I felt that!

http://www.geonet.org.nz/x2547781g_l.html

Several times I've thought I felt an earthquake whilst lying in bed but never remembered to either check the time or look it up later - this time I did both!

I guess that'll teach me to not to have a lie-in - I've yet to feel one when up and about.

I've started going to the local Civil Defence Meetings on behalf of Meeting. We were shown a presentation by WEMO (rhymes with Nemo, as in 'Finding...'! Wellington Emergency Management Office) which was certainly enough to make me put everything I needed in case of evacuation in one place. I'm not paranoid enough to have it ready packed, and in anycase half of it gets used too often for that to be practical.

We got to play with Lego bricks and radios the other week - trying to explain to our twin pair how to build the same model as we had over the radio. Easier said than done when your twin pair does not have Lego logic! Get me a four year old child...

The recent heavy rains have put minds at rest a lot at WEMO as there has been a arsonist setting fire to the Town Belt and other bush areas in the region. Given the close proximity to residential areas and the extremely dry conditions we've had, (not to mention hearing on the news about the devastating bush fires in Australia over the summer as a reminder as to how bad they can be) there have been some anxious bods at the fire desk. You'd certainly need more than two boy scouts to rub together to get a fire going out there now!

It might all appear like over-reacting but if anything does happen - be it fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami it's good to know that someone somewhere has thought through the logistics, that there are teams of volunteers trained up to deal with emergencies (as long as no-one asks them to build Lego models by radio we'll be fine!).

At least I now know that if anything does happen and I survive the first thing I do is go down to the Civil Defence station and register that I'm ok, along with anyone else in the building, so that the Red Cross 0800 number can say we're safe - I'd better put that in the Resident Friend handbook for future incumbents - there's no way I'd've known if I hadn't been at that meeting, it's not exactly something we get taught in Britain! Another top tip - when they say shelter in a doorway in the event of earthquake what they mean is use your bum to hold the door open and lean over and grab hold of the frame on the other side. Apparently in Seattle when they had a big quake the majority of injuries were broken and sprained ankles from people running - hardly any of the injured were children - they all had the sense to follow the drill!