Friday night Lyall arrived home from work, to find injured shag in our paddock. He duly caught it and popped it into our dog crate. After much phoning around, being passed from person to person, it was decided that we would meet Robin, a DOC ranger in at the dog park on Saturday morning with it. It was all snugly and warm in my scrapbooking room.

Meanwhile Donna, the dogs and I had headed up to Oxford so that the dogs could play in the snow. They get a run each night anyway so it might as well have an added attraction lol.

Fast forward to four thirty five in the morning…and you all know what happened next. Having never been in an earthquake before, I assumed this wasn’t a big one. Now this sounds weird, because of course we rocked and rolled like the rest of Canterbury, and things were rattling (and the bird was going mad, poor thing). I was hanging onto Darcy; Donna was in her doorway yelling ‘EARTHQUAKE’ (like a well trained teacher is meant to do lol) and Lyall was going ‘what the hell??’ I just assumed it wasn’t big because we didn’t have big gaping holes, just a few broken ornaments. Lyall and I didn’t get out of bed till it was finished. Then I realised Tui had gone outside earlier and freaked and called her in – poor cat, she came running all right!

So we all sat in the lounge, kind of laughing and kind of being freaked. We had power etc so turned on the radio…I got on Facebook; we checked on our neighbours…and then headed back to bed. And then the aftershocks started and haven’t stopped since.
I got no sleep last night; however I’ve had an afternoon nap today and feel so much better for it. And Donna made scones for lunch – nothing like a bit of comfort food.
Did the dogs let us know? Yep, just before the rumbling/roaring sound started, Danny started barking (which set Darcy off), then it rumbled then it shook.

Funniest thing? Donna said “that’s it, I’m never living by myself lol.” Loved that the phone calls and texts started soon after from near and far with everyone checking on everyone. Funny how Vicki and I both cleaned our houses Saturday morning lol – bit too much of the fight/flight response at work and had to keep busy. Lyall and I had to head out Saturday as well and get the injured bird to a vet. We couldn't get into the DOC ranger and nor could he get to us as the Northern motorway was shut. Glad to be able to hand it over to someone who knew how to care for it, or to make the decision to end it's suffering. Will find out which way it went later in the week, when I head back to the vets to pick up our dog crate.

So today has been pretty quiet. I’ve spent a bit of time in my scrap room (there were a few bits that had ended up having flying lessons – my inkpads and paints…) so they needed sorting out, and a layout to do for SBO. Given up on the last one for SP. I could do a simple one for SBO but the SP one involves a lot of work, and I just don’t have it in me to do that right now. So the photos of the layouts are some of the ones from The Embellish It camp at Raincliff last weekend, finally finished.

No work tomorrow either, the kindergarten Association has very wisely shut all kindergartens. Some will have to be shut because of damage, but with a storm expected along with more aftershocks, think this is less confusing (rather than a list of this one's open, that one's shut...).

Have a good week people.