Why it has all gone a bit quiet lately

I have not been on holiday - although I did spend two days 'oop north at my sister's wedding over the weekend, which was great.

Otherwise I have been "rubbing my nose hard" against the proverbial grindstone, what a horrible image that conveys.

When you are the only Councillor from your Party with two others from another Party, you have to do the work of three all by yourself. I have to go all the neighbourhood events, committees and meetings because there is no alternative person to go for me.

I have to do all the casework myself, including all those people who have been waiting donkey's years for a Labour councillor and all those people who have already tried everyone else with their problems and think I am a fresh ear to bend.

I also have to hold all the surgeries myself every week and institute a programme of meeting all of the relevant officers of the council and other agencies to work out who does what and how we all interconnect and mutually support.

Understand that I am not complaining, I have wanted to be a councillor for 11 years now and am thrilled to be one, but there is so much to do!

Coupled with that I am in my last fortnight of my night class, the Certificate of Personnel Practice from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development - I had to hand my project in two weeks ago for instance and next week I have to give a presentation on it to my whole class.

And then my full-time job has just become very busy as we are reorganising a department with 1000 staff in 100 locations into a department with 700 staff in 6 locations, and everyone effectively has to reapply for their old jobs - or hope to get one they might prefer.

Guess whose team of six is leading on the recruitment exercises?

I have now put out most of my thankyou leaflet which in itself is generating a lot of casework and soon I will be writing to all the voters in my election, whoever they voted for, with more follow up work anticipated from their reply slips.

I am really looking forward to August when the political parties all traditionally have a bit of a lie-down and a lie-in!

So if I have not had much to say about the NEC you will see why, and if I have not had much to say about the Council you will see why there too.

I have not been invited to a Co-op meeting lately so did not have to offer any apologies as yet.

Otherwise I am aware of the fact that my campaign to be re-elected to the NEC depends on my running another innovative and positive email campaign, something that my earlier post will show is going to be very hard.

Is there anyone out there within local reach who will let me come and plug my laptop into their BT line so that I can get my email campaign going? Ballot papers go out in the first week of July.

My learning curve is about 1:3 at the moment, I look forward to it levelling out soon