Getting the gang together...

A couple of weeks ago, we hosted the original owners of our house, and an architect from the firm that designed it. Another architect and the project manager were also going to come, but one forgot and the other was too busy.

Over afternoon tea (those aren't chicken nuggets in that bowl - they're cheese choux pastry puffs - far fancier), and a few wines, we talked about the design process, the budget (we used to think it was really modest, but in actual fact it was substantial for the time), and how happy the owners were with their house (= very).

It was lovely to sit around and chat. As always, we learnt a few things, had a few laughs.

Matt followed up with the other architect (who forgot to make it) last weekend, and again had a very fruitful conversation...more later.

Shelves

Stupidly, one of the first things we did when we moved in, was rip out the shelves in Clem's room-to-be.  I was heavily pregnant, and obsessed with how his room should be, and it didn't include shelves. So dumb. Anyway, we arranged for our builder to replicate and re-install the shelves.  

It took a while, but after some tempting with baked goods, he came with the new shelves this week. 

I oiled the wood (rimu) with the same stuff we used on the stairs. Unfortunately, I was a bit slapdash, and accidentally dipped a long piece of my hair in the tin of oil. And instead of washing it out, I left it there for the day, so it got really dry. Anyway, I had to chop out a chunk of my hair to get rid of it, which I haven't had to do since I got chewing gum in my hair when I was about 11.

The shelves look good though...

It's been a while...

...which is generally a good sign. No problems = no posts. 

There was a big storm a couple of weeks back, that caused a couple of smallish trees to fall down outside the kitchen window:

And a couple more slips in the bank:

We are just hunkered down, enjoying our house, keeping warm....with a little help from our new log-burner. 

Fortnightly rubble

 

Once a fortnight (when our rubbish bins are collected), I take a plastic bucket and fill it with small pieces of rubble to throw away.  These pieces are generally either lying on our lawn, or are uncovered in the vege garden. They consist of mortar, brick and glass.  Two years after the quake, that is about fifty buckets of rubble...and no sign of it easing off. Sigh.

We decided to do something

Following on from my last post, we have become so tired of sitting around waiting for things to happen with regard to EQC, we decided to splash out and plant the garden which leads up the path.

Actually, rather than doing it ourselves, we are getting these nice men to do it for us.

It is a bit extravagant, but I think it will make all the difference, we haven't had any garden to speak of since we moved in, and it was always important to me to have something nice to look at.

Apparently it will be finished by the end of the week.

The garden battle continues

I am still steadily removing the ivy and weed from the small patch of garden leading up the path.

Things definitely look worse, rather than better, but hopefully this year we will sort it out. It is the only patch of garden unaffected by the issues we are having with slips and earthquake damage, and therefore the only part we feel we can reasonably spend time (and money) on.

On the weekend,  I was beavering away at the area just at the bottom of the steps (there is no real method to my 'gardening' - I just pick a spot and tear away at it), when I uncovered what seems to be an ancient (50 year old), retaining wall, made of piled rocks.

Hopefully it is still strong, as when it's cleared up, it will look a heck of a lot better than the ivy, weeds and whatever that pale-leafed thing is.

Happy New Year

I have been phoning EQC at least once a fortnight for the past 23 months. Immediately after the earthquake, I was phoning daily.  Most of those phone calls have been related to the land issues we're having, and not one of them has been rewarding. Most have gone something like this (and that was in June 2011!).

For the past six months or more, I have been repeatedly told that an 'information pack' is being sent to me with details of my claim -  I was convinced that this 'information pack' was fictional - a ploy to stop my phone calls..

Then it arrived. Earlier this month. Nearly two years after the quake:

And it tells us........nothing. This piece of shit 'information pack' is simply an acknowledgement that we have made a claim, and a guarantee that our claim is being processed. Every single item referred to in the letter is absolutely 100% unchanged from the situation back in June 2011.  It is completely generic, and useless.

Oh, except that they included a whole lot of photos of our place, which were taken in about March or April 2011....is this to prove that they visited? WTF?

And then they threw in this pamphlet explaining the claims process....pretty much printed straight off the EQC website. A complete waste of time, paper and money.

Hrmph. I'm not happy EQC, not happy at all.