On Saturday morning I walked the dog across the common close to where we live. It was a beautiful summer's morning. Someone was flying a kite, there were children playing, birds in the sky. An idyllic London scene.
Fast forward 72 hours and my beautiful city is in flames.
We've been here before, of course. I'm a Londoner born and bred, and I went to an inner city comprehensive in the Eighties. Many of the kids at my school were from Brixton, and when that area erupted, the trouble spilled over to my school, with rioting on the buses and arrests.
A few years later one kid from my school was stabbed to death; another was shot.
When I discovered I was pregnant my son's father and I contemplated briefly moving out of London. But our friends and my family are all here; our jobs; our lives. Moving wasn't really an option, and deep down, despite her problems, we both loved London.
And to a certain extent my son has enjoyed exactly the kind of childhood we wanted him to have. Regular visits to the Natural History and Science museums, the theatres, art galleries, parks and all the best things that London has to offer.
It was only when he changed school at 11, and had to get the train to school 20 minutes away, that his previously rose-tinted view of London life started to change. Several attempted muggings on my baby boy left me a nervous wreck.
He's taken it all in his stride, and grown into the confident Londoner we always wanted him to be. He can take the Tube with his friends, thinks nothing of going to a gig or a movie or for a bite to eat.
But I do wonder how different things might have been if he wasn't from such a privileged background. If we lived on a sink estate where drugs and guns are rife, where crime and despondency are features of daily life; and where even the most devoted mum can find it impossible to keep control of her children, or know where they are during the day.
And on nights like tonight, I wonder too if we should have got out when we had the chance.