Tsunami

Phil is home today as he's taken some more of his annual leave which he needs to use up before the year is out, and so whilst he has a lay in I get on a do some more work, after answering the door to several delivery men baring gifts - which is cool because it means they've arrived before xmas and I don't have to do any last minute shopping!

I then spend a good part of the day in front of the computer doing "stuff" and making some headway, although I didn't manage to book my car in for the service it keeps telling me it needs since no one was ever available to take take the appointment booking. Oh well I'll try again tomorrow. I also do some more online shopping to, and pick up some weird and wonderful stuff at find-me-a-gift.co.uk which seems to be an accumulation of firebox, IWOOT and other such sites and consequently has more choice too.

We nip out in the afternoon to pick up some xmas lights for the windows in the front of the house, and although we've put them up we won't actually turn them on for another week or so, well, we don't want to appear too festive now do we :)

We also remember to post the zillions of xmas cards too, but only the ones to UK destinations today, all of the international ones will have to wait until I'm next in town (probably Thursday) since they have to go airmail - I can see the counter staff loving me... "and this one to New Zealand, this one to America, this one to Belgium etc etc etc... oh and don't forget this one to Hawaii too... " I guess that's what the internet does for you :) I've got almost the same number of cards going overseas than I do being dispersed around the UK this year, which I think is super cool :)

By late afternoon I've had enough of the computer, and gracefully hand over the controls to Phil who gets his fill of his new favourite racing game, and once we've had tea Phil continues his mission to get arrested whilst I watch a documentary about the Boxing Day Tsunami, which although quite harrowing, was fascinating too (I don't know if that's quite the right word to use considering the loss of human life).

I think what I found most interesting about it was the fact that a small primitive tribe known as the Onges who live on Andaman Island which was also hit by the Tsunami. They came out unscathed from the wave as they had foreseen it coming by using knowledge from their ancestors and by noticing changes in their environment days before the wave hit, and consequently moving to higher ground before the events of boxing day. Compare this to the many people who lost their lives living in the so called modern world... it makes you wonder if technology has the answer to everything.

I think all of us would do well by not relying so heavily on the inventions of modern man and reduce our complacency towards the knowledge and insight that our own ancestors, and for that matter, the planet, can offer us.

Posted by Abi on the December 5, 2005 9:40 PM