Today is scary. We all knew London would be soon. We all knew it would hit the tube. I never thought a bus would be torn apart 200 odd yards from my home. I thought it would be far away, like in the City, or Westminster. Turns out everyone else thought so too, so they’re well protected places.

I go to my parents’ house roughly once a week. I either take the tube from Russell square to Kings Cross, or I walk across Tavistock square. Damned if I did & damned if I didn’t. That section of the tube is now damaged & the square has blood spattered all over it. They’re still trying to play jigsaw with all the bits to find out how many people died.

I’m at my parents house now. I feel like I should be their, if only because then I would be SURE that everyone was ok. Rob woke me to phone & ask did I know what was going on? His tube train was really delayed & he’d heard the word ‘explosion’ mentioned several times. I put the TV on & started crying. I texted him all the information I could get & waited for him & Harriet to text back. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t phoning me back. I didn’t know then that the London mobile phone network was down. Eventually I persuaded him not to take the train home but to see if he could sleep at Newman House. I wouldn’t tell him but today I was terrified for him. That was the worst bit. He was there & I wasn’t. He’s (fairly) safely ensconced in Bobbie’s old room. I believe Harriet ended up cooking him dinner.

He had a hell of a time getting there. Gower street is completely closed. The Newman house mob can’t even step outside their front door. Chris is dying of nicotine withdrawal. The police are convinced it’s the next target.

The news coverage pissed me off so much. The beeb were so vague, refusing to give any information on casuaties. Within a minute of switching to ITV the number of dead was 'about 40'. We're getting all our hard info from overseas - it's slowly filtering back. How could they 'spare' us from this? It was worse not having a number. They've been running about ten little videos on a loop. One of them shows a man being stretchered into one of the hospitals, obviously in cardiac arrest.

I knew every street shown by heart.

My usual approach to sheer unmitigated fucking horror is inappropriate & often hysterical laughter. I’m not popular at funerals.

I laughed when I remembered that the closest I’ve ever come to being run over by a bus happened in Tavistock square. I laughed when I found out the fella who was mayor of New York during 9/11 was in sitting in Liverpool street this morning (& reminded myself to stay away from wherever he is). I laughed at George Bush’s waxwork dummy impression at the press conference.

None of it helped.

That was my home, & it was violated today.