Earthquake

What a bizarre turn of events. I am just about to dose off to sleep after reading when there is a huge crash against my far wall. At that moment I thought that some drunk had smashed into the wall next door, but the room continued to shake.

My next thought was earthquake. But this is England, not California, we don’t get earthquakes. Maybe it was a really strong gale, or a gas pipe had exploded. Or maybe, just maybe, it was an earthquake.

I get out of bed, my shot glass collection all over the floor, and wonder if I had just experienced my second earthquake. My first, my mum has told me, was in 1990 when I was just two years old. She had just put me down for a nap when the earth began to shake. She rang the police who confirmed it was an earthquake.

This morning’s quake weighed in at 5.2 on the Richter scale at its epicentre in Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, and could be felt as far as Bangor in Northern Ireland, Haarlem in Holland, Plymouth and Edinburgh.

Many houses around the country suffered damage and a student in Barnsley broke his pelvis as a result. Our house saw no damage whatsoever. Which is a shame for our landlord as he can’t shift the dump and would have loved it if it had fallen down. Doubt we would have.