In the past month I have seen the worst of human kind and the best. At the moment the best is winning by far.

Waking in the night a few weeks ago. I heard the terrible news of the terrorist attack in Manchester it was absolutely heart breaking.

How another human being can do this to innocent children and adults is truly incomprehendable.

What followed over the next few days was the fall out. The effects from this gross attack which unravelled so much hurt loss and grief.

To lose someone so suddenly & needlessly is the most terrifying. Gut wrenching soul splitting thing which can ever happen to anyone.

Each person affected will now have a different life from which they had before. That sense of loss and grief will never leave them.

I lost my brother suddenly in a car accident in 1996. He was 21 I was 23. I'm 44 now and this will live with me forever. It has shaped me as a person and has affected me badly and the lives of my family too. Slightly different because we did not have an evil perpetrator involved. It was just a terrible accident no one was to blame. So I suppose our grief was not also full of all of the other emotions people have suffered at the hands of another.

My whole heart goes to everyone involved in this needless cause of life changing grief. So many good people gone forever.

And then from this came the good.... the normal.

My heart felt a little lighter when Ariana Grunde came back to Manchester and put on the most spectacular concert. This made me cry again but in a different way. She will in my mind always be totally respected for this as being one of lifes genuinely nice sincere people. To see the people of Manchester come together like that whether they were on stage or in the crowd filled me with so much pride and happiness. They won. Hands down they won.

Not long after this came the london bridge terrorist attack. Again these people taken away from their families because of someone's misguided and ridiculous belief . Its hideous.

But again the decent defiant part of humanity came through. People risking their lives to save others. Selfless people of all races, religions and  beliefs, doing what they could to help.

We then had the awful tower block fire in london. Again this atrocity could have been avoided. This time I believe it was down to the greed of others. Had these peoples homes been given the same health and safety benefits. safety regulations of those who live in millionaires apartments this simply would not have happened. Another example of the good the bad and the ugly.

 The good being the way the community came together again as one to help each other in these extraordinary horrific circumstances.

             I can also only admire the again how someone in the public eye this time Simon Cowell stepped up and did something which was in his power to do to help. I strongly believe that Music here in the uk is intrinsically built in to us. It brings us together. It helped us to  heal in some way after these terrible times. I can only commend him for putting together the charity single and to all of those involed. Again an example of people coming together and doing what they can to help. 

An important point is that none of them had to do this, the same goes for the Ariana concert. But they did and we have to all realise that this is because good always outnumbers bad. For every bad twisted soul who resides here in this world there are 100's of thousands of good guys. I try to explain this to my kids when they get scared from stories they see on the news. The problem is we sometimes only get to see the bad stuff.

           So much tragedy happens every day its only the things which happen on a big scale we tend to hear about normally. But out of tragedy does come good. I do believe that we as a human race are intrinsically good people. We should all take comfort from that.

Ive seen this good so many times, when you life is revolved around hospitals and illness you see so much of the good side of humanity.

Only this week though have i witnessed something extra ordinary first hand. Hundreds of people in our community coming together to help someone many of them did not even know.  

Some time ago around 18 months a young dad locally had an horrific accident on holiday. He left home a fit healthy man but sadly the accident has left him paralyzed. Not able to return home he lived apart from his wife and children in a spinal unit for nearly 2 years. A friend had mentioned the fact that diy sos were to be rebuilding and adapting his home so they could all be together again as a family.

After reading about this I really felt the need to do something to help. It was a while before I became involved because I wasn't really sure what I could do as an artist to help, im not much good at anything else. My husband was already involved with a mutual friend of the family. They had offered a few days work doing part of the building in the house.

I mentioned i would love to help if i could and was so pleased to receive an email a couple of days later. Saying some of my art work matched the interior which had been decorated by Laurence Llewelyn Bowen.

Gladly I found the originals had them framed and took them down.

The amazing efforts of everyone down there was immense. The community had come together in such a way I can only describe it as beautiful.

I was then asked if I could do some more artwork. I was so delighted to say yes. So i took the next two days off of my normal hectic schedule of medical treatments for Moll and other daily things we need to do. And I spent those 2 days producing artwork to match the rooms and colour schemes.

When I learned the colours of the kids rooms It pulled on my heart strings to think about them. I thought of my kids and how hard it had been on them each time I was away with molly in the hospital.  For all of those times when they were little and there were many.

Sometimes they would go to bed at night and wake up with us gone in the morning because moll had been sick in the night. How on earth did they feel?

This though was different it had been such a long time for this family. And this was their daddy. I realised then that this effort from everyone i mentioned above. what ever they do for any cause is what being a kind decent person is all about. We are all the same. I did nothing in particular I did the most tiny part but i did what i could do. What i was capable of doing.

Many people including my husband had been physically working in unbearable heat for days to make this happen. Giving their time. Their skills and taking nothing for it. That is truly amazing. The crew were also the most lovely, hard working genuine people i have ever met. 

We all shared a special moment that day. We all helped to reunite a family who had been apart for so long. Just to be away from mine for a few weeks in the hospital was unbearable. I cannot imagine how much they had been through.

So that is why we do it. How ever bad things get there will always be someone in this world who will want to help. From the rich and famous to little old me doing nothing in particular but wanting to just let them know that I care.

After this the downside of humanity reared its head again but only for a moment. Someone I dont even know called me shallow for having a picture taken with Nick Knowles... like id spend all of those hours putting my soul in to something to be so shallow. I suppose the world is made up from alsorts. 

So in conclusion and thankfully from my small survey of the past month or so. The Good far outways the bad.

...... And who wouldn't want to have their picture taken with Nick Knowles he's one of the nicest most genuine guys ive ever met.

One Love. We are good.