It’s probably a combination of that earthquake and the season. Thunder is often firmly affixed to me around now and for some weeks. That’s because I’ve stopped running the fire most days, but he regards temperatures as still a little cooler than he’d like, hence he comes ambling in and attaches himself to me. Happiness is a warm human.
But with the quake on top of that, he’s more firmly and more often affixed than usual, and he wants more attention, crawling up my chest, butting me gently and insisting on being cuddled: and unless I really am too busy, he gets that. And, as I’ve had more friends than usual dropping in this past two weeeks, and most of them will cuddle a hopeful cat, he’s getting – well – not ALL the attention he could wish for, he wishes for far more than anything less than a continuous stream of cat-lovers could provide, but he’s getting at least some of the amount he’d like, so he’s happy. While I, having survived the quake with nothing more than some damage to my huge old rainwater tank, am quite happy too.

I was comfortably asleep when, a couple of minutes after midnight Sunday, the night of November the 13th, a 7.5 quake hit the South island. At that magnitude it didn’t stay there but extended all the way up to us where my home rock and rolled for about 2 minutes. Ten minutes later my neighbour arrived hammering on my window to see if I was okay. I was. The geese are still stalking about the lawn with the air of those that have been discombobulated and don’t appreciate it. Thunder is clingy, no cat likes his home bouncing like that, and my big water tank may be damaged. We stood chatting in my kitchen briefly, then she went home and I went back to bed.
I got up around half past 6am, fed everything including me, and logged on to my email to find a dozen friends all asking if I was still in one piece. I am. Apart from the water tank which may be cracked around the top, I’m fine and so is everything else here. I’m not even that bothered. It isn’t as if there’s never been a quake here, and while 7.5 is rather more than usual, the lack of any real damage means I’m not as upset as I could have been.
With that intensity the quake could have been far far worse, the last (lower level) quake in that approximate area killed over 200 people and did far more real damage, so all in all I think the country got off lightly. Of course, we all thought that in the first Christchurch quake – which was then followed by the seond that was so bad. Now I’m hoping we don’t have the same pattern. I’d rather sit at my computer thanking fortune that almost everybody/thing survived, then have a second quake roll up and devastate the place. But then, things can always be worse, and right now I’m simply grateful they weren’t and hopeful that won’t change.

At six last night I was off two doors down to the park for Guy Fawkes night. It was a pleasant interlude, quite peaceful – something the latter afternoon had not been. For some reason local bumble bees decided that being inside out of the sun was an excellent idea, and in the last three hours before I left for our Guy Fawkes evening I had to catch and evict nine of them. I say ‘have to,’ since each time one came in, Thunder arrived in the bedorom, landed on me wailing, and demanded I remove this unwanted visiter – severely interrupting my revision of the latest fantasy novel that I wanted to get done by the end of the weekend.
Somewhere in there I forgot to feed the poultry, all of whom arrived on the doorstep and announced immanent starvation molto voce. Between feeding them, collecting their eggs, feeding and soothing Thunder and evicting bumble bees my Saturday afternoon was slightly more hectic than usual. So that later on, being surrounded by people letting off fireworks, offering me cooked sausages, asking what my next article in the paper will be, and selling me raffle tickets, was, as I suspected it would be, almost peaceful in comparison.
And the next friend from the city wo comments how quiet and easy-going life is in the country, is going to be firmly disabused of that!

Yes, by now three of my four geese are nesting, and crossing the lawn brings danger if the gander doesn’t know you. IF everything hatches – very doubtful – I could have 15 goslings in another few weeks and, probably, a gander who’s run himself into exhaustion and complete paranoia. Someone arrived at the gate yesterday, no idea who, but they got out of their car, opened the gate – and Stroppy arrived breathing fire and slaughter. Whoever it was leapt back, slammed the gate, looked at Stroppy, who looked right back anbd explained on a sustained and virulent hisssss just what he’d do if they tried that again, and the person re-entered their car and drove away. For which I can’t blame them, I am merely curious as to who they were and what they wanted. Guess I’ll never know now. They could have left a note in the mailbox however if it was important, or waited another couple of minutes and I’d have been there to ask. However the up-side of that is a remarkable absence of burglars. Every cloud has a silver lining.