Photo Comp winners!

Image is everything...

10th May 2011

Thank you to all our passionate customers who entered our Image Is Everything photo competition. Congratulations to the following customers!

Best Vast Space Winner: Joji Jacob (Well)
Runners Up: Joji Jacob, (Well) Jackie Cooke,(Kawana), Tama Milne (Chc), Peta Bollard - various stores.

Best Location Winner: Andrew Pinkard (Gold Coast)
Runner Up: Michelle McKee (Well)

Best Story to Tell Winner: Paola Serola (Chc)
Runner Up: Sharni Cameron.

No applicable entries in the Most Famous

Our Stand out "Best Story to Tell" entry:

This the story of what happened  in the famous days after the terrible earthquake  that shaken Christchurch on the scary night of 4 September 2010.

I'm trying to tell this story seriously because  it deserves to be tell in that way but...believe me…there 's no way! First of all sorry for my English, we came from Italy and I still struggling with this  amazing but difficult language so please forgive me for all grammatical mistakes  you'll find in it. 

It was 4.35 in the morning when Hattie, our little dog started to bark and broke
the silent…."The wind is so strong…I thought….seems the house is flying away…
away shhhhhh Hattie why are you barking for???…..Gosh…what's  this noise…
…Wrooam  trrrrrrrrrr brum  ratatatatataata……….wow…………..I woke up my husband……..Marcooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just put a few seconds to
understand that something was wrong as..…"Un terremotoooooo!!!!!"….that
means in Italian…..

"An  earthquakeeeee!!!!"………..Everything round me was turning around or maybe  was just my head I don't remember, but my tummy was so scared that seems to have two people inside fighting….Mr. Fear and Mr. Brave…the first one was saying to me "Paola don't move".. I was terrified, the second one was saying  "Paola run as fast as you can…run out!!!!" I followed the instruction of Mr. Brave.

Yes, out… because we had experienced the earthquake in Italy, non personally, but  it was very bad. Only last year more than 400 people died under the rubbles, and the intensity of that shake was even less and less of our 7.1. So it was in the past.  The earthquake in Friuli (6,4 Richter, 989 died) and Irpinia (6,5 Richter, 2.914 died). So….earthquake.. "Gosh" I thought we are living in the house as the tale "the Three little pigs"….but not!!!!! It was't! Our house turned, jumped, shacked..and then…in a moment of peace we realized it was still stand. We were alive! Completely in the dark, but everybody alive. Just one missing and was our eldest son Ivan. He was sleeping in a garage with some friends somewhere….Arghhhhhhhhhh why just this night????

During that shake I shouted to my husband to grasp our little Fabio on his room and I went to pick up Jacopo our second child, in the other room.

He didn't want to wake up and because he was sleeping in a bed very high with a ladder, I pulled  him out from his bed pulling him from his pajamas because he was screaming "It's a dream mum, leave me sleeping!!!"  Oh no dear….rolling both from the ladder!

We spent the first 15 minutes outside in the garden, in pajamas, it was freezing but every time I tried to go inside to pick up blankets or fleeces another shake got me so scary that I run  back as a fox  saying …"Sorry I just can't!!!  "

I can't forget the faces of my children sleepy, incredulous,…their goose-bumps, so I find the brave, I entered in the house fierce…and…  I run in my room, I pick up just my windbreaker and even this was very difficult, just touching with my hand in the wardrobe to find the right one!!!!  Believe me…I forgot to pick up something for them!!! Shame of me!!! "Mum!!! You thought just about you!!!" They cried very upset to me! This is unbelievable but this is what I did that night! So in the middle of another shake with my heart sunk in my tummy, I went back inside without power just lighted from the night stars and bravely I took something to cover them….Wroooammm… trrrrrrrrrr brum  ratatatatataata..ok gotcha!

In the main time my husband was struggling in the garage to find something for help us trying to contact our teen and to take off the car from it… we realized how unprepared we were for an event so big!... Shame of us!

The hours after as Italians do in this case, we find shelter in the car, until the first light at daybreak……without understand actually what was happening because our radio didn't work in our Japanese car..only classical music but not news…damn! 

The rest is story…

We spent, listen well…, the first three night in the car!! Actually we tried to sleep the second one on the floor in the house, but every aftershock was so noise and these  were to go all the night long that my husband decided that the only place we can have a good sleep was the car! Oh no … the car again!

The four of us were squeezed into my husband  Toyota car  that is big enough to became like a bed  for two but  can you picture for four of us, plus the dog…was a nightmare trust of me! I still don't know how my husband said it the only place where was possible  sleeping good. We woke up in the morning with a river of water on the windows one feet in my mouth, an arm around my neck, my head like a flat cake on the inside car door,… there is no bone in my body painless. After three days sleeping in that way I had to take for one week anti-inflammatories!!!! Stop please no more there!!! Don't ask about our teen that he thought, as maybe our neighbors, that we are a very funny family…in turn they came to convinced us that the car wasn't a safe place and that our house was the only one where was better to be, they were so kind and lovely… but I suppose we becoming the joke of the street! 

And was in that moment that I decided without conditions to stop sleeping in the car and go back in our house again. "Or with me or without me, it's your choice" I said resolute to everybody! Yes,… but where??? Nobody want  to sleep in the own bed…But…but….on reflection, in the end..after racking my brains…my mind enlightened!!! Of course silly me…why I didn't think before? Of course yes!!!!! Under our amazing, beautiful, strong, huge, "VAST Mammoth" table!!!

This was the place where we slept for the other days until we didn't find again the brave to come back at normal life! 

This was the only very safe place in the house, the only place where we all can sleep comfortably together without fear! It's a very strong table!

I always said proudly this was one of my best purchases here in New Zealand!

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