Swing me...

...take 29 and still rubbish...but I'd run out of energy and my back was about to give way. H wanted to be swung round too you see and he's a *lot* heavier than Noodles.

But I quite liked this quirky little shot of the bug peeking into the camera lens so it stays as I haven't taken anything else today because I've been flat out all day.

And I wanted to record my feelings about what's going on in cities around the country. I'm horrified at what I'm seeing on the news. My first instinct is to say, 'Lock them up,' 'Bring in the army,' 'Sort these b*stards out,' they have nothing to do with legitimate protesters...they're thugs and thieves and hooligans. And maybe, in the short term this is what is required to bring the situation under control. I hasten to add that bringing in the army is not my preference...simply that it was my instinctive knee-jerk reaction before rational thought processes set in.

But these things don't just happen out of the blue. Unpack the history of the areas that the violence has flared up in and you'll find years of poverty, joblessness and a general feeling of disenfranchisement from society. We can't blame the parents, the schools or even the Government solely for this. No single authority or set of people is to blame for the violence and thuggery on the streets over the past few nights. I guess in a way we are all to blame.

Mr. Cameron's Big Society is a great idea...in theory...if it wasn't being used to patch the holes in funding cuts to community services. We all somewhere at the back of our minds think, 'Ooh wouldn't it be lovely if our neighbourhood had the same community spirit our Grandparents knew.' How many of us actually volunteer or participate in local projects though. How many of us really take the time to even get to know our neighbours? To be fair, many of us are struggling financially and for some, simply paying the mortgage and the bills takes all their energy. But as a society we do need to change, in our attitudes towards each other and especially towards our young people. This poison has been festering under society's surface for a couple of decades and like a boil, it's finally burst...but like a boil, unless it's properly lanced and dealt with it's not going to heal properly and may fester and burst again.

It makes me sad, scared and sickened to think I've brought children into all this, but then I look at them and I can already see that their attitudes are different from those I was brought up with during Thatcher's era of conspicuous consumption. Henry is an ec0-warrior already, at eight. He's passionate about our environment and he's very community-spirited. He's made it his business to get to know every single person in our road. Everyone stops to say hello to him...even if they don't really know Bob and me. Frankly he puts us to shame and he puts me in mind of my dad, who is old enough to remember the days of community spirit during World War ll. My friend's little boy is the same age as H. He watched the video 'Where Children Sleep' and demanded to know why no-one was helping them and couldn't he and his family help. So yes I look at H and Alex and others like them and think, maybe there is some hope that things may get better in the future.