Cardboard City

Martin's stadium

My Tower of London, Christchurch style

So, on Sunday afternoon, after an early morning start doing fittings with Sailor Spy for our imminent fashion show Eco-Runway, I returned home to enjoy an eggy brunch with Mr Bear, a visit to the Shabby Chic market (we didn't take any coins with us so this was a form of torture for me) and coffee and cake round the corner from our flat. Once we'd had our fill of banoffee pie and hazelnut latte, we decided to go on a wee stroll along the river. The full route along the river has just been reopened for the Avon punters and we spied them across the river with a make-shift ticketing office. Upon seeing this, we then realised a route through the previously barricaded red zone had been opened and we discovered you can now walk around nearly the whole city centre; a slightly surreal experience for us as we've been here 7 months and never seen the heart of where we live! 

I bumped into one of the models from the morning's fittings, unlocking her bike from where it had been tethered to a fence. It turned out she'd been to the top of the Press building and taken part in some sort of 'building' workshop. Intrigued, we travelled up the elevator in the newly faceded press tower, accompanied by a security man with the shiniest shoes I've ever seen, and reached the top to behold a sprawling array of cardboard, paper and glue. Turns out a company from the US had heard about the Cardboard Cathedral (sorry, the TRANSITIONAL Cathedral), and come up with a project to enable Christchurchians to build their dream city from the stuff. And here it is! Pretty cool ey? 

We got stuck in, obviously, and built our own additions to add to the map.

From the top floor, you also get a pretty good view of the city or, more accurately, what's left of it. But with the colourful creations of a people's city at our backs, it felt like the future was a bright one and Christchurch will shine again.