faint scuffling of movement; the police were moving around their roadblock, and the soldiers were doing whatever soldiers do with their armoured car.

Checkpoint, Barbadoes Street Bridge.

I walked up to the corner of Kilmore Street to look at the latest devastation, and there were a few people around but little doing; a couple of soldiers sitting under a Cinzano umbrella that they had scrounged from somewhere, a lone security guard down towards the Fire Station. A police car cruised past, heading for the bridge. Nobody took any notice of me. I went home for breakfast and a quiet day.

West along Kilmore Street from Barbadoes Street.

In the afternoon Ruth and I were joined by Hazel and John from next door and the four of us walked up to the Speight’s Ale House in Bealey Avenue, a walk of about five hundred metres. I had never been there before, and although I was aware of it in a vague sort of way I had never thought of it as a pub. But there it was, and it was doing a thriving business. It was much larger than I had imagined, with a very big dining area and a large, sunny, west-facing patio. And they have draught beer there. We enjoyed a very pleasant hour or so chatting and partaking of Mr. Speight’s fine product. I must admit that I really do prefer draught beer; the packaged variety is all right at a pinch, but it is never quite the same.

It was pleasant to be amongst a crowd, although I did not see a single face that I recognised, and to hear the sounds of humanity all around, of people coming and going, talking, laughing. But enough is enough and we strolled back home, down Barbadoes Street and through the checkpoint, back into the silence.

To be continued….