15 March 2011

Nick has been affected by all this more than me, I think, but after waking at 5am to a largish tremor I could not get back to sleep as I had such tightness in my chest. I resolved to see the doctor the same day. Around 10am Nick called from work to say that he wanted to fly home as soon as possible. His boss agreed he could take some time off and then work from the London office, but whether that means his transfer will happen and be brought forward is anybody's guess. Anyway, I managed to get a flight reservation for Thursday though the phone lines at No 1 Travel must have been red hot judging by how hard it was to get through. At the clinic, the doctor took X-rays and said that Emily has a chest infection. My blood pressure reading was still borderline hypertension and once this crisis blows over I had better take some action. Bettina and family are on their way to Thailand. Julia should be aboard the plane bound for Chicago now. Lydia called to say they had decided to go to HK earlier than planned and may well carry straight on to the UK after that. Jo returned to Tokyo briefly but only to pack ready for their trip to Hokkaido, which they are going through with. There was another big aftershock in the evening while we were on Skype with Nick's family. I had to get Emily out of bed and drag her under the table.