Explosion | But I Smile Anyway...

What news to wake to this morning.

at least 22 dead, including children, and 59 injured (so far) after an explosion outside the Manchester Arena last night, following the Ariana Grande concert. And there are still some classed as ‘missing’…

Apparently a bomb like bang was heard on one side of the arena and then a swarm of concert-goers from that side descended on the other side in terror.

There were many children at the venue too, going to watch their favourite singer. How horrific to have to go through this… I’m just glad this happened outside the venue… imagine the carnage had it been inside.

The singer is also shocked, and devastated that something like this happened at her concert. She is ‘broken’.

It has been classed as a suspected terrorist attack.

Thanks to the emergency services who swarmed to the site on duty and worked selflessly through the night to safe keep the rest of the city.

I thanked goodness that I was not aware of anyone who was there, but my thoughts went to my friend who had been to an Ariana Grande concert a few nights previously with her two daughters… What must she be feeling…?

I wondered… do I mention this to the children? They are 9 and 11 and may be too young to be exposed to all this, but then I know they are aware of all the other horrific attacks that have happened over the last year or two. That’s the joy of the internet, and gossip.

My Lil Man is at secondary school so the older children would definitely know, so we watched the news unfolding this morning.

My Lil Princess is an Ariana Grande fan, and will always sit and watch her songs, and look for information about her. It was inevitable that she would find something out. Better I explained the tragedy to her than her finding out alone, because I knew what her reaction would be.

Tears.

First thoughts from her was “Is she [Ariana Grande] ok?” and since then she has been asking me “Why?”

Isn’t that the question on the lips of everyone?

Why all this senseless killing? Not just from last night, but all these terrorist atrocities? No God wants you to kill innocents. That is no God indeed, if He is asking you to kill the life He created…

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all concerned.

Explosive Anniversary Celebrations!

As you all know, it was our anniversary earlier this week in the week, on a school night, we decided the celebrations would happen on the weekend.

So, after the cold start to the day (it’s also ending pretty cold too!) we headed out to Bluewater for a little light shopping and dinner, with the kids in tow.

Well, we got there and found a huge section of the massive shopping centre had been cordoned off… no explanation, but around a third of the mall, upstairs and downstairs was shut to the public.

What was going on?

No one was giving anything away, but there were police officers, as well as the Bluewater staff, guarding the cordon lines, and just shooing everyone away.

So, we headed off in the opposite direction. Surely if there was anything life threatening, the whole centre would have been evacuated!

I did ask another shop assistant whether they knew anything… (it’s me, I had to ask! Hubby Dearest was rolling his eyes behind me!) They were none the wiser, but told us there were several rumours flying around, from a small fire, to a baby being left, to the one no one wants to hear… about a suspect package… Still no one appeared to be panicking so we carried on with our business.

After loitering for around an hour, we decided that we would cut the shopping short, as all the places we wanted to go to were actually in the cordoned off area.

Time to find a place to eat. Now this is never an easy decision, as Lil Princess is such a fussy eater! So even with so much variety around us, we ended up at TGI Friday’s! Don’t get me wrong, I love me a bit of TGI’s! But tonight… was a flop from the off!

Firstly we were in a queue, but that’s to be expected on a Saturday night, and were told there was a 25-30 minute wait. Ok, no worries. The kids were hungry. We went to the bar for milkshakes, for the kids, a beer for Hubby Dearest, and the odd cocktail, for me… only to be told that they could make no blended drinks, milkshakes or cocktails, as their bar blenders had shorted, and there was a huge electrical fault!

But the lovely bartender made the kids a great fruit concoction, and even let them choose which colour it would end up. They were happy. My cocktail ended up as a Pepsi, as our table was ready early, and I didn’t have time to choose something else.

But the food tonight… what a let down!

The kids had hotdogs… how can you go wrong making hotdogs? Well Lil Princess’s one was burned, after being left under a plate warmer for too long! And my steak, which should have been well done, was medium!

Hubby Dearest was disappointed as his Fajitas were not sizzling, like they usually come.

Only Lil Man was satisfied with his food!

We showed them the problems, and they were rectified but it put a downer on the meal. The manager came, offered us free dessert, which we weren’t planning on having, so I requested a discount instead. Result! We got 50% off!

And as we were about to leave, the Manager brought over complimentary brownies, with an Anniversary message on it, as Hubby Dearest had mentioned that this was meant to be a celebratory meal!

Our ‘present’ from TGI Friday’s!

We left, thinking at 8.45pm, things might be calm. The cordons were still in place. Lil Princess needed the toilet, so as I went in, taking her, there was an announcement, that shoppers shouldn’t panic, but they might hear a small bang, as there was going to be a controlled explosion. Yikes!

Sure enough there was a bang that we heard, as we were about to leave the building…

Had we just escaped a foiled terrorist attack? I didn’t know, but I was glad to get back home.

The Internet showed stories about the part evacuation of Bluewater, and the suspect package… What evacuation? We were there the whole time, and there had been no announcements!

A colleague of mine works there part time, and the shop she works in had been shut about an hour earlier for precautions.

I still found it all very strange. If something could have posed a threat, why wasn’t the building evacuated fully? Within the cordoned area, there is a Food Court, and that was still running, with entry and exits via the outside.

Safe at home, I just found out that apparently it was an empty shoebox, with tissue paper in it… Oh well, you can never be too safe!

So there you have it, my Explosive Anniversary Celebration!

Thank goodness it was nothing serious… but I still am thanking God we got home safe and sound. 🙂