Traces

I decided to use my Botanic Garden annual pass just before it expires in a couple of days' time. A year ago I was inspired to buy it because there was so much life in the garden: a vast swathe of the irises which so far this year exist in only a few isolated clumps (extra). It's a much emptier and sadder place now and I didn't stay long. 

When I went in I heard an ambulance, then another. That's not unusual in this part of town but as I came out another three ambulances went past. At the roundabout on my walk home there were lots of police cars. I was allowed through just before a fire engine arrived and the road was closed to pedestrians as well as vehicles.

Nothing has been officially reported yet but all of us who were near know that a cyclist was killed. I saw the 'curtains' that had been draped on either side of the lorry involved. People stood in small subdued groups.

I phoned my daughter and was hugely relieved to hear her voice. A parent somewhere cannot do that this evening.

This and far worse things happen all the time, everywhere, but when it could have been me or mine, and might yet be someone I know, our shared fragility is brought into much closer focus.

.....
Edit: as it turns out, I took the picture in extras one minute before she was hit. I was four minutes' walk away.