2 We will be back in our home by June 9th at the latest. It is now plastered, decorated and has a new bathroom. The floor is half way there and then there is just the kitchen.
3 I still don't have internet access at home so haven't been blogging much but plan to resume when we move back.
4 I'm currently spending most of my time in Thame at our Henley by-election HQ. Do come and say hello!
Much excitement at the house this morning as a team of plasterers and a skip turned up.
We've also had meetings with the building people and the kitchen people and expect to meet the flooring people and the decorating people soon too.
It should just be a month or so before we can move back in.
Having mastered the art of assembling flat-pack furniture (well, okay, 'mastered' is perhaps overstating things) I have also started on building some shelf units for the kids' room too.
In other news I am just about over the bout of pneumonia I had over Christmas and am about to attend my first evening meeting since I was ill.
Sad news yesterday that one of my best friends of recent years, Councillor Jim Moley, has passed away.
I'm told that he was found by local activists who turned up to his house to pick up some campaigning material, which, if true, would be fitting.
I first got to know Jim when we were both elected to Oxfordshire County Council in 1997, and even better following my selection as parliamentary candidate for Wantage and up to the 2001 election.
Jim had been elected as a Vale councillor much earlier, and then as a Town councillor, and by the time I knew him he had already achieved iconic status.
Jim was a colourful character, deeply involved in local activities including the Wantage Silver Band, the Choral Society and the Summer Arts Festival. He loved music and was a great believer in getting stuck in to community activity.
Jim was a tenacious and inteligent campaigner. He fought hard against closure of the community hospital and argued strongly for the comunity view of what should happen to local education provision. He was not afraid of challenging professionals or council officers if he thought they were ignoring the community, even when this made him unpopular in some circles.
Jim was a unique and eccentric human being. He didn't believe in locking his front door, and it was only recelty that he entered the computer age. His home was wonderful, part of the former vicarge next to the parish church in the centre of Wantage (and famous for its links with Betjeman) full to the brim with books, council paperwork and the odd pile of CDs, which he would clear away for branch campaign meetings.
Jim was also a loyal and hard-working campaigner. He was one of a small but dedicatedband of people who made my time as parliamentary candidate a joy. Rarely did two days pass without a long phone call about the latest controversy in town, and Jim helped me get on the right side of many an issue. He worked solidly hard delivering leaflets and knocking doors.
I enjoyed my regular visits to the town, my chats with Jim, and the many facilities the town as to offer. We still take the kids to the Vale and Downland Museum regularly (another of the projects Jim actively supported) and to the lovely informal Betjeman Park, just down the footpath from the church.
I suspect I will shed the occasional tear on future visits to the town.
Jim could be a hard person to like, he was an odd chap at times and could rub people up the wrong way. But he loved his town, his campaigning, and beating the opposition.
Politics in Wantage and Oxfordshire will be a chunk less interesting without Jim.
My regular readers, both of you, will have noticed a lack of posts recently.
We are still out of our home and don't have internet access in the temporary home. Thankfully we do now have contractors appointed for the refurbishment of our downstairs so the end is now in sight.
I've also been very busy at work, though it best to avoid blogging entirely about the leadership, and have spent the past month down with Pneumonia (my tip, avoid it!) and recovery from it.
I probably won't be blogging frequently until I'm back in the house.
An evening off last night (which was a shock to the system!) so go and see the mighty Incubus at the delightful Brixton Academy.
Originally planned as a treat for my eldest back in April the gig had been rescheduled following band member being injured.
Support band Puggy did a fine job and picked up a strong reaction. A lively stage prescence and a batch of interesting songs with influences ranging from spanish guitar to Muse, they went down very well with the Incubus crowd.
And Incubus? Well they're not a band I've heard a lot of, although what I had heard I'd liked. I ended up very impressed.
A very strong rock set - quite a range of styles - elements of RHCP, Pearl Jam, Seattle sound but also a number of very straightforward commercial rock songs.
Anyway ... back to the election ... but meanwhile, enjoy:
What a fantastic series, and what a great ending to the penultimate season.
BSG is a 'reimagining' of the classic but cheesy late-seventies sci-fi series about a group of human survivors trying to find earth in the face of the genocidal Cylons.
Much of the series tackles contemporary issues such as the use of torture, the tactics of insurgency and the democratic process. It does this by making the humans, with whom the audience tend to identify, into the insurgent terrorists, using tactics such as suicide bombings and torture.
Given that the programme is a US production it is a brave approach.
Along with all the best sci-fi (ie Firefly) the real strength of the series is in the strength of the characters. There is no hero here. All are deeply flawed. But they draw us in all the more for it.
This is a must see series for any sci-fi fan that hasn't caught up with it yet.
As Ryan pointed out a few days ago this blog is one of a small but hardy batch of blogs that existed when Lib Dem Blogs was born three years ago.
Regular readers will know (well when I say 'regular' ...) that posting has always been somewhat sporadic. This is because I only post when I have something to say and time to say it, and, as my friends will know, I often don't have much time.
This is the 200th post. Not bad if you ask me. And comes on what I now think to be a likely general election.
At the moment we don't have an internet connection at home, following the flood, so I've not been posting much because of that. Hopefully I'll find time to post as the election progresses.
I do find that blogging is a good way of getting things of my chest, and sometimes a good way to think through issues and my position on them. It is also a good way to keep in touch with what's going on round the party and with quite a few old friends who blog.
So I intend to keep on blogging, probably sporadically, and within the limits of what a member of party staff can get away with. Do keep in touch.
Grew up in Redcar, Yorkshire.
Spent six years at the University of Leicester including two sabattical years.
Was on the NUS National Executive 1992-93.
My working life has been with the Liberal Democrats including stints for LDYS, Oxford West & Abingdon Lib Dems and Chris Huhne MEP.
I now work for the party's Campaigns Department.
I have written a number of campaign manuals for the party, LDYS and ALDC and was Editor of ALDC's Goldmine for several years.
