In the Wake of the Quake

Early on Monday morning NZ was rocked by a series of earthquakes, the biggest being 7.8M near Kaikoura in the South Island, with loss of two lives. It was extremely fortunate that the earthquakes occurred in the middle of the night, or the toll would have been worse.
Since the earthquakes, there has been torrential rain and flooding in the affected areas to add to it all.
We feel very lucky to be safe and free from shaking up here in the North of the North. As for the big quake 4 years ago, we are offering a place to stay for people affected by the earthquake.
The infrastructure damage is huge, plus there are a lot of buildings in the capital city Wellington that have been deemed unsafe.

So just a few pictures...but there is such a lot more damage.

A map showing the New Zealand earthquakes

Photos from the album of Aaron Woolley

It will be a long slow recovery.

Sorry if you got triplicate posts - gremlin in the works.

DIY Socks, My Year Of No New Clothes Is Up.

My second (but not consecutive) year of No New Clothes For a Year has just ended. This time I joined the Facebook group of that name, which made it more interesting to be doing it in conjunction with many others.
I managed to go the whole 12 months without buying any clothes or accessories at all. In the in-between year I am only buying preused, except for underwear and some shoes. 
There are lots of reasons to do this - breaking spending/shopping habits, it's better for the environment and it saves money just for starters.

While I was in my not-buying year, I came across a pattern for DIY fleece socks. I decided to make my first pair from an old cotton t-shirt. I found the pattern was really too big, partly because of my choice of material, but partly because the person who blogged the pattern had already enlarged it - finding the original had been too small. So if you choose to make them, be aware that you might need to alter the sizing. 

I added the top band myself - it wasn't in the pattern

The site that I got the free pattern download from is..Salty Peanut Stitchery It is easy to figure out and not difficult to sew.
I plan to make a lined fleecy pair next.

Charity Shop Find of the Week: The not-buying-new ethic translates to all parts of life - not just clothing for me. I have been keeping a look out for a soda stream machine, to make soda with a squeeze of lemon, to help me drink fewer wines to help with my weight loss plan. I was just delighted to find this one in the Hospice Shop for only $12. It has paid for itself already. It came with a full gas bottle even!

Part of the weight loss plan has been stepping up the exercise too, so Derek, Katie, Munta and I are walking for 30 minutes/ night. We are driving to a different part of our road, and we pick up rubbish as we go. In the past week we have filled a rubbish bag and our recycling bin with what we have picked up, the place looks much better, and we are all better for the exercise too. 

My blog writing has been (pleasantly) interrupted twice this afternoon. We are on the route of the Te Araroa Trail, which is a linked walk the whole length of New Zealand. 

We sometimes have trail walkers call in asking if they can camp, because we are between camping spots. 
This year I have put little signs down on the road that we are TA Trail walker friendly, because we think it's fabulous what these young people are doing and we love to meet people from all around the world. We've just filled the water bottles of an American couple, and sent them off with a lime and some lettuce, as they don't get a lot of vegetables or fruit because they have to carry everything. The first couple in today were Japanese - they just came to say hello.
The walkers take approximately 5 months to walk the full 3,000km length of New Zealand.