#EQNZ

At midday on 22 February 2011, I had less than 30 tweets. Yes, 3-0. I was on my lunchbreak, but hadn’t left the office.  Instead I was chatting to @saralynam on facebook who’d recently moved to London.  She told me to swap to twitter and she’d show me the ropes.

I only followed a handful of people on twitter, one of whom was my friend @mattymcleanTVNZ.  All of a sudden he tweeted that there had been another quake in Christchurch at 12.51pm.  It didn’t seem too out of the ordinary.  Then Matty tweeted that he was being flown by helicopter to Christchurch to report on it, that there had been some major damage, possibly to the Cathedral.  Apparently the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.3.

As a news junkie, my interest was piqued.  Surely not? No way…the Cathedral couldn’t have suffered any damage. That just seemed so unlikely.  It was such a solid looking building, and it had stood there for decades.  I opened up the "stuff" and "yahoo" websites, but they were taking what seemed like ages to update information. 

Grandma & I outside the Cathedral in 2001

And then there was a flurry of information. Twitter, facebook, news websites, television, radio...it started coming in from all directions. Mother Nature had dealt a cruel blow to Christchurch, the city known in New Zealand "The Garden City", and internationally as "the most English-looking city outside of England".  Our family had spent Christmas there 19 times, and we'd had numerous other holidays in Christchurch after my Grandparents had moved there in the mid-seventies.

I'd never heard of the Pyne Gould Corporation (PGC) building or the CTV building, but both had suffered serious damage.  The PGC building had pancaked. Pancaked? Wtf did that mean? And liquifaction? What the hell was that?

And, then the worst of all news started filtering in. People had died. One, two, eighteen, thirty-six people had been killed by falling masonary.  More than forty...fifty...sixty...seventy people had died. There may have been up to one hundred lost lives. No way. Not  in my beloved Christchurch.

* * *

A year has now passed.  The anniversary was marked beautifully in Christchurch, throughout New Zealand and indeed around the world.  In total, one hundred and eighty-five people lost their lives...ordinary people going about their ordinary stuff on an ordinary February day. Numerous other people suffered horrific injuries requiring amputation and on-going medical care.  Thousands and thousands of people lost their homes, livelihoods, possessions and pets.

But we gained something.  We gained a real sense of community.  We gained belief that as a nation, we will get through this together.  We will continue to provide support where needed for all affected Cantabrians and family and friends of victims around the world.

Christchurch, we are with you.  You will always be in our thoughts and hearts. 

And to those one hundred and eighty-five people...I listened to each and every one of your names as they were read out yesterday during the service.  May you rest in peace.

Jimothy Lightson

Meet Jimothy Lightson, a character I invented many years ago. 

He's always been a patient little fellow, eager to please and happy to go with the status quo.

Well, that was until yesterday.  Now, Jimothy has had the tiniest taste of stardom and he's absolutely chomping at the bit for worldwide success.

I've been trying to tell him that there will be a lot of hard yakka between now and then, but he's been dancing a jig for the last day, and isn't listening to me at all.

I don't know what to do. He's driving me crazy!

It all started because of Brian Thompson of Thorny Bleeder. He hosts several different podcasts, and the one that I listen to religiously is The DIY Daily podcast. Essentially, its 15-20 minutes of hardcore motivation aimed at all those creative types amongst us, and people into marketing, branding or simply just bettering themselves.

His messages quite often boil down to "just do it".

I was listening to another of Brian's podcasts on Sunday morning in bed, and Jimothy's story was in the back of my mind. All of a sudden, I had a lightbulb moment, and I thought that I'd get up, join Soundcloud and record a podcast too by reading Jimothy's story.

Yes, I was nervous. I was worried about how my accent would sound. I didn't know if I could even get Soundcloud to work properly. But, it was Sunday and I had all the time in the world.

I went for it.  You can listen to it here:

 

Jimothy Lightson

 

And now, here I am 34 hours later, and this is what's happened since I hit the record button on Soundcloud:

• The podcast has been played 132 times

• Its been tweeted and mentioned on facebook by loads of people, some of whom I don't even know (unbelievable)

• The number of followers on Jimothy's facebook page has doubled in size. He doesn't even have hundreds of followers, but he certainly has way more than Saturday

• I received countless messages from people saying their kids absolutely loved the story (whew!)

• Kevin Helas (of Roger London), a friend of mine since we were 11 and who drew Jimothy's portrait initially, became aware of what was going on via facebook and emailed me from England about finishing the illustrations (so we could publish the book in both hard and e-copies)

• A kids radio station based in Melbourne, Australia has asked for the track to be re-recorded so they can play it.

This hasn't quite been an overnight success story, but if I hadn't leapt out of bed on my lazy Sunday and given Soundcloud a whirl, I wouldn't be sitting here now, typing this blog with my heart racing and swelling with pride and my mouth hanging open from shock (oh yeah, I'm looking gawgus at the moment).

So, in closing...you know that thing you were going to do, but haven't quite gotten around to doing yet? Yeah, that thing. Just do it, ok? The results might just blow your mind.


What?! Jimothy can't believe you haven't heard his story yet or liked his facebook page, so he's insisted that I include links to make it easy peasy (his words, not mine) for you.

http://soundcloud.com/yvonne-milroy/jimothy-lightson

http://www.facebook.com/#!/Jimothy.Lightson

Jimothy Lightson

February?!

February...what are you doing here so early? Huh?

January and I were just getting used to each other and our new routines, and now you saunter in and ruin the party.  I am happy to see you, but just a bit shocked that you appeared out of the blue so soon.

FYI February, just so you know...here are some of my newly developed rules:

1.  No McDonalds. At all. Full stop.

2.  A minimum 500 calories dealt to per workout, minimum 5 workouts per week.

3.  Keep chipping away at Linked In. I'm still not quite up to speed with it, but slowly getting there and building my connections. I am pleased that I've finally started giving it the attention it deserves.

These aren't actually resolutions, they're just rules that seem to have developed during January's visit.

Now, February, I know that you're feeling quite flash, because you've managed to score 29 days on all the calendars around the world this year, but...there's no need to rush. Ok?