Fiona4Ukraine

 Earlier today I responded to a question on our Hell's Kitchen Alumni Volunteers chat, which was: "What do you tell people who invariably ask why you would go into a city which gets attacked, which sits within striking distance of hostile Russian weaponry when it's not your city or country?  What do you say?" There were a lot of detailed, meaningful responses; mine was quite short: because I can; also, because it's a just cause to support resistance against an illegal invasion of a democratic country, and because it seems to mean a lot to people to know that they're not forgotten by the outside world, particularly in places like Kharkiv. It's not, necessarily, big things that matter, a good example being the knitted teddies from Wales, which have been giving pleasure to children since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Just before I left Kharkiv on Tuesday evening, volunteers from the charity, Adults for Children, distributed teddies to internally d...

This is my favourite mural in Kharkiv, painted alongside one of the busiest streets, Sumska, by a street artist called Hamlet, which is his actual birth name, not a pseudonym. The words mean, "I see everything." There is a lot to see just now. This evening I'm taking the overnight train from Kharkiv to Lviv. Then I was going to have to take an overnight bus to Krakow, Poland - a long and tedious journey - but at the last minute, I managed (with some help!) to find a rare seat on a train to Krakow. My reason for returning to England is not nice - clearing out my possessions from my house, before it becomes no longer my house (although it's nothing compared to what many people are going through here). On the positive side, I'll see my son, Sam, on a visit from Canada, and I'll also catch up with friends, in England and elsewhere. And I'll have a break from constant sirens and bombs. As I sit, waiting for my train to leave, I'm aware that the next stop is...