London's burning

And as I sit in this bubble of loveliness, this village I call Lush Places, I wonder what it's all about.

Down here, we are like Japanese soldiers who are holed up on an island and don't know the war has ended. If it weren't for the TV, radio, newspapers and social media, we would be none the wiser.

With all this weirdness swirling around like twisters in parts of this green and pleasant land, the trouble seems very distant, even though my dear namesake niece in Woolwich is a bottle's throw away from some of it.

When the worst thing to happen in The Enchanted Village is that someone scrawls a swear word inside the play tunnel or writes 'You are gay' on Mrs Bancroft's car in the snow or leaves a field gate open, the London that is burning today is a different world.

Although it is distant, the news we are seeing and hearing feel like the end of the world as we know it.

Riots and nastiness spreading like wildfire, a Northern Lights polar bear turning on young adventurers with fatal results, the denouement of Rupert Murdoch, the world's most powerful man, famine in Africa, the global economy in tatters.

I am unable to get into the heads of the looters, the thugs and the arsonists. They might just as well be aliens.

But I suppose if you're a human who has never grasped the concept of common humanity - or humility even - let alone the difference between right and wrong and your machismo is judged by the size of your gun, what's to stop you joining the sheep-like mob on its march through Croydon and Tottenham and Clapham and Hackney and Ealing and Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs to burn a car or two, scare the hell out of the locals, set things on fire and have a bit of fun?

But, as my old friend Curious Girl says, we will bounce back. We have to.

That's about it.


Love Maddie x