So if you win the majority of the votes, how come you don't win anything?

What a kerfuffle. The election that wasn't. You hear about fraudulent electioneering in the third-world. You don't expect it here. Friends who were queuing around the block for an hour, only to find that when they wanted to vote, the doors were closed in their faces; others where there were not enough voting forms. 'We didn't expect such a high turn out,' is the phrase now being bandied around. As if it were an impossibility that enfranchisement meant that everyone who had a vote now wanted to use it! How could it have been so chaotic? Such an immense cock-up? And it is, considering that the UK sends invigilators all around the world to ensure that voting is not fraudulent. Even my postal vote was posted late. What has happened to this country in the last thirteen years that has left it supine like this? Bloody Gordon Brown, his rotten cronies and Labour. And the grinning gargoyle is clinging on, like the tenacious limpit that he is, enthusing about how it could only be Labour who can 'save the country.' He has no shame.

Back again in London and it's even colder and wetter and greyer than before I went away. This is May? How tedious. I went out with the dog (still short-haired; not quite so weird-looking) this morning, wearing my winter walking coat with scarf and inner lining. Jolly. I was in t-shirt, hiding away from the sun on Thursday.

Zach stayed here and looked after the dog while I was away. He saw me arrive late on Thursday night and rushed downstairs to help me up with my case and then squirreled it away in the bedroom before I could even ask him for aid. A drink and a chat and we enjoyed watching the counting until 3.00am and he wandered back home because his bed was 'his bed.' He looks well. His moods are pretty stable and he's thinking of going to visit Beth for a couple of weeks. Pretty safe. Famous last words? Don't think so. Although, of course, safety is always a moot point.