David A Broad
A personal story
More than 40 years, told day by day
My long 13hour journey from Paxton to The Forss House Hotel in Caithness stopping for a nice breakfast at my normal Washington watering hole.
After being welcomed by Ian McGregor, taking Di and Sam on the walk along the River Forss which she enjoyed before returning to enjoy a typically-fine meal. T
he daylight hours being very much longer here at this time of year with dawn before 4.00am and dusk after 11.00pm!
The long journey to the North of Scotland for which we arranged to get up very early and start out at 4.00am. The first 200 miles was undergone in three hours before we stopped for a nice breakfast at my normal Washington watering hole.
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A full day travelling and competing with Sam in the Rotherwick Working Test, where the rain had cleared and he came 6th out of 29 dogs which was really quite good. He came third in the scurry and got "Very Good" for his conformation.
The journey home to arrive at 8.30pm but this still gave me a chance to do the rest of the packing and loading before dark
An early start in order to get away for 7.00am for the journey across London to Hampshire for Sam's working test. The journey started with heavy rain and I thought that this would spoil the day but it got better the further I went until I arrived in fine weather.
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Into St Neots for some chores on a rainy day and to bring back Katie Morris from there for Della to play with. With Daniel having his friend Jason round today; when Debbie got home from school and it was time to go out to lunch, I had a party of seven to pay for at The Happy Eater!
Our second by-election leaflet copy ready is ready and I took Diana over to the LibDem Social at 2 Woodlands where Linda Favargue was our hostess for a fund-raising event.
Sam had a decent run this morning and some exposure to blanks being fired. Somebody is keen to keep us out of the riverside copse as now broken glass is put down to add to the barbed wire,
I let Diana go into St Neots this morning and do some chores for me and some shopping for her. She got a pair of my sporting corduroys cleaned, some more cash from the building society and tried to get another lens for my watch but they did not have one. She also took Della into the library and found Katie Morris there and was so pleased that she brought her back to play at The Hayling View for the day.
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A tired start to the day of John Smith's funeral, as parliamentary back-benchers of both sides made another attempt to revive the Disabled Persons Bill, the filibustering of which had so crazed him.
I continued training Sam for the weekend’s events and also made holiday preparations and updated paperwork
It was a milder day with rain threatening later as most people's thoughts were in the Scottish parish church of the late John Smith where his funeral was taking place this morning.
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Stepping back from the local election, an office day and making bookings for my trip to Scotland with Diana next week. The newspaper stories are now out and in my judgement the mud has failed to stick.
Arranged with Louise Busby to let her borrow my 4/86 for some FOCUS artwork production but, as I was out with Diana and Debbie at the cinema this evening, an impressed Daniel had to attend to her!
The film we saw was "Three Weddings and a Funeral" which was both funny and sad as a portrayal of relationships
Having masterminded the start of the local by-election, it was time for me to stand back a little from the direct canvassing. But first, my priority was to take Sam for a good walk and see how his eye had fared overnight. It had healed nicely and I do not think that it will lead to a scar. Some retrieves and some running but nothing too much.
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Still managing the Hemingford & Hilton election, harvesting postal votes, where our very conservative Richmond Formula had us behind by over 20 percentage points but we were still in contention. T
hen being visibly relaxed at the HDC Annual meeting where the atmosphere was more like a funeral than a christening and a scene of nervousness and shock that the ruling group lost their figurehead in the elections.
Later coping as Sam is attacked by the large black dog from River Close as the young girl handler had him off the lead and could not control him.
The third and final day of our "trial" campaign of intensive electioneering and testing of the ward such that we could meet and decide what to set as our objectives for polling day.
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