Quake

Well bugger me if last night we didn’t have an Earthquake!
 
I know for the readers across the world outside Europe the fact that something of 5.3 on the Richter scale happened here is something of a non-event, however it was the largest one I remember and although only 0.2 higher than the one in 1990 it appeared more severe this time and yet I was about the same distance away from the epicentre as then. In 1990 I remember the toy parrot I had hanging from the ceiling swinging backwards and forwards. In 2002 I came out into the garden and nonchalantly lit up.
 
This one seemed bigger. It started quite benignly, a little shaking and a rumble and I thought, shit, earthquake and carried on watching the telly. Then the rumbling got a lot deeper and more violent and seemed a little more menacing when the crockery and stuff started to shake. There is something quite eerie about that noise, perhaps because it reminds me of the exhibit in the Natural History Museum that had a replica supermarket of the Kobe earthquake with CCTV footage from the event and you could stand in it and be shaken about.
 
It appeared to go on for longer than the others I have known as well, there is something primevally discomforting about the Earth moving, it sickens the stomach a little when it goes beyond that sense of something one can shrug off. The body seems to feel little after ripples as well, and it isn’t just me who’s felt that. Whether or not that was a seismic or a psychological thing I cannot say.
 
There was apparently an aftershock at 4am, I didn’t notice, I’d had enough excitement for one night!
 
Song Of The Day ~ Led Zeppelin – You Shook Me

 
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