One of my earliest
Sennett holidays was a few years before I officially became a Sennett, when Lee
and I went to Cyprus back in 1999. It was a bit of a funny time - with the
dawning of the new millennium, there was lots of talk among the superstitious
about the end of the world. It was also the year that we had the total solar
eclipse in Europe, which added to the superstition. Unfortunately, the eclipse
occurred while we were actually on the plane, so we missed the whole thing (had
we been a bit more informed, I'm sure we'd have timed things a little better!).
We arrived at our
hotel, having missed the excitement of the eclipse, to find the receptionist a
little flustered. She told us that there had been an 'earquaz' that afternoon.
We were confused. It took quite a lot of repetition and mimes for us to finally
work out that there had been an earthquake. It hadn't been too serious
(measuring 5.6), and there were no major casualties, but there was some
building damage - as we saw on our wanders the next day - and most of the
injuries that had been sustained were caused by panic (apparently, the timing
of the earthquake in conjunction with the eclipse had led to more
end-of-the-world panic and people throwing themselves out of windows...).
Anyway, we went
upstairs to our fourth-floor room, a little concerned about the news from the
receptionist. But to be honest I was too tired to worry much. While all Lee
could think about was food, the travelling had obviously taken its toll on me;
I was exhausted and all I could think about was lying down on our nice new hotel
bed. In the end we agreed that I'd lie down and have a little nap while Lee
went for a quick wander outside to find some food.
I was woken up rather
abruptly by Lee throwing himself on the bed. I opened my eyes, annoyed, ready
to have a moan, only to realise that Lee wasn't in the room at all. I was
confused. Sometimes when you're half-asleep it feels like the bed moves, just
as you start to drop off, but this was a lot more violent and a lot more real.
As I was trying to figure out what had happened, the bed started shaking again.
So did the pictures on the wall above the bed. In fact, so did the whole room.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to work out that this was an earthquake (I blame having only just woken up).
I was quite frankly
terrified. Loads of thoughts rushed through my mind. How bad was it? How long
would it last? Was I safe? Where was Lee? Was he okay? What should I do? I
tried to remember advice for what to do in case of an earthquake but realised
I'd never had cause to read any before. In the end I decided (not entirely sure
why) that the corner of the room was the safest place to be. So there I went
and crouched down until the shaking stopped. And there I stayed for quite some
time afterwards, just in case.
I was sitting back on
the bed, probably still shaking myself, even if the room wasn't, when Lee
finally walked in. (I should probably add that this was before the days of
mobile phones, so I'd had no idea whether he was okay.) I threw myself on him in
tears. 'Thank goodness you're okay!' I sobbed. He looked at me like I'd gone mad.
'What do you mean?' he said. 'The earthquake!' I managed. He still looked at me
like I'd gone mad. Turns out he hadn't felt a thing. While I was busy feeling
the earth move up on the fourth floor, down on the ground everything was as
good as still. It hadn't been another earthquake - 'just' an aftershock. And not
a very big one by the sounds of it, despite what it had felt like.
It was a hell of a
story to tell when we got home - we'd survived an earthquake (even if Lee
hadn't actually felt it)! Since then we've had a couple of minor earthquakes
here in Kent, so it no longer feels like quite such a big deal. (Although when I
woke up to the bed shaking a year or so ago, I at least recognised it for what
it was this time, despite the unexpectedness of it.) I still don't know what
you're supposed to do in the case of a serious earthquake though - perhaps I
should read up on it? After all, given our track record, there's a reasonable
chance of us experiencing another one on holiday one day!
