How many of us in the UK would offer our homes up to a Ukrainian family?

Call me naive, but I genuinely didn’t believe this could happen. Obviously, I knew there were ugly rumblings over Russia and the Ukraine, but I never thought that one man could inflict so much pain and chaos – while the rest of the world stood by and watched.

“Surely someone will kill him,” sprang to mind, which is what a lot of people have been saying, but is ultimately a bad idea. Still, I can’t help myself wondering, sometimes: “Why can’t someone simply assassinate Putin? Someone close, who pretends to be on his side and then betrays him and saves the world?”

In a film this would happen, and the assassin in question could be played by Voldymyr Zelensky, the heroic Ukranian leader who – already, in his own lifetime – has won Ukraine’s Strictly Come Dancing and been the voice of the Ukrainian Paddington Bear. Beat that, Boris.

Turns out, though, that in an emergency I am not capable of rational grown-up thought. Because I don’t know enough about world politics or Nato, I find myself responding like a schoolgirl: “Just kill him” (to be honest, after seeing the footage of this catastrophic war, given the chance, I would do the job myself).

It’s a very odd feeling, seeing a deliberate manmade disaster unfold in real time as we go about our daily business. I think many of us thought that the worst we would see in our cosy little lives was the pandemic. Surely, once that was in retreat, we deserved many years of ease and contentment?

After all, as a universe, we’d gone through something pretty traumatic together. Surely that gave us a shared experience and some kind of perspective on the world? I genuinely thought, post-Covid, that even if we struggled to get back on our feet financially we’d feel a sense of global optimism and dare to relax and have some fun – after all, the worst had happened and more of us had survived than we ever dared hope. Ha!

“How dare he, how dare he,” I find myself muttering instead, my hatred intense – but utterly futile. Like many people, I can only take small doses of the news and much to my shame, I find that for whole swathes of the day I can blank out the entire situation, distracted by Wordle and the fact that I’m in the middle of filming a telly job which I love, while living on the 20th floor of a high-rise hotel in Manchester for the duration.

Last time I was here, recording the same show, it was November 2020 – the city was in level 3 lockdown and the entire place was eerily deserted. Now, the puddles of post-Friday night puke are back on the Saturday morning pavements and once again the city is a thriving, raucous hub. People are dressed up and ready to party, Covid seems to be on the back foot and there’s a celebratory air.

Only now and then it catches you: how dare we have fun while the Ukrainians suffer?

How can we go about our normal routines, running baths, boiling kettles and putting a wash on, while millions of people have seen their water and electricity cut off and their homes bombed?

Less than two weeks ago, they were doing what we’re doing: eating pizza, making telly shows and spending weekends throwing up on pavements. Now, women are giving birth in underground bunkers and the old sit huddled on makeshift seating, surrounded by their possessions, dazed by this cruellest turn of events.

Apart from donating, what can we really do? Watching the generosity of the other European nations is humbling. They are stepping forward to offer shelter without hesitation. Ukrainian refugees are being met at railway stations in Hungary, while on other platforms, travellers lucky enough to live in other countries are arriving for their weekend city breaks. It’s the same story in Germany, Poland and Moldova.

How many of us in the UK would offer our homes up to a Ukrainian family? Our hearts say yes, but the reality is daunting and exhausting.

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If we’re honest, most of us struggle to cope with our nearest and dearest for more than a few days over Christmas – massive props to anyone who opens their home to traumatised strangers without a shared language in common.

The utter weirdness of this situation beggars belief. While all my sympathies lie with the people of the Ukraine, I can’t help wondering how countless westernised Russians and their children must feel in this country, right now. It must be pretty weird to be completely accepted one day and feel like an utter pariah the next.

How do the Ukrainians in this country deal with Russian workmates? What would you do if you’d booked a trip of a lifetime to Russia? Visiting St Petersburg has always been a dream for my partner – not anymore.

Less than a fortnight ago, not many people (hand on heart) knew the colours of the Ukranian flag, never mind their national flower. We do now, because, in a war played out on the TV screens in our living rooms, there is no such thing as blissful ignorance.