Aftershocks, Coffee Shops and Christchurch's Fattest Sparrows

Three weeks ago, most Christchurch residents were left saying "Oh no, not again!" I had literally sat back down at my desk and logged back in when the whole room shook violently. I simply picked up my bag and walked out, holding the door for a moment or two for the next person to come out. Once everyone was assembled outside, it became apparent that work was over for the day and unless you had a pressing reason for going back in, you should go home. Then two hours later, an even bigger shake struck. It felt like some giant being had grabbed hold of the house and was trying to shake it off the foundations. Power went out and so out came the battery powered radio. The kids entertained themselves with the iPod, while still sitting in the doorway to the study. As before power was soon restored and I could watch what was happening on TV.

Because the bigger of the two aftershocks was classified as 6.0 on the Richter Scale, most people the next day tried to go about their normal business as much as possible. With schools closed this was a bit tricky, but I did manage to treat my children to lunch at Pizza Carto which is their favourite eating place while still logging into my work PC. Wednesday, however, most schools were back and so was work.

In and around the Art Gallery, there is not too many places where coffee can be found - and one of them was closed for the week. This meant there was a choice between the only indoor one left or the outdoor one. This choice was further rendered academic when the only indoor one's espresso machine broke down leaving a morning coffee session outside in the middle of a Christchurch winter. Still we did have a lot of company in the form of some of the most well-fed sparrows I've seen in a while. In the last few months, I suppose sparrows have had rich pickings of left-over food in hastily abandoned cafes. The disadvantage for many of these obese sparrows is it they no longer resemble sparrows but characters in Angry Birds. They didn't look too worried though.

The following day my grandmother died in Wellington and all of a sudden what was a stressful week for the nerves became a stressful week for the emotions and it was still only Thursday. I kept mostly to myself that day and spent time in the garage working on a CD/DVD tower. Keeping busy was best.

Once Friday rolled around, the never-ending week was finally coming to an end. And mother nature had another say. At 4:20 a 4.5 shake rattled the Art Gallery. At that point, and I wasn't the only one, I shut down, picked up my bag and said "That's it - I've had enough this week!"