Hot, Hot, Hot

Armed only with four gallons of water and a vat of suncream, we all headed to the Garden Show at the Norfolk Show Ground this morning. The weather knocked both of the girls out (pretty much) although Emily shot back into life when she saw a giant flower that you plugged into the garden tap and it squirted randomly around the place a high volume stream of water. Unfortunately, after parting with a fiver, we got home and the damn thing exploded at the plug end and the flower ended up drooping with a disappointing dribble coming out of one end. I felt rather more crushed than Emily, who soon moved on to the next fad, but it played on my mind for the rest of the day.

The show was very, very good and was incredibly diverse; more than just plants, equipment and garden furniture, it also included charities and community groups from around the City and I enjoyed the chance to talk to some of the organisers and businesses about how they views the current situation. Many spoke about increasing burden of red tape, from all quarters including national and local government, and the fact that such problems put people off volunteering.

One advantage of having fought the parliamentary seat before and having a high profile in local government is people knowing who you are and coming over to chat. That was helped today but a rather flattering piece about me in the EDP and also a letter in the Evening News which dug down deeper into the election results which showed the strenght of the Tory vote in Norwich.

We then came home to clear up the garden and set up the kids toys; sadly after about 5 minutes my back went and I was forced to watch my poor, long suffering, wife did all the work (!!!) although I never get away with it for long.

This evening, up until this blog post, I have spent writing our "thank you" leaflets and rather splended they look too.