Warning

You get a lot of odd noises at night in the countryside, this was brought home to me last week, when I was roused from my slumber by a ear-splitting noise at 3.30am. It sounded like an old WW2 air raid siren and, I can honestly say, scared the shit out of me at the time. 

Following the siren there was a muffled voice came over the tannoy that was difficult to make out but didn't seem to be explaining exactly what was going on. As my phone didn't go off, and I couldn't feel any shaking, I pretty quickly guessed that it wasn't an earthquake. The next thought to go through my mind was that it was indeed an air raid warning and maybe Krazy Kim was lobbing another missile over northern Japan. Then I thought it might be a bear sighting, then perhaps a bear attack. Then I realised it was winter and they are all hibernating at the moment (but were probably just woken by the same alarm so likely to be pissed off too). Of course another part of my mind was having a conversation along the lines of:

"you should get up!"

"why, nothing is happening"

"something is about to happen, that's what alarms are for"

"but it's really cold"

"you'll be colder when Krazy Kim drops a nuke on your head and you're dead"

"if he drops a nuke on me cold won't be a problem"

etc

But nothing did indeed happen and so once the wildly beating heart was stilled somewhat and the overactive imagination silenced I dropped off to a doze...

Only to be woken about an hour later but another loud voice giving us more information but in decidedly less strident tones, it could have been an all clear, but from what they didn't exactly say and thankfully this was not accompanied by the air raid siren. The conversation around the breakfast table with my houseguest, whose Japanese is far better than mine, was along the WTF lines as he hadn't been able to discern the nature of the alarm either but had, I'm glad to say, had the same internal conversation re cold vs imminent death so had stayed in bed too.

Later that morning we had to drop into the resort office to pick up some papers so thought we'd ask about the siren, in case we were meant to have done something (proceed to marshalling area #1 in full battle gear) but hadn't. Helpfully the first person we asked said 'what alarm?' Clearly not a resident of these parts.

But the second person finally explained, 'oh yes, that was a fire alarm'

'Wait what!? My house was about to burn down!? Where were the fire engines and flashing lights?'

'Oh, no, if there is a fire anywhere in Hachimantai city then all the alarms go off...'

Now Hachimantai covers quite a large area but it appears to be true, if there is a fire next door or 10 miles away, the fire alarm next to my house will go off and wake me up. Misery loves company, as the saying goes, so the authorities here have deemed it a good idea to make sure everyone knows when something has gone wrong somewhere. I guess in one sense might foster a feeling of community, of everyone in it together, to borrow a hollow Tory platitude, but really, waking everyone up at 3.30am to let them know but, crucially, not saying where the fire actually is...?  

Since then no more alarms but it's only a matter of time.