when the bed's a rockin'...

...it must be a 10 second, 5.3 magnitude earthquake. Yes, here on the isle of Britain, we experienced something rare and truly unique last night—the UK's "...biggest earthquake in nearly 25 years." With an epicenter near Market Rasen (in Lincolnshire) it was felt across Yorkshire (where we are) and as far away as Wales, London, and Scotland (all of the colored circles on the map below).


So, since Pat and I have very different accounts of this event, we're both going to tell the story. First, a little background. Pat has been known to search out the slightest sound in the middle of the night with his eagle-like hearing because he must know what's causing it—and must stop it. Jamie has been known to turn up the TV louder than necessary so that she can hear the soft parts comfortably and really doesn't care what squeaks or where it is—if it's really important it will be obvious in the morning.

With that being said, here's Pat's side of the story. Written by the man himself:

I woke up to the bed moving around and everything in the room shaking; the windows, the curtains, the shelves, everything on the shelves, you get the idea. I said to Jamie "I think we're having an earthquake." Her reply was simply "It's just the wind, go back to sleep."

Jamie's side of the story went something like this:

Pat: "I was right, it was an earthquake last night."
Jamie: "What earthquake?"

Then it dawned on me. In my extreme grogginess, I remember Pat saying, "What is that?!" and the bed vibrating like someone had just turned over with a thump. I vaguely remember some other noise, but I think it morphed into my dreamworld. I don't remember saying anything coherent, but did think to myself, "Who knows what it is, just go back to sleep already." In defense of my oblivious state, it was very windy (20mph+) yesterday and the windows tend to rattle when that happens. That doesn't explain the house moving of course.

So that was today's drama in England. No damage here, although there were reports of moving beds, 30 minute power outages, falling chimneys, and collapsing masonry elsewhere. One man was injured by falling debris. From what I can tell, none of our stuff moved at all.