Progress

Driving to work this week, I realised that I am now able to take exactly my normal route, that is the route I took before the earthquake. The cordons are shrinking a little, however I gather it could be many more months before they are gone completely.

My favourite bookshop has reopened in new premises. That's the good news, the bad news is twofold: firstly, that they haven't been able to access any of their stock from their old shop. I think that's because the tower block over the road is unstable and until it can be made safe no-one is allowed near. The second part of the bad news is that they have relocated in Riccarton, which tends to be congested at the best of times, and since the earthquake is like Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and school holidays all rolled into one as shoppers from all the parts of town where the malls are closed head there instead.

Supposedly all roads are now passable. The road workers have done a fantastic job. However "passable" seems to have a slightly flexible meaning - apart from the fact that the inner city is still cordoned off (the roads may be OK but there are many unsafe buildings) there are streets like ours where we can get in at one end only.

This is the other end, only pedestrians can get through. There is a broken sewer pipe under the river, this is quite complicated to fix and in the meantime there are temporary pipes, pumps etc all over the place.

There are 38,000 damaged sections of road, although they have been patched up they won't have permanent repairs done until the water and sewage systems have been fully repaired.