Thirty minutes ago we had a fairly long, rocking and rolling earthquake. We are told by GeoNet it was a magnitude 6.1 on the Richter scale at a depth of 48 km and 50 km northwest of Paraparaumu. Paraparaumu is where my son lives and where I dogs Daisydog.
It was felt far afield apparently but not, we hope in those areas trying to deal with the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Because of the cyclone, a National State of Emergency has been declared for only the third time in New Zealand’s history.
So more bad news from our little corner of the world. Would somebody please find Mother Nature’s meds and check that she takes them
Sunday morning 8.15 am and I am sitting in bed reading emails and thinking about what to put in my breakfast shake this morning. But wait, there is a different shake. Very small and very quick. It’s OK. Just Mother Nature shaking her skirts.
As you can see from the above comment, we are quite blasé about earthquakes here in New Zealand. Often there are reports of quakes but I sleep through them or don’t even feel them. But for many, that all changed in February 2011 when a major quake hit Christchurch in the South Island, killing 185 people and causing widespread damage across the city.
So after that wake-up call, what else to tell you about today? Autumn has well and truly arrived Birds in the garden are now few and far between, the heating is on most days and sweaters are being worn again. But we did so enjoy the protracted summer this year – an Indian summer?
Of course, having written that I immediately had to find out why that name, and how and where it originated. There appears to be several thoughts on this. But first, what is an Indian summer? Our trusty friend, Wikipedia says “ “An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.” But of course, we know it also occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.
While that is quite clear, the origin of the term is not. Again our friend Wiki says “The late 19th-century lexicographer Albert Matthews made an exhaustive search of early American literature in an attempt to discover who coined the expression. The earliest reference he found dated to 1851. He also found the phrase in a letter written in England in 1778, but discounted that as a coincidental use of the phrase. Later research showed that the earliest known reference to Indian summer in its current sense occurs in an essay written in the United States circa 1778 by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. The letter was first published in French. The essay remained unavailable in the United States until the 1920s.“
I love all that I can discover on Wikipedia and in fact, I have a monthly donation to the service, small but every dollar counts, as they say. Who says?
So now to get on with the rest of my day. Take care and keep safe.
A World Apart 