Two years ago today the sun shone and in the afternoon, when everyone knew what had happened but not what would happen, we sat outside in the sun, our kids playing oblivious to our concerns, and we were joking as one does in times of crisis when a Bosnian neighbour said, very quietly, “We sat just like this after hearing the Serbs had attacked. Joking about it, having a barbeque in the sun. Nobody believed there would be a war.”

(I’d forgotten this until I saw today’s date, reread my September 2001 archives, and remembered.)