The House That Rocked!

On September 4th we went to bed, all snuggley tucked up in our beds, and woke up in the wee hours of the morning to find ourselves in the gallies amongst the rocking of what felt like the high seas!
Luckily, due to the magic of iphones we were able to quickly conclude that Brighton by the Beach had not set sail to Antacrtica, rather had held strong through Christchurch's much talked about earthquake!

Now we don't mean to down play such an event, as there were many not as fortunate as we were, however I would like to focus on some of the highlights!  In the aftermath as we all stood huddled in our pajamas in the back yard, unsure of what to do next, we decided to do the only thing we could, get to know eachother.  I met the two lovely Scottish girls, we will not soon forget, Laura and Hollie for my first time, as they had just arrived that night.  A little light "getting to know eachother chitchat", "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", "How was your flight?",  "Is this your first earthquake?", can be quite claming during a time of crisis.

After doing a quick head count that we noticed an extra head accompanied by an unfamiliar male voice.
As luck would have it, one of our long term guest's boyfriend had planned a surprise visit on a romantic whim.  A grand gesture, but poor timing on his behalf.
After all the shaking, that didn't seem in a hurry to move on, neither were our guests, which came as a huge surprise and relief to us! They forged through the dark nights with out power and dry days of no water along with us.  We were sure to keep them all hydrated with what we had on tap-beer is 80% water isn't it?  For here at Brighton by the Beach the quake acted as a time machine that trasported us all back to the days when people just sat around the fire over candles and conversation.  Those who stuck it out with us had us looking forward to coming home to dark nights filled with great conversation and good laughs!