One year on...

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the first quake which started it all, the 7.1 Darfield Quake at 4:35 am.

Looking back, at the time before that first quake struck, I was still quite busy finishing off some assignments, one of which was originally due in the middle of the following week (but still woefully under-completed).

A few days ago, I had just gone out and bought my first DSLR using just my own money for the first time, a big step up in many ways, including in terms of photographic capabilities after years of using varying point and shoots with their own sets of limitations.

At the time, the fish tank still sat on top of my desk (in retrospect, it was quite a tall and skinny thing). Just hours before the fateful event, I'd been having some fun playing with my new camera, aiming it at the fish tank, and enjoying the relative ease and improved picture quality compared to a previous attempt made a few days earlier using the point and shoot.

Finally after doing a bit more work on said assignment, I called it a day at last close to 1:30am, and fell asleep stressing about deadlines and planning what I'd do in the morning (Saturday)...

...

And then, barely hours since I'd gone to sleep, in the darkness I awoke, and seconds later, the ground started shaking. At first, I thought: this can't be... an earthquake? Really?! and waited for it to subside.

But the shaking didn't stop; It only got worse, crescendoing into an almighty roar, as the doors started banging open and shut, glass objects around the house started shattering, and things were thrown from shelves. As I clung onto my bed while being tossed around in the darkness, I silently prayed to something to make it stop; "Let me off!", I thought, much like a kid who'd had enough of one of those coin operated rides outside the shops. But it just kept bashing the house around; on and on and on.

And then eventually, the shaking subsided, though the ground still didn't feel stable. It was dark. Grabbing a torch, I quickly found that the fish tank was still miraculously standing on top of the table, with fish inside, albeit with water now soaking the table.

But from that day onwards, Canterbury was changed forever. And little beknownst to us at the time, it was just the start of a long year...

...

Just a few days ago, the insurance company finally settled our claim, and the concrete workers arrived early in the morning, staying until late in the day, to repair our quake battered driveway.

With the headlights of the car shining down the driveway, you could see the full extent to which it had been affected: cracked, tilted, and lumpy like the lunar surface... it was quite a sight to behold.

But the vibrations of the digger outside, everytime it rolled forward just one inch... that felt worse than some of the smaller quakes we've been getting over the past week (after a few months of relative quiet!).

...

Here's hoping for a quiet night and day tomorrow, and preferably days after tomorrow (if I'm not asking for too much)...