Local Elections

It's been a busy week this week. Fortunately, Alastair's pimples came to nothing, so he was also able to proceed uninterrupted with his assessment. He has settled in quickly in his new environment and hasn't had any of the separation anxieties that Gregor regularly experiences, particularly when he's back at playgroup after the weekend or a holiday. We've been rushing to get a morning nap in, have lunch, then drop Gregor off at his playgroup before continuing on to Alastair's session for 1pm - I've felt like a real "school run mum"! There we watch him from an observation room, unseen and unheard. It's wonderful. Then yesterday I got a call from the playgroup....." could I pick Gregor up immediately please?" "Oh no,"I thought "he's had an accident, he's hurt?" "No, he's covered in spots...we don't know if it's chickenpox, but they're all over his arms and legs and some on his face. We've already sent three other children home this afternoon...." So that was that. A viral infection was the diagnosis from NHS Direct - that could be anything. Anyway, they've gone down today so he came and watched Alastair with us instead.

We were also busy today because we were good citizens in our functioning democracy and went to vote. Taking advantage of his right to vote in local elections as an EU citizen, Misha joined me in the Kirkley ward polling station. First we confused the church with the church hall, and wondered why there were no agitators lining our path. I suppose in our excitement to exercise our vote we overlooked the inappropriateness of canvassing among the gravestones. Anyway the church door was locked and we soon found the church hall.

A quick note on the candidates - Liberal Democrats: the only party to drop information through the door, twice; Conservatives: took out a full page ad in the local rag rebuffing Labour claims, currently hold majority in the council; Labour: incumbent government, at war; Greens: local office 25 miles away; UK Independence Party: timely, dropped off a glossy flyer this morning, calling itself "the real opposition". Funny, no mention of the notorious policy to leave the EU, however.

Cheekily, and probably against the rules, I snapped Misha in the voting booth.

Just as well Belousov junior was distracting the election monitor at the time!