OK, I now get the drift.  Level 5 was the correct call after all.

Yep, I went out twice today to do shopping – even bought rice from Landmark.  No problems.  But a friend told me things went to crap in the Delta area late afternoon.

There was a flurry of SMS warnings, all tending towards the stay at home, doors locked variety.  That was cool – nice big comfort dinner planned (a week ago) at home anyway.

Very late afternoon, the SMS flurry heightened.  At around 7:30pm, there were many “gunshots”, some quite close and I admit to a little bit of gastric agitation.  This was followed by the tell-tale banging of metal light poles (of the lights that don’t work anyway) and a bit of “whooping it up”.  For about 1/2 an hour there, I thought things were as bad as last year in May.  But I think the reality is that the “gunshots” were all from the security forces and not from anyone that was going to cause me harm.  Anyway, this is what you tell yourself.

So you start tucking into a really nice meal, red wine and good conversation and try to ignore the gunshots.  After about an hour, all went quiet.  The streets were absolutely deserted and you could hear a pin drop.

A topic of conversation was just how was one to get an adrenalin rush back in the western world after all this is over.  I suggested finding the local “blood house” (ie extremely rough bar) and sup gin and tonics while watching the action.  Maybe returning to become a world championship wrestling fan.  And tomorrow morning, I will wake up.

PS  I think OZ volunteers are being asked to leave.  Some will be happy but an awful lot will not like it.  And no-one else outside TL quite understands this.  I think the best way I can describe it is – “home is where the slippers are”.  Mine are here – even though I can’t find a reason to actually wear them.