There was I, enjoying a pint of Young's Winter Warmer in the Cross Inn, when in walked Christian (Pat's son) and announced that his mother had phoned to say that she had been in an 4.5 earth tremor!

I'm intrigued as to where this tremor occurred. Could it be Christchurch? There was a "moderate" 4.2 20km west of the city at 3.33pm on January 10.

NZ is peppered with earthquakes; Pat and I flew three times to Auckland for concert, festival and folk club tours, and we were always disappointed that we hadn't been in any tremors. Bur we did sleep through a 4.0 in the North Island - the main road used to run past our cottage, and a 4.0 was the equivalent of cowboys driving 30-tonne coal lorries at 60mph through our village. We were used to it!