What a week...

...this has been.

Full of ups & downs.

Just a week ago today, we were observing a minutes silence to show our support of the families who had lost loved ones in the horrific act of terrorism that had taken place in Tunisia.

The terrifying thing was that my niece had been on holiday out there with a group of friends last month at a location just over an hour away from where all those folk lost their lives.

This was the photo that she took of the sunset on her last evening on holiday...

...seeing this lovely peaceful scene, you can't believe that such awful things could happen.

Saturday I sat in the sunshine at Barleylands, colouring.

On the Sunday the mood was far more up-beat as we saw footage of the crowds trying to get a glimpse of Princess Charlotte on the day of her christening.

Monday was fairly up-beat too. 10 years ago on 6 July, the UK was celebrating being awarded the 2012 Olympic games. I can remember the fabulous party atmosphere on the square outside Stratford station (East London) where they had a stage and a huge TV screen. several of our athletes were there leading the crowds in the celebrations as they saw the announcement made on the huge screen.

Tuesday saw us observing yet another minutes silence in remembrance of the 52 people who lost their lives as a result of the bombings that took place on the morning of 7/7 in London in the aftermath of the previous night's celebrations about the Olympics. I was caught up in the public transport disruption that day but luckily was nowhere near any of the sites where the bombs went off. It wasn't until I finally reached work that I found out what had happened and it became a very frightening day. On police advice, offices were put on lock-down and folk were not allowed to leave their buildings for safety. Communication networks went into meltdown as folk were trying to contact loved ones to ensure they were safe. We had folk reporting to our office as they could not get to their locations in central London and many were panic stricken because they could not let family know they were okay or check that their friends/family were okay. There were a lot of frightened people that day.

Wednesday saw the start of disruption across London as the Underground system prepared for a day of strike action on the Thursday. Although I had to change my route of travel to avoid possible problem areas, I have to say that the only problem I encountered was the extra time it took to complete my journey because I was taking a bit of a roundabout route to get to work. It was the first time that I had travelled on the Stratford to Romford line since TFL rail took it over and I have to say I was very impressed at the calm professionalism demonstrated by their staff. They were friendly, encouraging and extremely helpful. There were also plenty of them - clearly visible and quick to help folk that were confused or lost. They kept things moving and folk were completing their journeys without any of the hassle that was seen on the TV footage of events in central London. I managed to get home on Wednesday and to work on Thursday with the minimum of trouble. Well done TFL.

So here we are  at the end of the week and I was so pleased to get through Friday and back home ready for the weekend.

Let's hope that the coming week is far more up-beat.......................................................