I have been struggling to concentrate today. It was hard not to spiral back to that day. I had been living in London (and therefore the UK) for less than a year. I spent much of the day unable to contact family and friends to reassure them I was OK because the mobile networks were overwhelmed. I remember walking the crowded streets to meet friends and my then-partner. The faces of the shuffling Londoners. The relentless wail of sirens.

I'm coping by watching the BBC documentary series on the bombings. For some reason I need some kind of external validation for feeling the way I do today and this is providing it.

(Access locked) Posts from that date: DW, LJ

Here is what I wrote on the 8th of July, 2005. I don't think I agree with myself here, not entirely. I was rationalising my own fear. The body count is also the point.

Terrorism isn't about the reality of statistics. Of the several million people living in or visiting the greater London area, a tiny percentage were physically hurt or killed by the bombings. A slightly larger percentage witnessed them firsthand, and a huge number of them were temporarily inconvenienced by the shutdown of the London Transport system. The chances that the next bus or tube journey that the average Londoner makes will have a bomb on it are not much greater than they were yesterday or will be tomorrow. But, as I said, this is not about statistics. It's about the perception of statistics. However miniscule your chances were and are of being blown to bits by a terrorist attack, they are now at the forefront of your mind, whether you want them to be or not.

Terrorism isn't about the frequency of occurrence of terrorist acts, or of similar kinds of attacks made during open war. Londoners of different generations experienced the Blitz and the IRA bombings of the 1980s. Many of them have been through this before. However, it is the very unpredictability of terrorism that makes it so frightening, that makes a return to normalcy as difficult as it was the last time, because the ordinary citizen has no way of knowing when, where or if another attack will happen.

People deal with this in a myriad of ways. Some become defiant, others resigned. Some find themselves swallowing down fear for weeks, months or years after the events, every time they board a bus or enter an Underground station. This is the real point of terrorist attacks, not the body count. All emotional responses are fully permissible, but it is the way that we act upon them that will determine whether or not we build a world in which the slight probability of terrorist attack on the average citizen will continue to be a weapon that can wield so much power.

-Doors and windows all closed
-Blinds and curtains all drawn when sunlight falls on the glass
-Mylar foil on the windows
-External shade on the windows and walls where available (we moved a potted tree)
-Margarine tub of water frozen to make a huge ice cube for the flask-with-tap of water, takes longer to melt than same volume of smaller ice cubes so keeps water cool all day
-Cooling scarves
-Drinking water from bottles means we drink more
-Linen clothes
-Watering plants with Baumbad bags and only at night
-Portable aircon units *simpsons meme*

From our Librarything
Title: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix
Author: Bethany C. Morrow
Publication: St Martin's Press (2021), 304 pages

Started: 2025-06-26 – Finished: 2025-07-02

This is a fascinating idea and absolutely delightfully executed. Little Women, but with the March family as recently freed African-Americans. It changes EVERYTHING about the book, of course, but the threads are still there to link the two. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and their love interests against a background of a place and perspective in history I was completely unaware of before now.

I found the tone both true to the time and easy to access, and the romantic storylines, in particular, much more satisfying than in the original Little Women. I was especially delighted by Beth, though also, of course, especially heartbroken, though the story as a whole is very light on gory details of atrocities; the emotional details are all there.

Five stars and I'll read any sequels.

I can't quite believe how much has happened this month. At least 60 days of stuff were packed into June's 30. And now we're halfway through the year. Dear Time, Please slow down, Love, Me.

I am not keeping up to date. It's partially that I'm often tired and partially that I'm still not writing about the thing that happened around Christmas that made things... more difficult... though ultimately it will turn out to have been better this way. But it's INCREDIBLY HOT and so we're running fans and using the pop-up pool in the garden and eating TONS of ice cream so it's also quite luxuriously holidayesque, while underneath is the horror of climate change. Yay?

In the last couple of weeks I may be regaining my ability to read again, which is intermittent, and I'm hoping to do monthly book posts again, I liked that the two or three times I did them.