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The football season has finished and we looked forward to our first Saturday lie-in since May. But it wasn't to be. We were shaken from our beds at 4.35am as a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck. That's big, in fact it's about 100 times stronger than the earth tremour that we felt in York two years ago.
Apart from a few broken storage jars and toppled bookcases, we have got off very lightly. Power was restored at 1.30pm. We still seem to have mains water but the city sewerage system is badly damaged, so the garden is being fertilised! There is some damage to a few houses in our area but we seem to have fared better than the city centre.
Good information on the quake at http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3366146g-maps.html.
My good intentions to update the blog monthly fail at the first attempt and so the March update will include half of April as well. Where time goes to, I don't know. Early March was very busy with work. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days in the upper reaches of the Rakaia river, one of the large braided rivers that drain across the Canterbury Plains from the Southern Alps.
Ali has now started her teaching job. It's been a gradual introduction, starting before the Easter break but with only one child in her class at that point. The start of term 2 sees her with a class of nine that will grow over the term as the children reach their fifth birthday's.
The first dusting of snow on the mountains prompted us to pay a visit to Antarctica. Actually, it was the International Antarctic Centre at the Airport. We thoroughly enjoyed the penguins and informative displays, but the highlights were the 'blizzard' room (where we donned heavy duty clothing and endured -15oC winds) and the tracked vehicle ride, which knocked the spots of any roller coaster I've been on.
At the end of March, both boys were onboard in the Heathcote River Raft Race. The Council had run this event last year with 25 rafts. This year 105 turned up on the day, which created a certain amount of good natured chaos which the Council did a brilliant job in sorting out as they rustled up extra entry forms and numbers. Matt was on the Scout raft, but (as the picture below shows) he decided to swim for it at one point.
Josh was on a raft with friends, who'd lashed together a couple of kayaks. Water and flour bombs launched from the rafts and banks meant that no-one went home dry and clean. The whole thing was finished off with a 'sausage sizzle' at St Martin's scout den. The Council deserve credit for all the things they put on in Christchurch. This was a good example of well supported community event.
On Good Friday we all cycled round to Halswell Quarry for the Passion Play, which was really well done. Then on Easter Sunday, Ali and I helped organise the service at church, which concluded with a 'communion' meal of lamb sandwiches.
With the boys on holiday we then headed south to Otago ready to tackle the 150km Otago Central Rail Trail on our bikes. We'd organised this at the last minute with friends, sorting out accommodation and logistics (how to ensure we had transport waiting at the end of each day) only a couple of weeks ago.
Having spent a night in Alexandra, we left Clyde to do our first 40km day. Two days of gradual climbing as we rode north culminated with us reaching the highest point of the ride and turning southeast towards Middlemarch, which we reached on the fourth day. We had one wet day, but by then the gradient was with us and we had a tailwind. Any mid-morning 'blues' were banished by a welcome hot chocolate in a welcoming trailside pub. Below, Josh strikes out towards one of the tunnels on the Poolburn section of the trail.
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The school holidays ended with a sporting weekend. Both boys made winning debuts for their respective football teams on Saturday morning, then in the evening we went to see the Crusaders playing in the Super 14 (that's rugby union!).
On Sunday, it was lovely to have out first 'family' visitor to our new home, when one of my Australian cousins called in while on a tour of the country and gently reminded me to update the blog.
Sue, it is done!
Ok, so it's over a month since I last updated the blog. We've been busy.
February started with Ali going to the Waitangi Day celebrations at Kaiapoi, just north of Christchurch. She went on her own as she was in need of some space from me and the boys!
The rest of the month passed in a blur of football trials and school tri-athlon events (I don't remember those when I was at school) for Matthew and an overnight school trip for Josh. Add in a series of injections and Ali ramping up to the start of her teaching job and suddenly we found ourselves heading towards the end of the month.
Last week, I had to drive to work for the first time. In fact, I had a three hour drive over to the West Coast over Arthur's Pass. As you can see from the photos below, there are worse commutes even if I did get stuck in one bovine traffic jam! Apologies to those of you stuck on the M62 or weaving your way through central London, but I am gloating.
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This last week has been incredibly busy, with our first visitors from the UK spending four nights with us. Karin and Taff were at the end of an action-packed holiday and didn't let up once they arrived in Christchurch.
