09 July 2005

Well, London's pretty much back to normal again.

My life returned to a slightly normal state of surreality just before I went to bed on Thursday night.

In the middle drawer of my bedside table I keep things vaguely medical - tablets and sticky plasters mainly. I opened the drawer to take my nightly fistful of vitamin supplements, when I noticed that the drawer was crawling with ants. Don't ants usually go for sugar? I confess to not being the worlds most efficient person when it comes to washing up - I wouldn't be overly surprised to find ants in my kitchen... but, a tablet drawer? Unless Somers Town is inhabited by a breed of diabetic, vegetarian ants who instead of questing for sugar find themselves attracted to stashes of Vitamin B12.

Yesterday was a day when the worst and some slightly nice aspects of humanity came out. When I was pushing to work, I passed a (possibly drunk) middle-aged man shouting at some Asian kids kicking a ball around in a park that "I wanna blow the shit outta you! Fucking Al'Qaeida" etc, etc.

Because, clearly, Thursday's bombs were planted by two 8 year olds. Some people make you ashamed to be of the same species.

Shortly after that I passed Kings Cross station. The area around the station was crawing with people in uniforms (including one guy from The Sally Army), but an even higher presence was the press. A friend and I have spoken in the past about how the pavement outside Kings Cross should be a "no stopping zone". There are narrow points on the pathway, and of course, this is where the majority of press decided to congregate. I knew the day was a reasonably normal one after I got trampled on by someone not looking down as they walked. Same old, same old and all that.

By the time I returned from work, the floral tributes to those who died had grown in number, and thankfully been moved to the widest bit of pavement, and were being guarded by the same man from The Sally Army. I passed a bit too close, and as a result had snot streaming out of my nose for the rest of my journey home. Oh how attractive, and hooray for being The Allergy Woman.

I did also on my way home pass a jam packed number 30 bus (with nasal liquids pouring out of my face). That made me smile at London's resilience (until I tasted my own snot and firmly pursed my lips).

But, then, last night I got a true sign that life is normal. Friday night, while your average person would be out having fun, I was in Tesco's. That's about as normal as life gets... right?

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