taking stock

Well it has been an eventful few months, 2011 is looking like it is going to give 2010 a run for it's money in the 'interesting times' stakes that is for sure. The idea of having some time where nothing much happened and life just ticked over with no major news, disaster, illness or other upheaval to deal with has a huge appeal! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some serious down time during the Easter holidays but I'll not bother holding my breath... It has been a time to take stock of life in many ways - and the recent earthquake in Christchurch (and now Japan too) has added a flurry of activity on the practical taking stock front too. How well prepared am I for a major emergency? In the event of having to make a full scale insurance claim rather than just one or two items do I actually know what I've got?

The internet and mobile phone network proved valuable allies over the days after the earthquake as friends and family used text, emails and facebook to pass the word around as to who had been accounted for and the state of them and their houses. It struck me just how used we have become to being able to get instant answers, in some ways it saves a lot of waiting and worrying, but on the other hand when three days (yep, just 3 days) down the line I still hadn't heard from someone I was starting to get really quite worried - thankfully they are all ok, in fact amongst the least affected - they'd just been too busy helping others to think that folk might be worrying about them! How well would my communication technology stand up to being left without a reliable power supply? Not very, I suspect... note to self, research solar powered phone charger options.

Several friends of mine in far more earthquake prone parts of the country started discussing setting up an emergency kit - I couldn't believe they didn't have one already! One of the first things on mine and Marion's 'to do' list when I became Resident Friend was massively upgrade the decidedly sparse and Anna-unfriendly (meatballs and cheesey pasta?!) earthquake kit at the Meeting House. Since moving north I hadn't given it as much thought as we're far safer here, tropical cyclones and tsunami aside, but recent events did mean that I did some rearranging so that anything I might need of my own was all together in the one place and not scattered throughout boxes and cupboards. Plus I finally got around to buying some more batteries for my old kitchen radio and got back into the habit of carrying my pocket one in my bag, something that had lapsed since I'd lost the option of Radio 2 or TMS on the way home from work!

But on a slightly more intangible front - where am I in life? What are my options? My need to be able to get to/from work under my own steam in my own time without knocking me for six has led to rethinking where I live. The amount of Quaker committee work currently seems to excede my energy for it but that is related to the previous issue. Reaching a physical change in life stage brings it's problems but also raises some inevitable questions that most of life's landmarks do.

So a lot of thinking, mulling over and waiting for the universe to reveal it's plans seems to be on the cards... along with making a few lists!