On Saturday we headed over to Akaroa, famed for its dolphins and French connections (no, not the shop but the fact that the French came within a whisker of claiming the South Island as their own. Mon Dieu!!). We decided to hire three double kayaks and head off down the the 10km long harbour in search of the dolphins. The journey down was lovely as you can see from the photo, but after lunch the wind picked up more than was forecast and the tide was on the turn. Our 6.5km (4 miles) journey back up the harbour took nearly three hours as we battled against the wind. Waves crashed over the boats, but we finally made it back to Akaroa tired but elated. The boys were stars, keeping our spirits up and not complaining. We didn't see any dolphins!!!
On Sunday, we woke to the terrible news of the Chilean earthquake. The whole coast of NZ was put on tsunami alert and we waited to see what would happen. There certainly was a bit of an impact around Christchurch, with the sea going further out than normal and then there being a very high tide that created a bit a tidal bore along the estuary and Lyttleton Harbour. The main alert had been lifted by the afternoon and so we went for a swim just after the very high tide. The water was very silted and there was a bit of debris, but no damage.
The kayaking and tsunami warning came together when Josh gave his teacher an amusing answer to a question on Monday. When the class was asked what dangerous event had happened over the weekend, Josh replied "We had some visitors from the UK and they nearly killed us kayaking".
The weekend ended in the most exciting fashion. Taff, Karin and I went to see the Twenty20 cricket international between NZ and the Australians. A gorgeous night and a big crowd were treated to a great game. NZ set a massive score for the Aussies to chase, with one batsmen failing by one run to match the highest ever score in international Twenty20 games. Slowly the Aussies crept towards their target until with one ball to go they needed three to win. They got two and the match was tied, leading to a 'one over' shoot out that NZ won to the delight of the vast majority of the crowd. The right result!!
I said farewell to Taff and Karin at the airport on Tuesday as they headed back to the UK via Singapore, while I caught a flight south to Dunedin (where the sight of a dry stone wall reminded me of Yorkshire and the Lakes). It was fantastic having visitors and we were sad to see them go. A little bit of me wanted to hide in their baggage and get back to the UK to catch up with family and friends.
But I'm not homesick. Though we would all love to pop back to the UK for a weekend, we love living here! I suppose that's the curse of most migrants. You love both where you live and where you used to live, but the reality is that you can't have both at the same time. And on that thought, I will leave you for now...
It's hard to believe, but tomorrow it will be six months since we arrived in New Zealand. As usual with these things, it seems just like yesterday in one respect, but a long time ago in other ways. All in all, it's been a very positive and refreshing time that has brought us closer together as a family. We've had new experiences, met new people and faced new challenges.
The boys go back to school this week after nearly seven weeks off. It will be a shock to the system! Matthew starts at intermediate (Y7 & Y8), while for the first time Josh is facing up to not having his big brother at the same school. It's going to be interesting to see how they settle in the coming weeks and we'd value your prayers for both of them.
The week after returning from New Wine was tricky. Bad weather, post-holiday blues and news of illness back in the UK combined to leaving us all feeling a bit low. But a good weekend revived spirits and the weather has even decided to cheer up as well.
Christchuch seems to have a never ending cycle of festivals and events, but this week's diary seems to have been particularly busy. There's been the week long Buskers' Festival, with shows throughout the day and evening and various venues around town. The boys did a juggling workshop last Sunday and then spent Thursday in town with Ali taking in a great range of acts. One act was by a group that had instructed at the juggling workshop. They recognised the boys and decided to co-opt Matthew into their routine!
With glorious weather this weekend, Matthew's been able to celebrate his first 'summer' birthday. But when was his birthday? He was born at 11pm in the UK, which would have been 12 noon on the following day in NZ. So was his birthday on the 29th or 30th? Whichever, we celebrated with trips to the beach. We were pounded by the surf at Taylor's Mistake yesterday, then headed to New Brighton for the kite festival today.
Sandwiched in between was a trip to a football match last night. Yes, football as in 'soccer'... with a round ball! New Zealand has one professional side who play in the Aussie league. The Phoenix are based in Wellington, but played their 'home' fixture against Adelaide Utd here in Christchurch at the newly refurbished AMI Stadium due to a concert being staged at the 'cake tin' in Wellington. In this hotbed of partisan rugby union, the Christchurch public turned up in great numbers and a noisy crowd (yes, those really are people with yellow buckets on their head in the picture) of over 19,000 cheered on the Phoenix to a 1-0 victory.
