guwag
Active Member
Thursday was the first time that I've had a cigarette in anger.
I was down in London Saturday and Sunday for Live8 (travelling as I usually do through Kings Cross and Russell Square). I managed to grab 3 hours sleep Saturday night/Sunday Morning before I had to travel back for a Residential Summer School with 16yo kids at my University that started Sunday and only finished yesterday afternoon.
As you can imagine, I was knackered and there were a couple of les during the week with things not running as they should have before this happened... Although it had been a generally fun week so far - we even went to the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday and got to go in the House of Lords.
I was in a session with some of the kids when the news started to come through as we were waiting for the actor who played the Defendant in a mock trial to arrive. We heard he couldn't come because of a bomb alert at Kings Cross, so went to the computer room in the LRC to see what was going on.
What I read chilled me to the bone.
We were only 25 minutes away from Kings Cross station and I knew that I had a few friends in London on Thursday. Including one of my housemates.
*Panicked phone calls to friends and not having any luck*
Our mobile phone networks were overloaded and no-one was having any luck at all, not even to phone landlines in the same town as us!
Not having any luck in this, myself and someone working with me (who had family in London) actually interrupted a group and borrowed cigarettes from one of our 16yo female students! Bloody hell did this help!
I was practically climbing the walls at this point but luckily we had a replacement Defendant for our trial so this took our minds off everything for about an hour and a half.
About midday I began to hear in from all of my friends, except my housemate.
&*#!
After lunch, we went back into the trial to hear the jury verdict and sentencing which distracted us again.
Around 2:30pm, I finally heard that he was OK and had contacted my other housemate at our flat because his mobile was still not working properly - he was down at the accident scenes helping with the First Aid.
I was so relieved at this point that I needed a beer but couldn't as the summer school was Alcohol-Free, even including the staff!
I made up for this last night though, I think we all did!
I hope that all our British friends have heard from anyone they know that was down in London.
*huggles*
I was down in London Saturday and Sunday for Live8 (travelling as I usually do through Kings Cross and Russell Square). I managed to grab 3 hours sleep Saturday night/Sunday Morning before I had to travel back for a Residential Summer School with 16yo kids at my University that started Sunday and only finished yesterday afternoon.
As you can imagine, I was knackered and there were a couple of les during the week with things not running as they should have before this happened... Although it had been a generally fun week so far - we even went to the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday and got to go in the House of Lords.
I was in a session with some of the kids when the news started to come through as we were waiting for the actor who played the Defendant in a mock trial to arrive. We heard he couldn't come because of a bomb alert at Kings Cross, so went to the computer room in the LRC to see what was going on.
What I read chilled me to the bone.
We were only 25 minutes away from Kings Cross station and I knew that I had a few friends in London on Thursday. Including one of my housemates.
*Panicked phone calls to friends and not having any luck*
Our mobile phone networks were overloaded and no-one was having any luck at all, not even to phone landlines in the same town as us!
Not having any luck in this, myself and someone working with me (who had family in London) actually interrupted a group and borrowed cigarettes from one of our 16yo female students! Bloody hell did this help!
I was practically climbing the walls at this point but luckily we had a replacement Defendant for our trial so this took our minds off everything for about an hour and a half.
About midday I began to hear in from all of my friends, except my housemate.
&*#!
After lunch, we went back into the trial to hear the jury verdict and sentencing which distracted us again.
Around 2:30pm, I finally heard that he was OK and had contacted my other housemate at our flat because his mobile was still not working properly - he was down at the accident scenes helping with the First Aid.
I was so relieved at this point that I needed a beer but couldn't as the summer school was Alcohol-Free, even including the staff!
I made up for this last night though, I think we all did!
I hope that all our British friends have heard from anyone they know that was down in London.
*huggles*
