At Last ... a garden party with sunshine

Last Saturday was the Annual Norwich Conservatives Garden Party, this time held in the beautiful gardens at the Old Lodge in Mulbarton. The best thing, though, wasn't seeing old friends from both in and outside of Norwich, or the strawberries, or the home made scones (sorry about the oven Karen!) but the fact we did all of this, all afternoon without a drop of rain! Sunhats were the order of the day! We raised a great amount for the campaign fund and everyone had a great time. My thanks to the organisers who, once again, did a great job!

The Day The Shed Came Down

When you are snowed under with survey canvass returns, leafleting Bowthorpe, canvassing in Eaton and campaign planning, when is there a better time to start dismantling the garden shed? To be fair, like a certain government, it was rotten and - also maybe like the government - was going to collapse fairly shortly of its own accord. Why is this worth blogging? Because the shed is the last part of the original garden that we bought back in 2005 - now it is totally unrecognisable from the day that we bought it. Every room decorated in some form or another; I don't know why, but now I feel the stamp is on the house. I should also record my thanks to Cllr Wiltshire who did somethings with a hammer that ought never to be blogged...

Talking of which, I recieved a very interesting letter from a gentleman living in Thorpe Hamlet who said that he lived in our house in the period 1933-35; This man and his family don't seem to be on any register so it helps to explain a little mystery of who owned the house between it being built, in 1933, and the first registered owners in 1935. I am writing to offer him the chance to come back and see it again if he wishes - and when and if he does then he will see exactly what kind of home we have made in our 4 years in 138 Trafford Road.

Should a Tory candidate have to do his own gardening?

The lack of posts this week says something about the pace at which the parliamentary campaign has taken off. Between ward work, the media and canvassing there hasn't bene much time for blogging. However this week is Half-Term and Louise has forced me to address the total disaster zone that is the garden.

Hence, this morning I could be found in old jeans and scruffy top lugging whole sections of my garage and garden into a skip. As I was pulling one of my least attractive faces, pushing the last of what once passed as a buddleia into a tiny crack between a brick and a plank of wood with nails sticking out, a friends who lives at the end of the road passed by.

"Ey, what have we here?" he proclaimed, as if it wasn't blatantly obvious enough. "Our local Tory candidate doing his own garden? Can't see Mr Clarke digging his own plot!" - no, I thought, launching a plot or whispering one, but never digging it. I then took a few moments of abuse before he finished with, "at least I can vote for somebody who knows how to get their hands dirty!".

I didn't know what to be more shocked about; that he was voting for me after admitting previously to being a LibDem, or the fact that he was genuinely amazed I did my own DIY and gardening.

Do other candidates get away with this? I also wash clothes, clean baths, put out the bin and even go to work. Is the land stalked with other PPCs who don't do this sort of stuff anymore? Or has the public's perception of politicans now moved so far from the truth that we are all tarnished with the nose-in-trough stereotype of the worth excesses of the Westminster MP?

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