Back in Sheffield at last

At last, the end of my first full week back in Sheffield in over a month.

So in the last month I have:

• Had a very relaxing week’s holiday in St. Merryn in Cornwall with friends, including food, drink, walks along the coast, trips to Padstow, Truro, and the Eden Project, and a trip out on a boat from Trelissick to Falmouth and around Restronguet Point.
• Watched Sheffield under water on a TV in a pub in Cornwall.
• Been part of the campaign team at the Sedgefield by-election artworking literature, putting thousands of letters through a stuffing machine and endlessly ‘knocking-up’ the town of Sedgefield being the main three jobs. Probably the most fun election campaign I’ve been part of, (the number of classic moments will provide amusement to those who were there for years), and made even better by a good result which was even better than that achieved in Ealing Southall on the same day.
• Nursed the huge blisters caused by polling day in Sedgefield.
• Survived the “Battle of Trimdon Green” when Labour thugs decided to try and derail the Lib Dem campaign launch. The alternative version is available here.
• Been to the (more or less) annual training weekend for Liberal Democrat Constituency Organisers at Wyboston in Bedfordshire. It is always very refreshing and motivational, but this time there was also a real buzz about the place after two good by-election results. Another positive was that after what has seemed like a few lean years with the same faces always being at these things, there are now lots of new good campaigners working for the party in a huge number of held and target seats – something has clearly changed for the better.
• A long weekend in London for a Lib Dem meeting, where I also caught up with friends, had a night out at Heaven and watched people building sand sculptures on the Thames.
• Had another week’s holiday with different friends at Dalcrombie Lodge near Dores, Inverness, (which is a wonderfully secluded and relaxing spot where I suspect you never get bored of the view over Loch Ruthven and the mountains beyond it). The week mainly involved touring distilleries, but at least having done a whisky tasting I can say I know something about whisky other than just that I like it.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the last month, it is still great to be back and be able to be back in my own space and to sleep in my own bed.

Home and dry

For all the many friends who have kept asking me if I was affected by the flooding in Sheffield, I thought I had better post something on the subject. As I have been on holiday for the last week, this is the first time I have had access to the internet since they happened.

My flat has escaped the flooding as it is too far up the hill to be affected, but parts of the city centre not too far away like Wicker, Millsands and up and down the Don Valley have been very badly hit. Like many people across the country I saw the images of what has been happening on the BBC, and it was stunning seeing areas you know well under water when you are miles away in a pub in a Cornish village. Although Sheffield has specific places that tend to flood regularly in very heavy rain, it has never seen anything like what happened this last week. Some of the places that have flooded are not places I would expect to be at flood risk, and even those people next to the river have never had to contend with anything like this in living memory.

Finally, just to say that the posts will continue to be few and far between over the next few weeks. I am currently in London after my weeklong holiday in Cornwall, I return to Sheffield tomorrow and then I am off to Sedgefield, so I suspect the opportunities to post may be severely limited in what has become a hectic schedule.