We’ve just had another two earthquakes or at least tremors. This time I felt them both. 🙂

The epicentre was within a mile of me. I wasn’t in the office, which being nine floors up got quite a shaking. Nothing too dangerous, but the people in the office said it was quite worrying.

I spoke to Jan at home, and she said that all the chimes and various dangling things in Jamies’s room all set off jangling. Jamie thought it was quite exciting!

The earlier story at the BBC news site has been updated.

Wow! Another Earthquake. This time centred on Manchester. Much closer to me this time. But, alas I missed it again. 🙁

This time I was on a bus and I’m sure wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it from one of the many potholes on route!

Here is a BBC news story about it. The time is wrong on this one though. It happened nearer to 8:35.

Update: Apparently last month’s earthquake was upgraded in it’s intentsity.

I woke this morning full of confidence that my ankle would be well enough to go to work (along with the rest of me). But it started hurting as soon as I walked on it. 🙁

So I’ve decided not to go in to the office today. I’ll work from home though. Too much to be done, can’t sit with my feet up all day!

So, as I mentioned earlier, I had an accident this afternoon.
Some background: The office block where I work is having lots of work done, it’s been going on for more than twelve months now. The big thing is a completely new entrance to the building. The two old entrances will flank the new one. They’ve done new floors, new decor, everything.

Including refitting the lifts. Now, they started refitting the lifts about six weeks ago. Since that time, there has been only one lift working at anyone time. My office is on the eighth floor (that’s the ninth to the rest of the world).

Unfortunately, there are more than 2,500 people on ten floors just on this side of the building. You can end up waiting over ten minutes for a lift. So whilst I’ll wait as long as it takes to go up, I’ve taken to using the stairs to go down.

And given that walking down stairs is boring, and slow, and not very taxing, I run down them. Two at a time. Jogging along the interconnecting bits. That’s when it happened.

I’ve run down from the eighth floor on my way for a smoke. I’m coming round the corner on the third, and I turned my ankle. Badly. Sprawled on the floor, swearing. Feeling nauseous. So, I drag myself to my feet, test the ankle with my weight, and it hurts! What to do?

Call the lift, wait, hobble in, go down. Because maybe some fresh air and a cigarette will help take the nausea away. It does. Ok, so back up to the office in the lift (didn’t have to wait this time). Hobble to my desk and back to work. No, nobody has noticed at all! I find some painkillers in my bag and take a couple, maybe it’ll help.

At last Ali notices my wincing and discomfort. I explain what’s happened and he offers to go and get some ice for me. Thanks Ali!

The ankle has started to swell now. The ice helps. As do the pain killers which are starting to kick in. But, I soldier on, handling the crises as they happen.

Finally I get to go home. By this time a few people have noticed me limping, and Matt offers me his place in the crowded lift. Thanks Matt!

Down on the ground floor, Tessa offers to take me to the train station in her fella’s car. Thanks Tessa!

I phone Jan to tell her what has happened and ask her to pick me up in the car at Stockport station. I manage to get on a train and get a seat, good. It’s not hurting so much now but those train steps are high! Eight minutes after the train has supposed to have left, an announcement says people going to Stockport would be better getting on another train because this one is broken, or waiting for a driver or something. Right! Hobble off one train, across the platform and on to another. Crowded, no seats.

Eventually I get to Stockport, meet up with Jan and Jamie and get home. THanks Jan! I manage to get my shoe off (which has started to feel decidedly tight) and put my foot up in the lounge. The swelling is quite isolated and if I keep my weight off it doesn’t hurt.

After Jamie went to bed, I actually watched some TV. For a whole hour and a half! But at least my ankle has stopped hurting.

Bored now. So I’m back in front of my PC. I don’t think anything serious has been damaged. I’ll probably be back in work tomorrow.

L8tr…

Here’s a silly game to play: Google Fighting! You enter two search phrases and the winner is the one with the most hits!

Try Mike Little vs Bill Gates, or United vs City. How about Over vs Under or In vs Out?

Very silly!

My friend SteveP just sent me this:
Was fortunate to pick up a new magazine that someone had left on the train the other day.
Great new Jack magazine, the cover reads “Voted Best New Magazine” by mag design awards 2002. I read it from cover to cover, and wanted to share this article with you. It’s about the National Geographic‘s expedition to conquer Shipton’s Arch. Truly breathtaking.

We had a power cut in Bredbury, Stockport, tonight at around 7:30. I was just putting Jamie to bed when everything went dark! I had to run around finding torches and candles, none of which were in the expected places 🙂

It must have been a big outage; I couldn’t see a lighted street lamp in any direction! Paula came round after she had finished work whilst we were in blackness and said that it reached as far as Woodley, which is about a mile or so up the road. She also mentioned that there was one house down the road from us which still had lights on. I guess they must have emergency generators. I can just picture the smug grin on someone’s face as their purchase was finally justified 😉

It lasted between 75 and 90 minutes. Funnily enough, or not, the only inconvenience was that I had been planning to do some work on the computer. But there was no TV on, no radio; Jan carried on reading under candle light, Jamie read in bed with the aid of a lamp, and I picked up my book and read under candle light. I even pulled out the old style kettle we use for camping and made a coffee!

Anyway it’s back on now. I had to go round setting all the electric clocks: microwave, radio alarm, video. Luckily none of the computers seemed to have suffered. I lost some edits to a file, and that was it.

We’ve just sat and watched Contact with Jodie Foster. I’ve seen it before, but not for a while. A most excellent film. We really enjoyed it.

I love ‘serious’ Sci-Fi films like this. Ones that make you think. I must try to get hold of a copy of the book by Carl Sagan. I’ve only ever read his factual books before.

Recommended.