Where I come out of my Facebook retreat

This morning, up at 6 to have breakfast, pack our things and get down to the bus station for 7.30 complete with gifts from Choenyi to keep us safe, only to have to come back 10 minutes later as the bus company informed us that no transport at all was leaving Pokhara today.

We'd had a couple of aftershocks in the night, the largest being at around 4.45 and I think they were waiting to see what happened today in case of more aftershocks.

At that point, and with emails coming in thick and fast, I made the decision to go back onto Facebook and finish my not quite 5 months Facebook retreat. I'd aimed to go back on in May anyway, but it seemed that at least this way I could be in touch with friends and family who wanted to know we were safe.

The morning was spent just hanging out until about 12.30 when the house started shaking again and we all ended up back in the garden. This aftershock was around 6 on the Richter Scale, but only lasted a few seconds... the main one yesterday was, according to Choenyi, about 6 minutes. The only problem was we were shouting for Sonam, because he hadn't come down from the kitchen at the top of the house and we suddenly became quite worried. As the shock subsided he came rushing down to tell us he was just about to come, when he realised the cooker was on and went back to turn it off. What a sensible man... a fire on top of earthquake would not have been good news!

After that no other shocks as yet and it's now just past 7 pm. We live in hope.

I had a fun afternoon teaching Osel, who's 10, how to juggle with some oranges we went and bought and then we played catch for a while with a small rugby ball and then piggy-in-the-middle with Mountain Man, which Osel found hilarious. His sister, Nyidhon, who's 2 and absolutely rules the house, meanwhile looked for all the naughty things she could do and if stopped stood and screamed. She kind of reminds me of a teeny Violet Elizabeth Bott (from Just William in case you don't know) who, if she didn't get her way would say, 'I'll thcream and thcream and thcream' and stamp her feet. Yes, Niydhon is a perfect Tibetan Violet Elizabeth in the making!

Nyidhon, the Guest House 'Manager', making her mind up whether a scream is in order!

MM phoned the hotel in Kathmandu and apparently there is no damage there and all is good, which is a relief as they are right in the middle of Kathmandu and what with the stories coming out you'd think Kathmandu had been raised to the ground, but it seems like it's only pockets of the city... though of course that's bad enough.

So tomorrow we try again and see if we can reach Kathmandu.

I'll leave you with a picture, taken on the first night here in the kitchen of me with Sonam and Choenyi after having made momos for dinner. They were delicious by the way!

Me with Sonam and Choenyi in the kitchen.