London ...

I'm back in the Uk now and have managed to contact all friends and family and it seems that everyone is OK. Some had a close shave with some of the incidents, but no-one was physically harmed thanks goodness. It was tense few hours tracking people down. Made more difficult because all of the telephone networks were shut down in London for a while in case the bombs were being triggered remotely by phone. As I said everyone I'm with is safe. Now we can all turn our thoughts and attention on those who have been hurt and/or who have lost loved ones.

I was in my other office in Germany when we got word that somethig had happened back home. My first thoughts were for my friends, family and colleagues, because they all pretty much work in the area where the bombs went off. And many of them would have been on the transport network at the time the devices went off. Because the Police shut down the phone network it proved very difficult to get hold of anyone. All sorts of thoughts go through your head during this time. Where was everyone? Is anyone hurt? Are they with other people at this time? Luckily sms and e-mail still seemed to work. And IM worked with some of them so I managed to speak to everyone in about an hour. It was an uncomfortable time though. The best moment was when I phoned my parents (who live a long way from all this) and my first words were 'I'm OK'. Dad - 'why, what have you done?' He'd been gardening and had no idea. Ignorance is bliss really. And being so far away I felt pleased that people need not worry about me at all, but also very unhappy because I so wished to be in town where I might have been able to do some good. If only by offering support to some of the younger colleagues for example.

What a strange and nightmare situation to be in though. Part of me figured this was going to happen at some point, and I suspect we have come very close to this on other occasions in the last few years. But nothing can really prepare you for seeing people you live and work around everyday blown apart. The atmosphere I'm feeling is one of determination, not of being cowed by this in any way. The advice from the Police today is to stay away from central London so many people are working from home. This gives the authorities a chance to clean up and gather any evidence they can find. But come Monday we will be back at our desks and life will return to as close to normality as possible. It has to. And it will.

I have not been into central London since this happened because I was away and flew back last night. For those that don't know. What the terrorists have done is managed to knock out three of the main underground lines (there are eight). The bombs don't appear to have been that big, so they are obviously to cause fear rather than to destroy the city. The devices expolded all around the edge of the centre of town. Again, one suspects to try and cause as much disruption as possible, rather than wipe the city out.

And now where do we go from here? After the high of getting the Olympics on Wednesday I was going to write a post about how proud I am to be part of the Olympics in the future. There is a lot of work to be done, but we'll get there. And it is so exciting. And then this happens. I'm still feeling a little numb from it all and also outraged that someone feels they can come and do this to us. I'll need some days to absorb it all and I'm interested to see what the mood will be on the journey into work on Monday.

Thank you for all your words and e-mails though. Think of us at this time....