Seismic swarming

We had a decent rolling rumble last Friday and then a walloping good shake Sunday afternoon.
We'd had a lovely frolic at the beach all afternoon and were on our way home at the time, so we were driving and didn't feel it. A wee while after it happened Carol's sister texted us to check everyone was OK 'after the big shake'. We were a bit mystified at first: 'big shake? What big shake?'  We'd completely missed it.

There's some damage in town, cracks in buildings and roads and glass on streets and the sea claimed back a bit of reclaimed land. One container went in off the wharf (and wouldn't you be pinged if it was yours?)  All the office workers were told not to come into the city until lunchtime, just to be safe and let the engineers and emergency crews check buildings. I'm sure there won't be too many  employees complaining about a sleep in. Nothing major but they'll be putting books back on shelves at Victoria Uni library for weeks. What a mess.

Carol poodled off to work (in the opposite direction to the CBD) on her little 250cc this morning  and I've just done a shop to stock up on things for the emergency kit. All's good.

Thank you all for your calls and texts. For most of us it's business as usual. I did have a good laugh though when a worker in a big store in Wellington was interviewed on TV. He said he was high up on top of a rack, stacking rolls of toilet paper, when the quake struck. He said he didn't know whether he was going to need the toilet paper at the time..I loved his droll humour.

The geologists tell us we'll be getting more shakes for a while, and that some could be 6+.
We're all glued to Geonet.
It is an amazing website that shows you what and where and how deep and how strong - before the chandelier has even stopped swinging. On an average day NZ has about 20 shakes - we're getting a few more than that since Friday!

 Don painting away outside late today. On the chill right now as we have to leave our lounge door open to dry the paint. Under strict instructions not to close it until we go to bed.. jeez who's brilliant idea was it to paint in the middle of winter?