Well... you can imagine the consternation that went round the Cross Inn, 12,000 miles away: "Ooh! Pat's been in an earthquake!"

To maintain a sense of proportion, a 4.2 tremor is just a brief rumble, whereas you would have noticed a 4.5. We live above a fault line in South Wales, but for all the years I've lived here, I haven't noticed any earth tremors - except for a long time ago, in the early morning rush-hour, when I was driving along a straight road and I felt the car 'wobble'. Pat was lying in bed that morning, and she felt the bed gently spiral upwards. It was an 4.0 tremor, and by the time I drove to Cardiff, city engineers were already inspecting buildings for signs of damage (They didn't find any.) Snowdonia in North Wales has bigger quakes, about 5.0 - enough to bring the occasional brick chimney down.

As Gurney says, he's lived in Auckland for years and only felt one tremor. I can firmly say that NZ is a safe place - although the day after we flew there for the first time, I was reading the Gisborne directory which instructed phone users what to do in the event of earthquake, eruption or tsunami!