Friday evening is the one period of the week where I can slow down a little, check the blogs and catch up with the news of the week. Except whatever news there is seems trivial in the wake of Christchurch. The quake has certainly devastated the city and surrounds in so many ways, and there are aftershocks being felt all over the country. I'm not specifically talking about the seismic kind here, but I think people will get the drift of my thoughts.
It's going to take a long time to recover from this, and things will never quite be the same again, especially for those directly affected.
My heart goes out to every-one shaken and stirred and crushed by the quake. It looks bigger and meaner than the Napier/Hastings quake of '31. And I suspect many residents are thinking that these quakes are by no means over. What will that mean for Christchurch as a city? I have no idea at this stage, and even those thoughts need to wait until the rescue efforts are carried out as far as they can possibly go and the unsafe buildings are toppled before they actually fall.
Hello everyone and a special hello to everyone in Christchurch, my home town.
It's going to take a long time to recover from this, and things will never quite be the same again, especially for those directly affected.
My heart goes out to every-one shaken and stirred and crushed by the quake. It looks bigger and meaner than the Napier/Hastings quake of '31. And I suspect many residents are thinking that these quakes are by no means over. What will that mean for Christchurch as a city? I have no idea at this stage, and even those thoughts need to wait until the rescue efforts are carried out as far as they can possibly go and the unsafe buildings are toppled before they actually fall.
Hello everyone and a special hello to everyone in Christchurch, my home town.
Evening Zen. Must say Christchurch holds an especial place for me too ... spent my first two years at university there mostly in the town site, when Ilam was but barren lands with a few buildings. The romantic connotations remain.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed, all so sad ... albeit, as I said, the positive connotations remain, and probably always will.
Evening Mojo. Yep, it's been a few years since I actually lived there - was born there before JFK was shot, and moved up north around the time the USA made a giant leap for mankind.
ReplyDeleteBut the occasional trips in years after always had a good home town feel to them.
Aha ...so still a young fella then Zen.
ReplyDeleteMust say it started this small town boy on a lifetime course of learning ... Rosenberg & mopeds, Unger & Freud, Blampied & his not quite behavioural paradigms, Shakespear & dipthongs - saw Muldoon on stage, & he was always both quick of wit & witty - without peer - & all this pre the deregulated 'trickle-down,' that marked the beginnings of the adding of intensity/passion and different meanings to such terms as Te Tiritiri O Waitangi, biculturism, colonisation, racism, the mass benefit rush, benefit as lifestyle choice, when the notion of maintaining people in work (even be it by subsidy) was deemed providing an unfair competitive edge (not of maintaining routine, ongoing access to others & moderation of excess)- they were romantic times ... 'twas after that we were 'rogered.'
Definitely a young 'un. A literal child of the 60's, where all of those things had no visibility to me, and I could only learn of them rather than experience them (but I got there in time for the full experience of Labour in the 80's)
ReplyDeleteAny words on family and friends down there Zen?
ReplyDeleteI hope they have all turned up safe and well.
I enjoyed a year in Christchruch around 2003-04 living in Sydenham.
All the people I knew/know are fortunately safe.
It was a worrying couple of days tracking them down.
We will have all suffered and the impact will be global.
The local tv news last night in Yorkshire featured a backpacker chef who was killed. His dad lives in my parents' village and knows my brother.
Hi FFM - yep, added a comment under the original thread. Just running out the door, will chat later.
ReplyDelete