I repacked the getaway kit last weekend (we used it in this emergency) In the getaway kit (this is grab and go....seconds only to leave) 2 blankets 1 litre water/per person no cook food + chocolate + boiled sweets a solar garden light a wind up torch that also charges a cell phone (although not very well as we found out this time...wind for 5 mins, send a txt) a battery radio and spare batteries woolly hats, gloves, socks First aid kit flannels (we found this time a plaster is useless in an emergency, you need something large and absorbent) 2 sarongs (fold up small, can be used as sheets, bandages, sun protection etc etc etc) Photocopies of contact details, passport no's etc. This is in a small backpack I can take on my bike if necessary. In the house we have: Water, min of 20L per person. I am currently building this back up again. I have 3 20L containers, one in the shed, one in the garage and one in the laundry (in case one collapses) Plus a number of refilled juice bottles stored all over the place. I have 12 L stored right beside the getaway kit. This sits by the french doors in my bedroom, it does not look messy to me it looks reassuring. Then a weeks of food, and after this time it will be 2 weeks of food, stored in a special cupboard along with a can opener, a camping gas stove and spare gas (now 5 ) cylinders. Cup a soups, whilst not what I consider food normally are good as they only need hot water pouring on. Also instant noodles. Add hot choc and canned milk for the kids, cheers them up no end! All this I check every 6 months when the clocks change. Willow.

Such wonderful news. There are no words for the joy.

Praying for you and your family and friends, Jean. Many hugs Kia Kaha Willow, in Christchurch, NZ

Oh yes, that is it, and if your house is built on a concrete foundation, and this cracks, then the stuff comes up through the floor inside. (that happened at our Meeting House). It can get quite deep. For the interested, apparently liquefaction is the process and silt is the product. Many thanks to the army of students and farmers who have come to christchurch to shovel the stuff away. It is being piled in a field near Bromley, close to where I live and there is an aboslute mountain of silt, it is huge. Willow.

Please can you thank your husband for coming down Deb. The people of Christchurch are so grateful to everyone who has come/is coming. Our prayers are for Japan now. Kia Kaha. Willow.

So good to hear you are safe. Take care, I will be thinking of you. Kia kaha. (stay strong) From Willow in Christchurch East, NZ

Congratulations! And just follow NZ school terms We don't go back after Christmas until February! ;)

There is a young man in the next street I have been avoiding for years, He has tattoos, rings and studs almost everywhere, and he wears only black. He has his head shaved. The morning after the quake I met him as I was walking down the deserted street. He saw me and came straight over to me. I froze. A big beam crossed his face and he shouted, grinning all over with joy. "They got my mum out of the CTV building last night! She's going to be OK.!!!" Well, we hugged and cried for joy in the street right there and then. I do not know this boy's mother, but I do now know her son loves her, I know she is safe, and I now know her son! We say hello when we meet, and I ask after her, and he asks after my family. We wait together at the end of the road for the water tanker and pass the time of day. Just one of the little things that have changed since the quake.

Liquefaction is dreadful awful horrible...there are not enough words. you have the quake, everything is falling around you and you don't know when it will stop. And then the water starts, first water runs down the road, everything is flooded, then the liquefaction starts everything is covered with grey silt, holes open up in the road, and it just keeps coming. Then eventually the water drains away and everything is covered with grey silt mixed with sewage. It come up inside houses too, but thankfully not in our bit of our street. The telegraph poles fall down too, as the ground cannot support them, and it cannot support the weight of cars on the road and holes open up. I talked to a teacher at a badly affected school. She thought their kids would DROWN in liquefaction. They were outside in the playground and the playground cracked and it started coming up, so they rushed the kids onto the field, and it kept coming up on the field too and they kept trying to find higher ground.... Thank you for all your kind thoughts and prayers. I am sorry it has taken so long. My daughters got word out to wider family and friends, but it is only today i have managed to sit down at a computer and answer the several hundred emails in my inbox, and to visit here. And thanks to my friend Ellen for the loan of her laptop! Willow.

For those who don't know, I live in Christchurch East. NZ I am sorry it has taken so long to get in touch and let you know we are OK, and i don't know if there are any threads about the quake as I haven't yet had time to look. We only got power back two days ago, and my computer did not make it through the quake, so I have borrowed a laptop. Water is intermittent, and the toilet is a chemical one that arrived 12 days after the quake (before that it was a hole in the garden!!!!!) Although everything inside my house is broken, the house itself stood up well. It is an old wooden house and although it has shifted and settled it is still here and doing well. My family was scattered all over the town, but we all managed to get in contact with each other by 7pm (about 6 hours after the quake). Everyone was fine, although some were in the town centre when the quake hit. One daughter in her 20's has had to move out of her house, but she is now living with another daughter on the comparatively unaffected west side of the city, as she had power and water and we didn't. My son (14 and the only child now at home) was away from me at a class at the time. It took me two and a half hours to reach him, with liquefaction, bridges impassable, floods, holes in the road etc etc. He is OK but we have all been sleeping in the one room until the power came back, just 2 days ago. He needs a night light, something he has not needed since he was 4. Now Japan has had such a dreadful quake and Tsunami and I have spent the whole night awake, thinking of them and watching to see if the Tsunami will come our way, as I am quite near the beach. And the Japanese were so wonderful after our quake, coming so quickly, with expert searchers and other help. I cannot bear this for them. Willow.

Sure, books, DVDs, the internet, whatever, just not real life people who know the language. I was recently given Winnie Ille Pu and have set myself the challenge of learning to read it. :)

Really, well enough so you could read things written in latin? With no outside help at all? And if you do feel it possible, what would you use as an adult? Thanks, Willow.

Thank you. :)

Hi Lane, I am trying to put together a self education programme......although I am not sure I can commit to 7 years! I was planning on getting Well educated mind out of the library, so I could put together a programme. I have just started "How to Read a Book" (Adler and van Doren) and was going to start with the Epic of Gilgamesh. This list is new to me and looks interesting! Were you planning to read the books in the given order, or jump around a bit? And why this list not the Well Educated Mind one? Or are they the same? I only decided I was going to set myself a Great Books course this weekend, so I have not done much research yet, but I have signed up for a maths course via the NZ correspondence school. I am afraid I spent most of my High School years truanting, but now at almost 50 years of age i have decided to put things right! Willow.

Sorry I missed the question of life after death. I don't know if there is life after death, but I hope... Most Quakers leave this question to God, but also most don't seem to worry about Hell. Sufficient unto the day etc. I don't worry. I'm with Julian of Norwich (writing in the 14th century) who asked God how things could be well if 'many creatures will be dammed'? and who received the reply from God "What is impossible for you is not impossible for me. I shall honour my word in everything and i shall make everything well." Willow. (again only speaking for herself, and not Quakers in general.)