Grim week

It’s been a gloomy week in our house as we’ve watched the increasingly depressing news from the Victorian bushfires. M’s family are friends with a family that live in Kinglake, at the centre of the devastation. Thankfully they escaped but it looks like nobody else on the street made it out. 30 people, of all ages. Unimaginable.

I hate it when people start a sentence with “Speaking as a parent...” but this kind of tragedy definitely effects me more viscerally now that we have kids. I can’t help but mentally transpose my own family into these horrific situations. With great love comes great vulnerability and, sometimes, abject terror over what could happen.

Like most people we’ve given a few quid to the appeal, but it doesn’t really feel like an adequate response. Hopefully we’ll be able to achieve something more practical as more fundraising events are arranged. There is a real sense that people want to do something, which is at least something to engender happier thoughts.