London, 3 days later

It feels the same. It's sunny today, and we took a two hour walk to a fair that was happening in a local park. It was full of families having fun. We tried a small cafe's home made icecream, which was delicious. We wandered by the river. And every newsagent we passed had signs outside: "Pictures of the missing".

I've now read through these profiles in the paper three times - Friday evening, Saturday morning and this morning. They are very poignant. I remember reading the New York Times obituaries of the 9/11 dead, and being left with a sense of lives not lived, and how ordinary they were, until something extraordinary happened. And I remember the story of the guy from Cantor Fitzgerald who walked his son to nursery on 9/11 and so didn't get to work until 09:15, and so survived. Just like the guy who got off the number 30 bus on the morning of 7 July, because it was going so slowly, at 09:45. He told a guy trying to get on: "There's a free seat upstairs, mate." Two minutes later the top of the bus blew off.

London is determined to carry on. Although the city was quiet on Friday the weekend has been normal. I went on the Tube yesterday morning and it was the same as every Saturday morning. Except that when I got off at Holborn there was no entry to the Picadilly Line. And tomorrow when I take the Picadilly line to work I'll have to get off two stops early and walk. Who knows when they will be able to get the line working again. We'll cope.

I'm struck again by the debate on my post about hierarchies of loss. Is this bombing less awful than 9/11? Than Lockerbie? Because "only 70" people have died. Isn't that an extraordinary indictment of how we feel about world events. The loss that is felt by those 70 people's loved ones will be the same, whether it was 70 or 700. The difference from 9/11 that I can see, is that given the scale of the loss, I imagine that most people in New York were affected in some degree - perhaps second or third hand - but everyone had their lives touched by loss. For me and everyone I know, we don't know anyone who was lost last Thursday. I cry at the pictures in the paper, but it's a distant grieving, not a heartfelt loss. And unlike New York, Londoners are used to bombs. As a teenager I got used to planning longer than I needed for tube journeys to make up for disruptive bomb threats. But mostly when the IRA made a bomb threat, they made it in time to evacuate people. These people are in a different mindset.

Thanks to all of you for the thoughts you have posted on your blogs.

Comments

[Em]

We've bounced back pretty well. I wa so impressed with the resuce teams and generally people's attitudes of getting on with it.

[wessel]

Oh gosh, my dear, I totally forgot that you were from London. Thank goodness you are safe. And I totally agree that a terrorist bombing is a tragedy if only a single person is killed or seriously injured--if that person were someone you loved, then that would be all that mattered.

Sending my love and blessings to all you Brits. May we know no more sorrow.

[Reprogirl]

Thank you for telling us what it's like there. My thoughts are with all there.

[millie]

I'm so glad that you and yours are safe. The attacks in London are just terrible and my thoughts are with you all. Any bomb or attack is too much.

[ovagirl]

The attitude of London and its people to pick up and move on is very impressive. And though you may not know anyone,living there amongst it is stressful and upsetting too. Take care.

[chee chee]

I am glad that you are doing well. I agree with you -- I think we have to look at each lost life on an individual basis. To the families, one loss is one too many.

I was in the World Trade Center when it was bombed in 1993 and so 911 hit very close to home. I will never forget the waves of grief and sadness that I felt. I wish we didn't have to live in a world where people committed such unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another.

[B. Mare]

I am not so bothered about hierarchies of loss as I am by the suggestion I heard made by someone that the terrorists had it in for Britain more so than for America because it's a much more "secular society." Apart from that being a totally loony notion, given the comparative scale of the destruction, I have to say, I went, "huh?"