Shaky beginnings indeed,,,

Picture the scene, 12:58am ish.
I'm laying in bed, mostly asleep. My computer's purring silently next to me, I'm doing my best not to drool all over the pillows, I'm nice and warm and totally relaxed.
Suddenly, I get this sensation - that falling sensation that tends to jerk you awake.
Except I'm still awake, and the sensation isn't stopping. There's a roaring noise outside, just the wind, most likely, as it's been really windy**.

Except the roaring noise isn't coming from outside, it's coming from underneath, directly underneath the house, and the jerking sensation isn't stopping.
Things start jangling about on the top shelf, in true movie fashion, some random metallic objects I own rattle together in their own jingly little way, while a few things fall off my shelves. I realise with a heart-in-my-mouth rush of adrenaline, that this is an earthquake!

I've never been in an earthquake before, is this the beginning? How long will it last? Will it get worse? Will it cause damage? After about 5-10 seconds the earthquake dies down, the roaring stops, and the only reason my body's shaking now, is because of my pounding heart.
If I was just walking down the street, and it happened, I suppose i'd be less affected by it, but as it woke me up, this really rattled me (ha ha etc).
I'll admit, to those of you who live in earthquake prone areas, I probably sound like I'm overdramatising it a bit, but I'll be honest, this is the first earthquake I've ever experienced, and it kinda scared me. It definitley woke me up!!

So today, I have mostly been in bed, and I'll admit, that's the first time the earth's ever moved for me while I've been in bed by myself.

"if you are awake and didn't expect to be awake, it might be because of the tremor that seems to have affected the earthquake, pretty much the entire country"

Looks like everyone felt it.

So yeah, that was completely bizarre. Seismological stability my arse.
Okay, so no buildings fell down, and no one was hurt (unless there were some people balancing on high things or something) but that was a completely strange experience. To eplain further, the UK is very tectonically stable - we've had two earthquakes in about the last five years, and the one before this one was too weak to feel outside the epicenter (down in the west midlands) so I didn't experience it.

Well, I'm bloody freezing cos I got out of bed unexpectedly, so time to get back in.
I wonder if there'll be any aftershocks...

UPDATE: The news reports are flooding in now. The quake was apparently centered on kingston-upon-hull, which is over to the east. about 70 miles by road.[edit - no two news stations can agree on where the quake was centered, so let's take this bit of information with a pinch of salt, for now]. Judging by the fact that the majority of the country felt it, we're relatively close to the epicenter. So...

The quake itself has been measured (according to some sources which similarly cannot agree on how strong it was) as having a magnitude of between 4.7 to 4.9, which in United Kingdom terms, is a biggie. It says that 4.9 is right smack on the borderline between a light "unlikely to cause any damage" and moderate "can cause damage to poorly constructed buildings" earthquake. Why can't they just shake hands and agree it was a 4.8?

Anyway, that was fun.
Actually it wasn't it was scary. But now I know what it was, I want another one!

So now we know!

Night all.

**Roaring noise, yes, that's the best way to describe it. An earthquake doesn't sound like a truck passing by or a freight train, it sounds like a bloody earthquake, and the sound of a vehicle, no matter how big, passing you, is NOT the same as two massive plates of rock thousands of kilometers across (one of which has your house built on it!) grinding against each other. It's like the difference between a kazoo and a marching band. An Earthquake sounds like an earthquake. Period/Full Stop/Your National Equivalent.