London Town

Friday 11th March

It's Friday and I haul myself out of bed, I shudder as every movement I make sends ripples of nausea resonating through me. Your Dad is on the home run of a 48 hours shift and I call to bemoan my morning sickness glory, as though it's a badge of honour. He sternly tells me to get back to bed. But I've a meeting in London with senior managers. It's one of those meetings you just can't cancel. Every day at work counts at the moment in terms of making sure I keep my job within the steady stream of redundancies flowing through my organisation.

I crawl into a taxi and onto the train. Once in London the hustle and bustle is overwhelming. A repugnant mix of rich spicey smells, cigarette smoke and traffic fumes waft around me. The dank morning breath of a man sitting next to me on the tube makes me gag. I make it through my meeting and then make my way south of the city to see my brother and his family. My nieces make me smile, full of sweetness and energy. We watch my niece in her annual review performing a rendition of hairspray, she busts out her single line like a pro.

Back at theirs we watch news of the Tsunami, a conservative estimate says over a thousand people have died. The news is crammed with images of the devastation. Whole houses are swept away like pooh sticks in a stream.

Sleep overcomes me and my sister in law makes up a bed for me just in time for me to slip into a deep sleep.