Not long after I posted last night and had finished skipping around the house singing “earthquake! earthquake!” with full on excited glee, Young Father hunted high and low for any signs of damage. Now he didn’t actually feel any of the rumblings himself which demonstrates that it wasn’t very big at all (at least where we live), yet he had got it in his head that half the house was now probably on the verge of tumbling into a pile of rubble. He had convinced himself that the crack in the wall of the lounge had got bigger and knocked on my door excitedly to see if I thought the same hairline crack (which extended up into my bedroom) had widened to a gaping fissure up there too. He was mightily disappointed that I hadn’t thought so. And then we all returned to normal and went to bed.

It wasn’t until the next morning when I woke up that I realised that the earthquake HAD caused a bit of disturbance in my room:

Poor Eliza! She either tumbled in the rumble or was so traumatised by it that it had caused her to faint. I’m still trying to find out exactly what happened, but the poor girl is too upset. I decided to take precautionary action against further nervous disturbance and put her straight to bed where she stayed for the whole day.

She slept for practically the whole time, and I left a sister with her to keep an eye on things to make sure she was ok. Barnaby also went into full on nursing mode, getting regular updates from Cecily…

And then immediately passing the information back on to me.

He was an excellent go-between. It was a real team effort.

On a brighter note, Paige’s new bicycle arrived today which was very exciting, so exciting in fact that she completly forgot to post-it-note it in French.

Paige used the money she earned from doing her cover shoot for Seventeen Magazine which was published today. She’s hoping to take it to the Lake District the week after next, so this lunchtime I gave her a little bike riding lesson. Unfortunately at the moment she can only ride it next to walls and other vertical supports However she’s a very determined little rider, so I’m sure we’ll sort something out by then and she’ll be able to ride down the paths all by herself

Thankfully by this evening, Eliza was feeling a little bit better. She spent the whole day in bed, and is still there now so I’ll probably let her sleep next to my pillow tonight, just in case something happens. I think she’s worried that there’s going to be another earthquake. I told her that this was a good practice run for when we move to California

That we just had AN EARTHQUAKE. I am SO NOT making this up. I know it was an earthquake as it felt like the ones in California.

ODD. Especially as that England isn’t exactly known as being seismically active.

For the record, it was just before 1am.

****** EDIT ******

YES I *DID* FEEL ONE!

And more here:
(note the times in both screenshots….it’s well-nigh past my bedtime )

Apart from the fact that I was very almost late as I couldn’t find his office (he had to remove all of his signs from the window, and also the street number as he’d received death threats from the British National Party, an extreme right wing, uber-nationalist political group), it all went VERY WELL.

He made me a cup of tea, asked me to tell him everything that was going on with my immigration status and all the while taking detailed notes on an official government form. The outcome is that he’s not only going to write to DrMrNin’ local Congresswoman to put pressure on her to spring into action (he’s even asking her to report back what action she’s taken), but he’s also writing directly to the US Customs and Immigration Service themselves! I was hoping for the former, but the latter is a completely unexpected BONUS. He said that last year he’d received an official letter himself from a politican in France for a similar situation and it certainly made him sit up and take notice as it all seemed so official, so he’s hoping that it might have the same effect over in California. Copies of his letters should arrive with me shortly.

I’m feeling that he’s very deserving of my vote right now. I shall elect him again when the time comes!

Now obviously this doesn’t guarantee that I’ll get fast-tracked through or anything, but at least I’ll feel like I’ve tried to do something about it. Fingers crossed, eh?

And I celebrated tonight with a nice big steaming bowl of creamy rice pudding