I’m a survivor
What? The tornado? Yeah, whatever. I survived a tornado. Whatever.
It struck the Albany area of Auckland yesterday, ripped through a shopping mall, and killed two people and injured quite a few more. It’s the sort of incident you see on the news and think ‘wow, I hope nobody I know was in Auckland’. But I BLOODY WAS. Except:
(a) I’d actually left Auckland for the afternoon, and I didn’t even know about it until I got back to Auckland and people were talking about it in the hotel;
(b) Disappointingly, nobody in the UK seemed to have heard about it. There has been a lot of extreme weather in the Pacific basin recently, and a tornado doesn’t really cut it as headline news any more; not in a week which has seen Osama bin Laden killed and Pippa Middleton’s bottom acquire several thousand Facebook fans. I received very few texts asking whether I had survived the extreme winds and subsequent carnage. My sister came through, and couple of friends, but that was it. I even resorted to mentioning it on Twitter in the hope I’d go down as a hero. I now regret sending a mailout to 250,000 people worldwide assuring them I was safe and well.
This morning the sky was a beautiful blue and life returned to normal, not least for me, as it hadn’t stopped being normal in the first place. Damn it, what do I have to do to get the outpouring of love and concern that my tender ego needs from time to time? I’m off to look for a forest fire or something.
Posted by Rachael on May 5, 2011
I didn’t get the mailout.
Posted by Briony on May 5, 2011
Don’t be such a baby…..that’s Kit’s job, surely : )
Posted by Allie on May 5, 2011
So pleased to hear that you survived an horrific ordeal.
Hurry back to the safety of the UK. We only have forest and heathland fires “raging across the country” here at the moment!
Posted by Misha on May 5, 2011
Eek! Well i’m pleased you’re ok, and would’ve tweeted a worry but i’ve been in a field all weekend getting drunk on gin and cuddled by Nick Helm, therefore no internet access as such. The above are not all entirely related. But largely.
Posted by Ingrid on May 4, 2011
Well I AM glad your ok, and i WOULD have been worried had i known it had happened. Ah well… lets hope the next one gets in the news.
Posted by Josie on May 4, 2011
I’m glad that you survived. It’s something to tick off your list, anyway.
Posted by Anji on May 4, 2011
Thank goodness your ok! I was so worried! (said in that OMG something happend I was so concerned voice). I mean if anything had happened to you what would we do?!
Did that help? Perhaps another time (not that I’m wishing more drama into Anyones life) a delayed reassurance your ok may help rally the troops into action. A phone call that gets cut off, half a tweet saying ‘things really bad here, rea….’ and no more for hours, or something similar, build it up a bit – and of course getting the blog watch into action (or getting hacked again) could throw us over the edge, but be assured we’d notice if anything happened to you.
Glad it didn’t tho, and it does give you a nice story to tell. Now avoid drama and please don’t make us worry like that again!
Posted by Katy on May 4, 2011
Actually, I meant to ask – do you miss England when you’re away from it for such a long time? You seem to have been down under for a long time, what (if anything) do you miss the most?
Posted by Katy on May 4, 2011
I shouldve sent you a message, as I knew about it. My friend lives in NZ so I’m always getting updates on things that happen over there.
As an aside, I miss my friend since she moved back there in 2006. She was meant to be coming over this year from my birthday that shall not be named. But her mums had a heart attack so shes got to stay there.
That was a completely irrelevant story, sorry.