Thinking About Attacks

Fear has stopped me from writing about terrorist attacks, that and the impossibility of putting into words the feelings that they engender. From the old flat in Camberwell, we heard the bus explosion perpetrated by the IRA around 25 years ago, and London life has never felt safe. Even before that, a neighbour had lost her husband in the Victoria Station bombing and her little girl used to come round to ours to draw at the kitchen table, because after her daddy died they had no money and the bailiff had taken everything, even her crayons.
Now I have two adult daughters living in the middle of the city and it's not a good thought.
Over the past few years Barcelona was a favourite holiday destination, and it always seemed like such a dreamy place; once the layers of tourists like us had gone, it would revert back to Old Ways, with the hidden Spanish Guitar shops, hat shops and toy shops blossoming again, and a population of artists flowing back into the streets.
Barcelona stimulated two albums of lovely songs, and the sight of parakeets popping their heads out of upside-down nests in the palm trees in Gaudi's garden, still makes me laugh.
I feel for the people of the city, and the tourists alike, and I am so sorry that this terrible thing has happened.