I consumed my first echinoderm last night, a sea urchin, or rather the gonads thereof - a slimy amber-coloured glob that slithered around my molars and for a few instants delivered an intense tartness like the compacted flavours of all the creatures of the sea.
Frode swallowed his rather quickly and then reflected ruefully on the cost-benefit ratio. Fleur insisted however that these little seaweed-wrapped packets of uni were good for us.
A couple of nights ago V was shaken at 2:30am by a strong tremor. It richtered between 5 and 6, hardly strong enough to even merit a mention in the local papers, but a scary thing to wake up to. The first few moments are experienced as a dream. Then you are conscious but unable to move, unlike everything around you. By the time your mind and body have un-clotted it's usually almost over, and the rumble of moving earth is replaced by half an hour of yelping by every mangy mutt in the valley. She has vivid recollections of Guatemala's great quake of February 4, 1976, which left 23,000 dead. Her exit from her bedroom that fateful night was very nearly blocked by a toppled shelving unit.
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