Just to let you know, I'm okay.

It's a very sad day in London. This morning, I was just about to set off to work, slightly late, when we got a text message from my wife's mother in Athens, asking if we were okay because there'd been explosions in London. First we'd heard of it, so we looked online and, sure enough, they were saying that there'd been some sort of explosions at tube stations in London. So I rang the three people in my section at work and told them not to take the tube - all were just setting off for work - and went to get the bus into town. I took a radio with me so that i could hear the latest.

At the bus stop, the radio was saying that it was power surges in the tube stations that had caused the explosions, which seemed a bit odd, but meant you felt pretty safe getting the bus into town. Got a bus to Archway, where the tube station was shuttered up and then managed to get on a bus, which was going down to Kings Cross station. On the radio, they were still talking about the power surges - British Transport Police had confirmed that, I believe - but the eye witnesses who were ringing in on their phones were all talking about explosions. Then someone called in and said they'd just spoken to their friend who'd been in Russell Square, about half a mile from Kings Cross, and seen a bus explode. This was the first anyone had heard of such a thing - remember, we thought it was a power surge at this point - and the radio presenters were quite keen to point out that this was an unconfirmed report, but the student calling in certainly seemed convincing.

So by now I'm on the bus on the road down to Kings Cross - one of the places where the tube explosions had been - with a work colleague who'd happened to get on, and we were both listening to the radio on a headphone each. Then they said there had been further reports of the exploding bus at Russell Square. That was about a mile from where we were, so we decided it might make sense to get off the bus. By now, mobile phones weren't working, I guess because of the demand from everyone trying to get through to their families telling them they were okay.

We wandered about a bit, thinking maybe we shouldn't go into town - as we were so near to where most of the explosions had been happening. Around now, the radio started saying that the tube explosions hadn't been power surges after all - they'd been bombs. Nobody was in a panic where we were - Londoners have a sort of stoic air about these things - like, this is really annoying, what's going on, how will I get to work. We're sort of used to disruption. I didn't really feel at all scared, just a bit weirded out. The bus that had exploded was only about 200 metres from the building I work in.

Eventually, we decided to try and walk down into central London and get into a work - a few hundred yards away - but it was clear from the number of people streaming the other way that they weren't able to get through. We asked a woman coming the other way and she confirmed that the police were stopping people and telling them to head the other way.

So now I've walked the 5 miles home, much to the relief of my wife. We now know that there have been around 6 explosions and there are fatalities. It's very strange watching news footage of areas of London I know so well, and I'm just very grateful that I wasn't caught up in it and, as far as I can tell, neither was anyone I know.

Such a sad day for London after the joy of getting the Olympics yesterday.