Hard to believe that we have been home a month already! We got home on Saturday the 26th November, and on the Monday we bought our new car.

We have been into Chch and viewed our broken city, and have been on the Red  Zone bus tour, which takes you into the CBD, Cathedral Square and so on. Like anything, it’s very shocking at first, but after a couple of visits you take it for granted. We have a new spectator sport in Chch, gawping through the fence at what’s going on. Here you can see a giant crane dismantling the Grand Chancellor hotel, has to be done slowly piece by piece for the sake of the buildings beside it.

We have a new temporary mall in the CBD built from shipping containers. Everyone agrees that the council have done a very good job, and it looks better than what was there before! We haven’t been in any of the shops as they are too up market for us, and the suburban malls are all still OK, which is where we always shopped anyway.

We have lots of new vistas. The ugly, dirty side of this car park wasn’t visible when there were shops in front of it.

It’s very colourful, and it’s nice to see that NZ blue sky.

We’ve even got flower beds.

And cafes….

They tell us the new CBD will be very green, with lots of trees, so this looks like a good start.

We are going to buy a caravan in the New Year, we have looked at this one today; we have tried to beat him down on the price but he wasn’t having it.

We are off to Nelson tomorrow, which is where Kate lives. We have organised a house for the week, and R&C&H and V&K are going up there too. Wishing you all a good Christmas, may all your pressies be nice ones.