Thursday 7 July

It's weird you know. For some reason I'd had this date stuck in my mind for a few weeks previous.

Anyway, it's all good, I'm still here.

I will admit bizarrely that being in a target city you feel much less affected than you might in another part of the world. I know that sounds truly weird but its just too surreal.

This week I'd normally be working 2-8 shifts but I'm doing an induction course so for the 2nd time I was doing a 9-5 shift. From my calculations I travelled through a couple of the target areas on a tube (Kings Cross / Russell Square) just prior (I think as I wasn't noting the time) to the attacks happening. We were travelling through stations where at the stops we could hear annoucements evacuating whole stations. We were told the power had gone off due to the storms. The thing that strikes me as odd is that my tube station was closed at least half an hour before the attacks yet they claim there was no premeditated warning. It was purely because I heard on TV that the Piccadilly line had major delays that I left earlier than usual. You become quite used to delayed trains as people jump in front of them all the time, sad but true.

I caught two buses to another station, one tube, discovered that all tubes and trains were grounded and then waited in a crowd for half an hour for a bus which I overheard another Australian describe as a crowd of 7000 people. It didn't feel quite so large but people on buses were taking photos of the crowd so it was obviously a memorable sight. This was 1.5 hours after my journey began and roughly 1/2 hour after the first explosion and still no one had a clue what was causing the problems. Joking rumours issuing from the crowd were in reference to the French being bitter about losing the games but no one had any idea there were bombs involved. Waited 1/2 hour for a bus and then gave up and walked for another half hour, caught another bus and finally got to work 3 hours late.

After that the day spiralled into bizarreness. The streets were deserted, all transportation was halted and everyone was grounded in the buildings they were in. Our induction was cancelled as we were told we were needed back at the hospital which as it turned out, we weren't, so we went to the pub.

As there was no way to get anywhere, Shane said I could stay with them so after a few drinks I headed back to work to see him, only to find out my boss did need me to work, and here I was serving patients rather tipsy. Drunk at work, one mission accomplished.

Was then called in to work early on Friday as no one had shown up, still wearing the same clothes which felt rather disgusting. Finally got home that night by taking a huge detour as my train line is still to this day not running.

Listening to the radio the next day was really bizarre. People who'd been on the trains / buses wishing they had visible scars. People who couldn't wash the smoke from their faces after the event. You know, usually you'd think of these people as attention seeking but I started to realise maybe it is just a natural part of the grieving process or understanding the shock of the situation. Of course there's also the "what if" syndrome which everyone has (what if I'd not turned on the TV and not heard the train had delays and left later than I did etc etc) but people have to realise that if it's their time to go, it's their time to go, you can't prepare for it or avert it. There's no point avoiding all public transport in London from now on. And of course it is a horrible thing for those who were involved and their families but it could have been much, much worse.

Anyway now I'm starting to tear up just thinking about it so I shall say goodbye, for now.