A week ago

Last Thursday, as you probably know, was not a good day.

I woke up quite late, and was banking on the bus and the tube getting me to work, which was probably going to be a bit late, as I left home just before 9. My bus took its usual route along past Highgate Woods, to Highgate Tube (which is where I now catch my transport, since moving to Muswell Hill). Normally, as you reach Highgate Tube, most people get off the bus, but a message was passed, chinese-whispers-style, up the stairs, saying that there was no Underground service. Everybody assumed this meant that there was a problem with the northern line, so we returned to our seats, slightly disgruntled at the prospect of trying to get into central London whilst facing road traffic. The man sitting next to me, with his strange combination of greasy black hair in a ponytail and cricket jumper, seemed particularly pissed-off. At that stage I called work to tell them I'd be late.

Slowly making our way down towards Archway, the windows steamed up, and then we reached Holloway Road. I had the bright idea of trying to use the tube from Holloway Road station, near where my friends Richard and Philippa live, so hopped off the bus. I nipped into a little Greek cafe and grabbed myself a bacon roll and a cappucino, and then crossed the road to the Holloway Road station entrance. There were staff at the gates, telling people there'd been a security alert, so the Underground had completely shut down. Thinking only of the inconvenience of this, I crossed back and tried to board another bus. No joy - there were too many people waiting for the buses, and most of them were packed full of people who'd normally be using the tube. In fact, a lot were driving straight past the stops, with the drivers unwilling to take more people on board. Eventually, a bus stopped and as I was about to board it, Dominic called me. I asked if I could call him back once I'd boarded the bus, and ended the call. I called him back, from the crammed-full bottom deck of the bus and he told me there'd been explosions at Edgware Road and Aldgate. People on the bus were discussing what might have happened, and I told them what my brother had just told me. I wasn't sure at this stage if this was all some sort of exaggeration on either Dominic's part, or that perhaps the news reporters had their facts wrong.

The bus took everyone as far as Highbury Corner, where we were all ordered off, without an explanation. The driver kept tapping the top of his microphone instead of offering the reasons for the sudden stopping of service. A florist's stand at Highbury Corner seemed to have become a point of focus for people's attention, and I wondered over to see what all the fuss was about. The florist had a small CD radio hanging off a hook, and it was tuned to a London radio station. About twenty or thirty of us stood listening to the news as it was breaking. At that stage the press were being told that 'power surges' had caused the underground to be closed, but the reporter said that they'd been told by a senior member of London Underground staff that there may be a terrorist element to the events.

Realising that there were now few buses and no tubes, I called work and told them I wouldn't be able to get there, so I'd work from home instead. It did seem as though things were going a bit crazy, so I started my long walk home. About half way up Holloway Road I went into a big Cash Converters-style pawn shop to watch their TVs, and quite a few other people had had the same idea. It was there that the full horror of the terrorist bombings unfolded, and news was just breaking that a bomb had gone off on a bus. It was a numbing thing to watch. There was a feeling of being part of something completely unstable, while the physics were ever-shifting.

I stayed at the pawn shop for about 10 minutes, then started moving again, walking home a couple of miles further, up through unfamiliar suburban avenues. All of this time, I kept wondering if things were going to escalate. Maybe the tube attacks were the vanguard of a September 11th-style 'plane attack? Whichever the case, I didn't want to be in central-ish London for a second longer than necessary.

I'd already texted Naomi to let her know I was okay, and kept trying to call my Dad so that he could tell the rest of the family I was okay, but the Vodaphone service was working only very intermittently (it later transpired that they'd blocked it for the sake of emergency services, and probably to prevent telephone bomb detonation as well). Eventually I got through to one of my Grandmas, who thankfully hadn't had the TV on before I called, so didn't know about everything before we spoke. Various other friends and relatives kindly called or texted me to ask if everything was okay, including a text that pleasingly read "are you still alive?" from one of my bandmates! Oz even rang me from Germany, which was kind of him.

When I finally reached Muswell Hill (where I now live - I realise I haven't mentioned this in the blog before!), I queued up at Woolworths to buy myself a landline phone, seeing as the mobile was pretty unreliable, and I knew I might need to call people. When I arrived home, David was there, and his dog, Campbell, came bounding up to the door (David practises keyboard instruments at the house where I now live, during office hours). We sat at the table in the kitchen, grimly listening to Radio 4 as the death toll continued to rise during the day.

An awful lot has probably been written about the 7th July in blogs. A lot of people will be thinking that they easily could have been victims of this unspeakably cowardly act that now, it seems, was perpetrated by men as young as 18. For me, the most apparent feeling of the day was probably not how easily I could have been a victim (I don't think you can really transplant your feelings to that unless you are the victim), but how the bonds that tie society together are actually quite weak. Rather than the resilient strength that newscasters have expounded, it actually seemed to me like everything was falling apart remarkably easily. If there is to be a 'next time' for militant Islamo-fascists attacking Londoners, we may not be able to return to our lives with quite the same ease. If there is something more positive to be said, it's that London shouldn't be attacked again for a while, if we can go on the experience of Madrid and New York.