Back

So I am back to work and back to "normal" life after a tough couple of weeks.  For the last 6 months most of my life has been focussed on planning the elections in Edinburgh.  Polling on 3 May and the count on 4 May.  320,000 voters over 62,000 postal voters, 340 polling stations, 17 wards, 127 candidates.  Then on 2 May I was called to my Dad's bedside and I had to walk away from it all.  I drove south for 4 hours and then with my family sat with him for 48 hours until he died.  For most of that time I held his hand and talked to him.   When I arrived he was conscious and he saw me, smiled and tried to talk.

When I visited he would always hate it when I left to return to Scotland.  This time when I got to the hospital I told him that I was not going to leave him anymore, ever.  I remained there with him then.  And he died.  Finally all the confusion, the weakness was gone.  He was at rest.  I was with him all the time.

Now all seems a little empty.  After a long and hard week of administration - registering the death, organising the funeral, sorting out the will - I returned to Scotland.  The election was over.  All the drama finished with and I had missed it all.  I feel strangely dislocated from it.

And this blog....I will start posting things again, but at the moment it all seems a little frivolous.

Thanks for all the messages of support.