The Earth Did Not Move For Us

At around 1 a.m. this morning England suffered an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale. It is, apparently our biggest earthquake in 25 years.  People all over the country reported feeling it.  We were both still up at 1 a.m. and felt absolutely nothing, the earth did move for us, I am glad to say. As far as I know only one man was injured when a chimney stack fell through his roof.

I am not turning alerts back on just yet, I got to the stage where I needed a complete break from journals and more time away from the computer.  I have spent countless hours glued to the chair in front of the screen for the past ten years.  I used to transcribe old records for people researching their family trees and was sometimes doing that for twelve hours per day, at the same time I was also doing research on my own family tree. 

When that all finished I got into journals and, as many of you know, I used to post every day plus visiting so many other journals.  Just under three weeks ago I logged on and saw the list of alerts and all the e-mails from my graphics group plus personal e-mails and I sat there and thought "I just cannot do this, I cannot face it."  I knew it was time to take a break.

So I shall only probably post about once per week for the foreseeable future and I will return to commenting on your journals when I feel ready.

So, what has been happening in our lives?  Well, Mike has been extremely unwell for a week but thankfully he is picking up now although we are awaiting test results from the hospital. The doctor ordered Mike to have the tests done because of the symptoms he was experiencing.

Nathan naturally caught Chicken Pox  but not necessarily from Daniel because he is in a different class at pre-school and everyone in his class went down with it as well.

Our sun-lounge is in need of major repair work.  We lost all the carpeting out there due to water getting in so it looks a bit of a mess at the moment.  Dean is on holiday this week and they had hoped to make a start but Mike has not been well enough.  It can wait but at the moment it is not pleasant to look at.  When Mike took the carpet and underlay up before he was ill there were some horrible vinyl tiles underneath and that is our view right now.  The whole structure really needs to be torn down as it was a home-made affair when it was erected well over forty years ago, but we cannot possibly afford to put up a new one.  It has done well considering its age.

We did have a scare a couple of weeks ago, thought we had lost Jack.  Mike took the two dogs out for their nightly romp in the local fields.  The railway runs close by and maintenance work was being done.  There were a couple of louds bangs and big flashes of light and when Mike looked around, Jack had disappeared.  He searched and searched but could not find him.  He came home without him, then took the car out driving around the streets to see if he could spot him.  Nothing.  By now it was gone 1 a.m. and we were getting frantic.  We were scared he would get onto the main road and be run over.  Maybe even stolen as he is so very friendly towards everyone.  Yes, he is micro-chipped but unfortunately when someone takes a dog to the vet it is not normal policy to run a scanner over them.  So, with his collar and tag removed, he could belong to anybody.

After the third attempt, we rang the police to report him missing and give full details.  Neither of us could sleep so Mike said he would go looking again.  I told him to take his powerful torch this time.  Lucky I suggested it.  Mike went back to the fields and stood in the middle and shone the light around.  He saw two green orbs glowing in the darkness which could have been a fox.  But he went towards them and yes, it was Jack - cowering under some bushes and now frightened that he had been left behind and had been alone for around three hours.  He crawled to Mike on his belly.

We were so relieved to have him back.  It took Jack ages to be willing to go back to the fields again at night but he seems over it now.

I have been doing lots of reading and catching up on things I have not donebecause of spending so much time on the computer.

I was happy to see one friend, David, return to journalling and sad to hear we had lost another journal friend, Irene. I have now added Irene's photo and journal link to our memorial journal.

Well, there is not much else to tell you.  The evenings are really drawing out now and the new leaves will soon be breaking out on the trees.  This Sunday is Mother's Day so I would like to wish all U.K. Mum's and Grandmothers, a very happy day.

I hope life is being kind to you all and I will be back commenting when I feel the time is right for me.  Take care everyone

Love,