Fiona4Ukraine

 A couple of weeks ago when I went to get my hair cut, Irina, the hairdresser, informed me that I'm losing too much hair. I joked that I have a lot of hair and told her that I'm taking vitamins, but she said that these would not really help because the hair loss is a result of stress. She said that this is a problem for a lot of Ukrainian women and that, more disturbingly, she has seen children whose hair is turning grey. Irina, herself, acknowledges that she is very stressed and that she, like others, is taking sleep medication. When the bombing begins at night, she, her daughter and the dog usually hide in the bathroom. Sometimes they make a bed in the hallway, which is away from windows and more protected. I was not aware of being stressed but, thinking about it, my body is very often in 'flight' mode, particularly at night when most of the attacks take place. I'm on alert, ready to run, and when I hear drones overhead and bombs falling I have a sick feeling in m...

 Last month I spent a couple of weeks in the UK, visiting family and friends, including volunteers in Trawden, who remain as supportive as ever of Ukraine. Before returning to Kharkiv, my friend, Jos (also a Hell's Kitchen volunteer), and I organised a week's holiday in the Carpathian Mountains for some volunteers from Hell's Kitchen and Lviv. The idea was to give people, particularly in Kharkiv, a break from sirens and bombs, in a place that is about as safe as can be in Ukraine. We stayed in an apartment complex in beautiful, if rather touristy, surroundings.  We made the place our own. We had a lot of fun and did some things we definitely couldn't do in Kharkiv... ....including the world's best swing. There was plenty of eating, of course,  although we weren't prepared for how cold it got at night! We played some games... We all got to know people we didn't know before. My friends, Igor and Svetlana, are refugees from Mariupol, now living and working, as ...