I played by first round of southern hemispere golf on Friday. Sorting out my clubs, I found a number of items that I hadn't seen since we packed off the container in June. Would you believe that I'd decided the safest place to transport lengths of model railway track was in a golf bag? More worryingly, I found a compass whistle and survival bag in one pocket. That must say something about the standard of my golf! I will leave you with that thought. Bye.
It's been brought to my attention that it's three weeks since I last updated the blog. Apologies to the Facebook generation, but I've been busy in a 'holiday' kind of way so there haven't been any updates.
As you can probably guess from the title, we've just got back from camping and the weather didn't behave itself! We spent four days just outside Hanmer Springs at New Wine NZ a Christian conference/festival. We'd been to New Wine UK in 2008 and all thoroughly enjoyed (and were challenged by) the teaching, worship and seminars so thought we'd give the Kiwi version a go. Hanmer was on a much smaller scale (450 as a opposed to 5000+ attending) but we are glad we went and the boys have come back buzzing having made new friends and explored our faith at their own pace and level.
As with any conference, Ali and I got more out of some sessions than others and preferred some speakers to others. For me, I particular learnt a lot from the main speaker David Parker of Desert Vineyard church in Los Angeles County.
Despite the weather being a bit grey, damp and... well, how can I put this... English, Hanmer was a great place to stay. We spent Thursday afternoon in the hot pools (the hottest and smelliest being a sulphurous 41oC), unexpectedly bumping into some Australian friends from Christchurch. Ali had a minor panic when she realised the sulphur had tarnished all her silver necklaces to a dark grey colour. It's obviously a common occurrance as the girls on the Reception desk produced a tin of 'silvo' and restored them to their original colour!
On Friday morning, I took my bike for a 25km trip over Jollies Pass and down to the Clarence River, then back over Jack's Pass to Hanmer Springs. I freely admit to having to walk part of the way up Jollies Pass, which tops out at 800m. But the scenery and isolation were stunning as I bounced along dirt roads, through fords and back down the bone jarring descent from Jack's Pass (photo below is from the summit of the pass).
On a personal note, going for the cycle ride gave me a chance to draw a line under an interesting three and a half years. In June 2006, I had a great weekend doing the English Coast to Coast cycle with a friend Steve and a group from his Round Table Club. It was the last time I'd done a challenging ride and I'd thoroughly enjoyed it and the camaraderie.
But that weekend marked the start of a period of big changes for relationships with family and friends and at work. I'll spare you the details but could I have seen these things coming and could... should I have acted before? I'll probably never know the answers, but it was the culmination of these things in 2008 that led us to re-evaluate what we should be doing with our lives and make the decision to come to New Zealand.
New Wine NZ and getting on my bike over Jollies Pass has allowed me to draw a line under this period and move on without regret or bitterness. Though I deeply miss seeing many of you, moving to New Zealand has been fantastic. I just love the country. So that's the heavy stuff over with. Let's get back to the usual 'wish you were here' kind of stuff...
I'd enjoyed going over to the Clarence River so much that I persuaded Ali and the boys to throw a picnic in the car and retrace my tyre tracks. As you'll see below, Ali doesn't hold back when behind the wheel.
It had been a mixture of work and play between Christmas and New Wine. I was at work fromthe 5th-8th Jan, but before that we'd alternated between days at home and days away to the zoo, Okains Bay and Glentui. The picture below is of cloud 'dolphins' at Okains Bay.
At the zoo, I particularly liked the kea enclosure where we could get up close to New Zealand's cheeky alpine (they use their peak as an ice axe!) parrots. Here one 'man-handles' a log.
Last weekend, we had to put up with the minor inconvenience of temporary road closures as the National Road Race Cycling Championships were staged in our part of Christchurch. Below, Ali and the boys look on as the elite women's race streams past the house on their first lap. We are well used to cyclists passing the house as every mornin, evening and weekend hundreds of road and mountain bikers pass on there circuits of the 'Long Bays' (around Lyttleton Harbour and over Gebbies & Sumner passes) or heading up onto the Port Hills.
