The food is reasonable, but this is Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and the local population does not eat during the hours of daylight. In the evenings we gorge ourselves, but apart from a few biscuits I have not had lunch for nine days.On Tuesday night, a power cut coincided with the failure of the hotel's generator, and a panicked scramble began to charge up the numerous TV editing suites, cameras, and laptop computers. The most essential and closely guarded items are the portable satellite telephones, without which the most astonishing news story is useless. After my computer died, I wrote my second article by hand and dictated it, through fading batteries, by the light of a hurricane lamp.Such practical problems fade in comparison with what the journalist euphemistically refer to as the "security problem'' What it comes down to is an unspoken question. Is the work which I am contemplating today likely to result in my injury or death? Without a certain tolerance of risk one would never step foot in Afghanistan – the difficulty is in managing the risks which one encounters day by day.Contrary to the popular image of the war correspondent, there are very few swashbucklers or adrenalin junkies among the press corps in Jalalabad. Experience, it seems, breeds caution rather than its opposite.

Walking across a patch of virgin desert, in a country riddled with landmines, is obviously a stupid idea; we follow car tracks or step in the footprints of those who have gone before. But what about the Taliban and military bases, all of which are strewn with unexploded bombs and ammunition? To be completely safe, one would never go near one – but at this stage in the war they are one of the biggest and most fascinating stories.So we compromise by treading gingerly, and always taking the advice of the local mujahedin Have I felt myself to be in mortal peril? Not at all. But in a time and place like this, you might not know until the danger was on top of you. The four journalists who died were driving in a group along a busy and well travelled road. The first conclusion to be drawn was the most obvious of all: that it could have happened to any of us.There is another hardship which none of us talk about much but which everyone feels: the simple loneliness of being away from home.

My closest journalist friends are all in other parts of Afghanistan. Apart from my translator and constant friend, Nader Farhad, relationships here are transitory. But one of the great pleasures of work like this is the experience of becoming firm friends with people you hardly know at all.On Thursday night, the Americans in the hotel organised a Thanksgiving dinner, a festival which previously meant little to me. Turkeys were purchased from the bazaar and with a lot of improvisation, a grand banquet spread out in the White Mountains' sepulchral dining room Local pomegranates were substituted for cranberry sauce There was one bottle of wine between 60 people. But it is amazing how drunk you can feel when you really need to.