Did the earth move for you?

As my plane approached Christchurch runway, I felt a sudden surge of irrational fear about what I might see in the coming days.
Irrational because I wasn't there to oogle with morbid fascination at the earthquake damage, I simply wanted to get to my meeting with the deer man (Andy MacFarlane) and then on to Sandra's house - the kind lady who offered my accommodation for the next 3 nights at the drop of a hat.

Thankfully the trip to the meeting in the suburbs was fine. Andy McFarlane, my contact pointed out that a small pile of grey sand sitting in a neat pile on the roadside was a result of liquefaction (easy for me to say!).
- the result of mixing underground water and silt under massive underground pressure bringing silts to the surface.

Given the tidiness of the suburbs, the clean-up operation has obviously been rapid and effective todate - what a triumph of the human spirit to pull together in the face of adversity.

On the journey to the Mt Pleasant district, I couldn't avoid evidence of damage caused by the recent earthquake mainly in the form of cracks in the tarmac road surface and subsidence on roadsides.
As I drove up the hill to Sandra's house, some houses had suffered obvious damage, with tilting walls and broken windows/roofs (or should that be 'rooves'? See? 'Rooves' just doesn't seem right does it?).
Others looked generally ok as I drove past.
Thankfully Sandra's place was sound. (well, fine given that it's just withstood a major earthquake)
We had a lovely supper that Sandra had prepared and chatted for a while before I retired to skype Kate and Tim.
During the call, the walls shook as if a rampant rhino couple have briefly copulated next door.
Considering this an unlikely concept, I faced the reality that I had just sat through an aftershock tremor.
At that point I decided to wear clean pants in bed just in case the rhinos had another go!