If you could see it then you'd understand

What a week it's been. I haven't bought a paper today, it's quicker and easier to read a short article on the internet, then pop out the door to meet up with friends to chat and wander around. I'm revelling in the fact that everything feels so normal. The high street is heaving with shoppers and there are tons of families milling about. I was in Soho yesterday and saw lots of little kids skipping along with their families, one little boy was slapping his tiny, black burka'd mum on her bum, it was darling to watch, she's turn around and act cross and he'd giggle delightedly and do it again. I was mesmerised by the charm of it.

The Churchill pub was full last night and I let my British friends direct the conversation, which included performance art, astonishing incomprehensible words like prototextual and post feminism and rather too little on George Bernard Shaw. The bombings are yesterday's news, like the protesters in Scotland and the comet impact - shame about that one as the BBC2 documentary was fantastic.

I've got a dear 80 year old neighbour who stopped to sit in the downstairs foyer with me yesterday. She's one of Bomber Harris's girls, worked at Dover Castle and had a lot of experiences of hearing bombers with guys she knew getting shot down. "I don't mind talking about it with you." She teared up while telling me the (WW2) story of a young soldier who was collecting blankets to cover up the dead, but she tilted her head, looked up and blinked them away. Is it any wonder Londoners are so cool? A long history of handling terrorism against innocent civilians beautifully.

Just the odd helicopter, not like last Saturday, and normal sirens-in-the-distance sounds. I'm off to Borough market in a moment, never having gone there ever, as an Australian chum wants to check out the organic produce. I see so much more of London when visitors come to town! I'll never get tired of the Tower of London.

"But how does it make you feel?" Proud to be a Londoner, a little more energised and aware than normal, just fine really but next week I am detoxing, no question.