Donna in a dress?

At 18 weeks they're the only clothes that fit, apart from the cycling shorts she's wearing underneath!

November 2011

Central Christchurch, nine months on.  Piles of rubble and empty lots where some of the 1500 buildings to be demolished have already gone, and eerily quiet on a Sunday with the cranes and diggers mostly silent, and the area still closed to the public, with a constant danger of falling masonry, particualrly with regular aftershocks still happening. The latest count

is over 7500. We took a bus tour through the 'red zone'. We weren't allowed off the bus, which stopped just three times - outside the sites of the PGC, and CTV buidings where the biggest number of casualties were, and by the Anglican Cathedral. It was like a game trying to guess which buildings were where. To cheer ourselves up afterwards, we went to the new 'Container

Mall' for a coffee. This 'temporary' shopping area has been built out of shipping containers on cleared land either side of Cashel Mall, right on the edge of the remaining red zone. Judging by the standard of finish, landscaping etc, this temporary mall looks set to stay for a while.

September 2011

The Otago Peninsula near Dunedin, during our visit for the England v Georgia rugby world cup game. The game should have been played in Christchurch along with several others, but was moved, a short five hours drive away due to a certain seismic event. I also went down there for the England v Argentina game the week before, with Paul who was over from Milton Keynes for the whole tournament.

  

July 2011

Lake Pegasus after the first snowfall - the first I'd seen in about five years. The second, in August, was the worst for 30 years, but I happened to be in England at the time for a brief visit.