Life Goes On.

I went back on the tube on Saturday. It was a weird day. I'd asked Stu for some time alone and he kindly went off to the movies with Pete. I just didn't know what to do with myself. I played Splinter Cell on the XBox, I went back to bed but couldn't sleep, tried to read my trashy magazine but had no interest in any of it, I wandered from room to room in my pyjamas just not knowing what to do. Thought about calling friends and family but didn't know what I would say. Went back to the 24 hour news channel and stared at the scenes before finally deciding that I would try to make real these unreal scenes. That I would go to Kings Cross station, and Tavistock Place, and Russell Square. And so I did. I boarded a bus to the tube station, found a carriage with no one in it, and went two stops to Finchley Road where I changed for the Metropolitan Line that would take me to Kings Cross. It was eeriely quiet, and I studied every single person and bag before committing to walking on and sitting down. My blood pressure was through the roof and my heart going quadruple time. My imagination was surging. The trains are overland until Finchley Road, that's the point they disappear underneath the urban landscape. Once underground I actively slowed my breathing and got on with it. Trying to remember how I travelled on the tube previously. Not being aware of the movement, or other people, just thinking about all the things on my mental 'to do' list, the highs and lows of my day. It was a challenge. I was wondering about my life, all the things I'm still to do, the lives of the people who died, all the things they'd still to do. I found myself studying the faces and body language of everyone who got on at every stop. And found they were studying me too.

These flowers were at Kings Cross. A priest in long black robes mingled with the crowd. An Imam wandered around. Police in luminescent yellow jackets sombrely studied every passerby. A fire truck and its crew sat parked next to the station entrance. Camera crews from around the world were taking photographs and transmitting live broadcasts in front of posters put up by desperate friends and family trying to find missing loved ones. There was a low background murmur, achingly sombre and sad.

Tavistock Square was covered at every entrance by huge canvases, in order for the forensic work on the bus to be conducted in private. There was a small section allowing photographers with metre-long telephoto lenses to get their pictures to sell to the press, and through there I saw the bus in the distance. Surreal, torn, twisted metal. That anyone survived is incredible. These canvases were at Russell Square tube station as well, a two-minute walk from my university. Familiar oft-trod ground.

I walked from Kings Cross down to Soho. Ambled through unknown streets lost in my own thoughts. I have nothing profound to say. I have no answers. I have the privilege of going home and seeing and talking to my friends and family, of continuing on with my life.

London is getting on with it. The buses are full again - the drivers look you up and down as you board, something they didn't used to do, the tubes were quieter than usual this weekend, but on Monday they will be back to the usual sardine tin again. Someone said if you feel scared, if you change the way you live, then they've won. I used to agree, but realise now that no one wins. The murderers have gained nothing - no cultural or political or social or geographical gain. The victims and their families have lost so much. No one wins. You shake off the shock, and stuff away the fear, and move forward. You have to.

Today was the most beautiful sunny day. I'm one of the lucky ones.