Lesson 6
Section 1
Task 1. In the Path of the earthquake.
And now, Mrs Skinner, can you tell us your story?
What happened at your farm when the earthquake passed?
Oh, it was terrible. I'll never forget it to my dying day.
I hope I never see anything like that again. It was terrible.
(Um) Well, we alway get up, Jack and me, at about a quarter to five.
He has to milk the cow early as you see, and while he's doing that, I make his breakfast.
I was in the kitchen when it came.
Suddenly the whole house was moving, the coffee pot flew through the window and I was on my back on the kitchen floor.
The noise was terrible. Well, I knew what I had to do.
You have to get outside, you know, it's safer there.
So I ran through the house and opened the front door.
Then I stopped, I couldn't believe it, everything was different, everything had changed.
Nothing was in the right place any more.
You know, outside our house, there is a path to the gate, there was I should say, well, the path wasn't there any more.
In front of the front door was our rose-garden, not the path.
And next to the rose-garden were the eucalyptus trees, and behind them was the raspberry patch, just as before.
But they had all moved, moved about five meters, five meters to the left, to the south that is.
On each side of the garden path, we had a line of beautiful old cypress trees.
Well, these had now moved right down to the end of the house, to the left again that is.
And the path had completely disappeared.
But that's incredible, Mrs Skinner.
Do you mean that everything in front of your house had moved, what five meters to the left, I mean to the south?
The raspberry patch, the eucalyptus trees, the rose-garden, the two lines of cypress trees, all had moved?
Yes, everything had moved into the place of the other.
But your front path had completely disappeared.
Yes, that's right. Oh, it was terrible, terrible.
And your husband Jack? Was he all right?
Yes, but the cowshed had moved too, it had moved several meters.
Jack was all right, I could see him running round after the cows, all the cows had escaped you see.
They were running all over the place, it was impossible to catch them.
So Jack, your husband, was all right.
Well, he was a bit shocked like me, but he was all right.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about the granary, that had moved south, too.
Its normal place was behind the house, and now it was near the cowshed.
Can you believe it. Incredible, Mrs Skinner.
And the house itself, what about your house?
Well, then we saw what had happened.
Everything had moved one way, that is to the south, except the house.
The house, can you believe it, had moved the other way, the house had moved north.
So the house went one way, and everything else, the garden, the trees, the granary, went the other way.
Incredible. Mrs Skinner, absolutely incredible.