Just when I need a lie-in after four nights in a tent it's back to work tomorrow. And finally... I'm not a bit jealous of all the snow that there's been in the UK. OK, I lied and I am jealous. Take care and God Bless.
Our trip to the park involved a detour as we found that the road had moved somewhat. I like the way the white line has shifted.
Though we are getting fewer aftershocks, Josh has decided to sleep under his bed for added protection! No school or work on Monday, but Ali has to go in and sort her classroom out.
Apart from a few broken storage jars and toppled bookcases, we have got off very lightly. Power was restored at 1.30pm. We still seem to have mains water but the city sewerage system is badly damaged, so the garden is being fertilised! There is some damage to a few houses in our area but we seem to have fared better than the city centre. 
Good information on the quake at http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3366146g-maps.html.
Looking back up Lyttleton Harbour, we has the view below.
So there we are, a short and sweet update just to let you know that all is well but we seem to be very busy. As we approach the anniversary of arriving in New Zealand on 1 August, I will probably draw the blog to a close or change its focus.
Ali has now started her teaching job. It's been a gradual introduction, starting before the Easter break but with only one child in her class at that point. The start of term 2 sees her with a class of nine that will grow over the term as the children reach their fifth birthday's.
Josh was on a raft with friends, who'd lashed together a couple of kayaks. Water and flour bombs launched from the rafts and banks meant that no-one went home dry and clean. The whole thing was finished off with a 'sausage sizzle' at St Martin's scout den. The Council deserve credit for all the things they put on in Christchurch. This was a good example of well supported community event.
Having spent a night in Alexandra, we left Clyde to do our first 40km day. Two days of gradual climbing as we rode north culminated with us reaching the highest point of the ride and turning southeast towards Middlemarch, which we reached on the fourth day. We had one wet day, but by then the gradient was with us and we had a tailwind. Any mid-morning 'blues' were banished by a welcome hot chocolate in a welcoming trailside pub. Below, Josh strikes out towards one of the tunnels on the Poolburn section of the trail.
.
The rest of the month passed in a blur of football trials and school tri-athlon events (I don't remember those when I was at school) for Matthew and an overnight school trip for Josh. Add in a series of injections and Ali ramping up to the start of her teaching job and suddenly we found ourselves heading towards the end of the month.
.
On Saturday we headed over to Akaroa, famed for its dolphins and French connections (no, not the shop but the fact that the French came within a whisker of claiming the South Island as their own. Mon Dieu!!). We decided to hire three double kayaks and head off down the the 10km long harbour in search of the dolphins. The journey down was lovely as you can see from the photo, but after lunch the wind picked up more than was forecast and the tide was on the turn. Our 6.5km (4 miles) journey back up the harbour took nearly three hours as we battled against the wind. Waves crashed over the boats, but we finally made it back to Akaroa tired but elated. The boys were stars, keeping our spirits up and not complaining. We didn't see any dolphins!!!
On Sunday, we woke to the terrible news of the Chilean earthquake. The whole coast of NZ was put on tsunami alert and we waited to see what would happen. There certainly was a bit of an impact around Christchurch, with the sea going further out than normal and then there being a very high tide that created a bit a tidal bore along the estuary and Lyttleton Harbour. The main alert had been lifted by the afternoon and so we went for a swim just after the very high tide. The water was very silted and there was a bit of debris, but no damage.
I played by first round of southern hemispere golf on Friday. Sorting out my clubs, I found a number of items that I hadn't seen since we packed off the container in June. Would you believe that I'd decided the safest place to transport lengths of model railway track was in a golf bag? More worryingly, I found a compass whistle and survival bag in one pocket. That must say something about the standard of my golf! I will leave you with that thought. Bye. 
On a personal note, going for the cycle ride gave me a chance to draw a line under an interesting three and a half years. In June 2006, I had a great weekend doing the English Coast to Coast cycle with a friend Steve and a group from his Round Table Club. It was the last time I'd done a challenging ride and I'd thoroughly enjoyed it and the camaraderie.
At the zoo, I particularly liked the kea enclosure where we could get up close to New Zealand's cheeky alpine (they use their peak as an ice axe!) parrots. Here one 'man-handles' a log.
