Illness and Earthquakes

Sorry about the lack of updates over the past few days; I've been laid low with a nasty bug and am only just and so getting over it now. Not the making of the best Christmas ever, but at least it helped limit my food intake. I did promise some White Christmas photos, so here's one taken in the Lake District on Boxing day. Oddly, there was actually more snow on the low-lying areas around here than in the lakes. I'll add some local wintry shots when I get the chance. The snow lasted fairly well for this country - only yesterday's rain saw off the last of it.



I think it's fair to say that the festive spirit was given a considerable dampener by the devastation caused around the Indian Ocean by Sunday morning's massive earthquake and resultant tsunamis. The death toll, number of injuries and amount of damaged caused it already astronomical and is certainly set to rise. I was shocked this evening to read that 1,500 Swedish tourists are currently missing in Thailand.

I'm not entirely sure what to do as regards helping the relief effort. Normally after such events you see these appeals on TV with a number to call, but in this case there's nothing so clear, and with revelations always being published about how little money given to charities actually reaches the intended party, i.e. those in need, it's not exactly encouraging to make the effort.

The British Red Cross strikes me as as good a start as any though, and they've already got systems set up for donating on-line and through other means. They're encouraging people to give "just one hour", i.e. one hour's salary, preferably each month or as a one off payment. I'm rather leaning towards giving a one off payment for now, but giving rather more than just an hour's salary.