What can I say?

But thank to everyone for their amazing response to my post from Thursday. I felt extraordinarily privileged to receive such heart felt support and encouragement. There’s a way to go, but I am feeling OK. 🙂 Thank You.

RU OK? Me, I’m not*

Today is RU OK? Day, a great initiative formed to get people to check in on each other. Me? I’m not OK. Haven’t been for about 18months or so, but I am now recognising it, calling it out and doing something about it. The work that we do, goes without saying, is stressful. “You work […]

Come in Houston?

Again we are watching a disaster unfold in the gulf country, with Hurricane Harvey dumping masses of water onto Houston. The city is inundated, and once again we see people forced to rooftops as the water rose, and scenes of tragedy as people and animals were left behind. IT will be interesting to see how […]

Please , no photos

Dear visitor, started the sign. What you see is the site of our great loss. Our loss of family, friends, loved ones and neighbours. Please act with respect, and hold our loss in your mind. Please, no photos. Many thanks. This was the sign as I came out of Latimer Rd Tube station. I had […]

Three litres of water

Keynote talk, at an international conference, wow, I hope you know what you are doing. Ran the doubts around my brain. I hope the organisers know what they are doing. i screamed more. Those who have seen my presentation style will know it is a bit unorthodox, obtuse music and football references, visual jokes, self […]

Eyjathingydooveywhatsit

I am trying to master a word. Eyjafjallajokull. Go on, give it a go. Rolls off the tongue. Of course, in Iceland, it does, and the locals humour and encourage me when I try to drop it into a sentence. I’m in Iceland as a guest of the Integrated Disaster Risk Management Society and NORDRESS […]

Journey to the centre of the earth

Sometime in May, I came to work, went to the same desk, logged onto the same computer, and answered the same phone. But, something had changed, as I became the National Resilience Adviser for Red Cross’ Emergency Services. What do you do, in this somewhat impressively titled new role, I hear you ask. Well, this […]

Danger, Will Robinson

5988752. This is my phone number from when I was growing up. I can remember that number, and my first passport number H515543, and a couple of other numbers. But I can’t remember by daughter’s mobile numbers, or the phone numbers of friends. Not since I’ve contracted out my memory to my smart phone. There […]

The more I looked up

Warning: distressing imagery follows. The images of a high rise, fully alight can only be described as chilling. It is something outside of our daily realm. We are somewhat sensitised to house fires, they happen all too commonly. But what has happened to Grenfell Tower in London is something else. I have been following the […]

All the lights that lead us there are blinding

Again, we are horrified by what we see on TV, and social media. Children targeted in an existential struggle they have no active part in. It cuts to the core for many of us for many reasons. We struggle to come up with answers not only for us to make sense of it for our […]