Festive season holds little joy in Christchurch

Philip Somerville reflects on a poignant Christmas morning in Christchurch among ruins and red-stickered buildings.

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All is calm, all is bright.

Or so it seems, as I make my way up a track from Clifton Hill to the Port Hills Summit Rd. "The City that Shines" stretches below in 8am summer light.

It's not long, though, before I'm jogging towards Evans Pass, and there life has stood still.

While Lyttelton Harbour is also a picture of tranquillity, the route ahead is blocked by signs, high wire fences and, further down, large boulders left where they fell.

Godley Head road is closed as well, as is the way to Sumner.

The walking tracks, already overgrown, are shut and the fire danger sign is stuck on low. No-one needs update it. I've reached the end of the line.

There's nothing for it but to dodge the obstacles and cut downhill. I need no prompt to push the pace where shattered rocks remain splattered across the tarseal. It will be a very long time before these roads are attended to.

In Sumner itself, the plight of some in this city really hits home.

I first pass an empty big red bus stopped at the terminus, familiar Christchurch on a Sunday morning, but then see the shipping containers regularly arranged and stacked in rows like blocks of Lego.

These barriers are a hideous symbol in this part of town, perhaps worst summed up by upsetting graffiti scrawled across one.

"The world's an ugly place. Don't act pretty."

Squeezing through a gap, I see the tape across driveways, the red stickers, and grass verges now rank and waist high.

Someone's once immaculate garden has gone to seed.

I pass the abandoned church where Christmas carols will not be sung "this happy morn". I pass the Postshop from where no Christmas cards were sent and a row of shops whose eftpos machines were silent this holiday season. I pass, also, the place where in February a man, quietly eating lunch in his van, was crushed to death.

With relief, I turn to trudge uphill through the ubiquitous orange and white HireQuip barriers, past the slumps and bumps in the road and along the cracked footpaths.

I'll soon be back with my family and my sister-in-law and her two sons. The boys spent most of the year in shared high schools on the other side of town.

Friday's earthquakes prompted us to delay our decision to travel north until the morning of Christmas Eve.

While keen to gather, we did not want to add burdens to those under stress.

But it is clear all my sister-in-law wanted for Christmas, like most in this city, was the normality of families getting together. That, as much as possible, is what we are enjoying.

We've been lucky aftershocks have been moderate. And we can join in the local guessing game.

In what strikes me as a heartening act of defiance, Jo and the boys can rattle off estimates of the magnitude of each minor shake. Going by the GeoNet website, they know their stuff.

While I know the past few days have been heart-breaking for many in Christchurch, for my wife's family - and I suspect many others - it has still been a time of laughter and family companionship.

Even if all is not calm. Even if all is not bright.

- Philip Somerville is the Otago Daily Times' editorial manager.