Apart from participation in an excellent quiz in Little Waldingfield yesterday evening (though we were pipped at the post due to injudicious use of the joker and lack of intimate knowledge of pop music), I have been having rather a quiet weekend. This is because I have been recovering from sitting up until 2 a.m. on Thursday evening watching the local election results, and then having another late night on Friday waiting for the result of the London Mayorial elections.
I suppose that some people will think that this is the behaviour of a real nerd, but I have always had a high level of tolerance for watching election broadcasts. Perhaps this year the whole performance had additional resonance due to the fact that today it is exactly one year since my own election to the Council.
I don’t think that now I will ever be able to look at ballot boxes being upturned in a school gym or town hall again without a terrible lurching feeling in the pit of my stomach. In fact I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to go through a ‘count’ in the capacity of a candidate again. I feel that I can now reveal that last year I was in such an awful state of exhaustion and terror that I had to suppress the urge to flee from the hall, call a taxi and go home. It was made even worse by the fact that not one of the first few voting slips that emerged from the first ballot box appeared to have a cross by my name. ‘Impossible!’ I thought ‘Surely some of those people I spoke to must have voted for me?....Perhaps not’. I left the hall, phoned my husband Nick to say that I had obviously lost and went for a walk. When I returned Colin was very agitated, insisting that I had to stay to watch the count, oh, and that by the way that very large pile of slips to the right were votes for us!
As readers of the blog know my first year has not been without its ups and downs. On the whole however I am pleased that I decided to become a councillor, and have very much enjoyed getting more involved in the local community.
I think that the (now) immortal words of Boris Johnson, when ejected from the Shadow Cabinet, are particularly appropriate:-
I suppose that some people will think that this is the behaviour of a real nerd, but I have always had a high level of tolerance for watching election broadcasts. Perhaps this year the whole performance had additional resonance due to the fact that today it is exactly one year since my own election to the Council.
I don’t think that now I will ever be able to look at ballot boxes being upturned in a school gym or town hall again without a terrible lurching feeling in the pit of my stomach. In fact I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to go through a ‘count’ in the capacity of a candidate again. I feel that I can now reveal that last year I was in such an awful state of exhaustion and terror that I had to suppress the urge to flee from the hall, call a taxi and go home. It was made even worse by the fact that not one of the first few voting slips that emerged from the first ballot box appeared to have a cross by my name. ‘Impossible!’ I thought ‘Surely some of those people I spoke to must have voted for me?....Perhaps not’. I left the hall, phoned my husband Nick to say that I had obviously lost and went for a walk. When I returned Colin was very agitated, insisting that I had to stay to watch the count, oh, and that by the way that very large pile of slips to the right were votes for us!
As readers of the blog know my first year has not been without its ups and downs. On the whole however I am pleased that I decided to become a councillor, and have very much enjoyed getting more involved in the local community.
I think that the (now) immortal words of Boris Johnson, when ejected from the Shadow Cabinet, are particularly appropriate:-
“I have no regrets. Remember there are no disasters, only new opportunities.And, of course, new opportunities for fresh disasters."
