Earthquake: Day 10

I slept much better last might, although I did wake a few times - including being woken by a sharp aftershock at 2.55 am, followed by another 4 minutes later.

I had a physio appointment in my lunchbreak. I was chatting to the physio about her workplace and she told me that their other clinic at Pioneer Stadium is now open. The gym, however is still being used as a Welfare Centre by Civil Defence, and the pool is out of action until inspected and repaired if necessary. It was not too bad, she said - QE II pool, the city's (only, I think) Olympic sized pool has sunk a metre and will have to be demolished and rebuilt. There is nowhere to swim at the moment - thinking of a relaxing day at the beach? Think again - the water is full of sewage from broken pipes.

Not being able to swim is trivial really compared to what some households are going through. 22,000 households remain without power and many more without water or sewage.

I arrived home to find that the emergency teams had got around to us and given us a green sticker, which means our house is officially safe to live in. Yay! It's an imaginary green sticker - in residential areas, only the red stickers are actual physical stickers.

P has been cleaning out the fish pond which was choked with weed. The water level was getting perilously low. So I suggested emptying the rest of the rain water in the barrel into the pond, as it now contains too much silt to use for dishwashing. The fish pond is still low but not quite so much. The tap water, which is still unreliable, is chlorinated and fish don't like that. I've cleaned out the rain barrel so that if it rains again we can collect clean water.

I have just been to get petrol, and a small sized rabbit hutch, so the girls' rabbits can go to a foster home while we go out of town for a break. I managed the rabbit hutch, however I planned to get discount petrol at our usual supermarket, which had re-opened, but now it is closed again - cordoned off with soldiers guarding the cordon, and engineers in the car park.