We Do Adventure

Sometimes it's hard to understand something you've never experienced. Up until two weeks ago my only clear recollection of an earthquake was on a simulator in London's Science Museum. That didn't prepare me for what flashes through your mind when your house actually starts shaking, like it did as we were watching Man City dump Man Utd out of the FA Cup. Last night as I lay in bed, trying to drift off to sleep, the house shook again. These quakes, while big enough to show up on the websites that monitor these things, were nothing compared to the quakes we've seen destroy communities around the world in recent months. I know that my little experience cannot really help me understand the tragedy, and terror, of those situations. This morning we woke to a day where around the world people have joined in celebrating one of the best things about the British: their ability to do pageantry. Rowan and I watched the Royal Wedding thanks to the streaming on YouTube, althoug...

Most nights we wake, albeit momentarily, at some unearthly hour as the garbage truck rumbles under our bedroom window. Last night we did not wake as Mostar experienced an earthquake ! I am somewhat disappointed about this. We have a friend in another former communist country who was living seven or eight floors up a crumbling apartment block when a sizable earthquake struck the area she was in. She emailed me about people running down the stairs and out into the street as the building swayed sympathetically. I have no such stories to tell. I could talk about a friend who woke thinking it might be the end of the world but that is their story not mine. Earthquakes are a lot more common here than they are in England, where noticeable ones are not common at all, or at least that’s my perception. There was one a month or so before we left England that dislodged a chimney pot or two in our town. I slept through that one too. Although the night after I had a very vivid dream about an earthqua...