I’d been pottering around earlier scratching my head over the significance of today’s date. It kept staring back at me throughout the morning.  Checking my phone, flicking through my diary, composing a letter. There’s something about today. It took till lunchtime to twig it.

I was in a similarly listless state that morning, landing in late to a Mexican heave of relief across speechless faces. What? Surely being late isn’t a crisis that merits this reaction.

The news was haemorrhaging across the city. Russell Square. Tavistock Square. Edgeware Road. They meant little to me before. Now they’re universally known place-names synonymous with death and destruction.

The eeriness trickled southwards over the bridge as the day wore on. Peckham. Camberwell. Brixton. All reverent wake houses with business not as usual, heads shaking in disbelief.

A few posts back I mourned my own wee corner of London. Friday evenings down The Hermit’s Cave where we…