Morning everyone. Well after a very restless night with the rain arriving with a bang and then dissapearing again just as quickly, it was a case of up and down checking windows. I woke up quite early and as I was making tea I could hear the family dog "Abby" crying at the front door. I assumed that she wanted to come in as all the grass was wet, however decided to leave her a bit longer. After a short while I decided that there was something wrong so opened the door and she just flew straight into the house. I then realised what the problem was, a hot air balloon was landing in the fields behind our property. She is totally terrified poor little thing, so we comforted her and she lay down in our dining room. Every time these balloons come down they make quite a lot of noise as the slow themselves down to land safely by blowing the gas and it does make a noise. Poor little thing.

We woke to the news that there has been a tragic 8.8 earthquake in Chile, and that a Tsunami warning has been posted all along our coast line. Such a tradegy in Chile, am sure there will be many many deaths recorded. Fortunately Ivan was not on one of his many trips to Chile as he goes there quite regularly. He is away at the moment but in the USA. While watching the news it was incredible to see that people were taking no notice of getting out of the water. The lifesavers even had their safe flags up, who would be so stupid to go into the water. In the past 15 minutes though the lifesaves have closed the beaches and asking people to leave the beach. At this stage the authorities have no idea to the size of the waves. We have heard from our friends in NZ and from what they can gather they have had a rise in the sea level of 50cm. Hopefully there will be no major damage on Norfolk or Lord Howe Island.