Cutting the ribbon at the bar

Marley Hill Community Centre held its Christmas market today. It went well. Indeed, it got a bit too busy in the cafe where we were, at times, run ragged as we served up burgers, sausages, tea, coffee, cake and so on. As a member of the management committee, my job was to organise the event. I've also taken the lead in arranging for the community centre to have a new alcohol license so today, the Deputy Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Alex Geddes, arrived to cut the ribbon to open officially the bar.



Whickham Wind were on stage at 2pm to play Christmas tunes. Sadly, we had no Christmas tree to light. Last year we planted one in front of the community centre. And then it died on us. This was quite an expensive loss. Meanwhile in January this year, Cllr John McClurey and I planted a Norwegian spruce at the community centre. I had been growing it in a pot in my garden in London for years. The garden there already has lots of mature trees in it so there's no room for new ones. So it made the journey up to the North East as a passenger on the back seat of my Polo after New Year. The tree is only about 1.5 metres high but it is doing well in its new location. Give it a few years and it will be taller than the building. Before it gets to that height we will use it as the new Christmas tree for Marley Hill.

Santa Claus came to town

The Whickham Christmas Market was held today and Santa dropped in for a visit. (See photo above of me, Santa and Cllr Peter Craig in a cunning disguise.) Santa's visit was not a brief one. He was there for 4 hours, with a collecting bucket, persuading people to part with their loose change for Planting Up Whickham, the group set up to provide the Christmas decorations for the village.



The market went ahead in a marquee on St Mary's Green but I gave up my table there to allow another person to use it. Instead, my table, supporting our drive to self-sufficiency, was outside the shop we were using as a base and as Santa's grotto.

I brought the tables from Marley Hill Community Centre to the market last night. It took three journeys to get everything back there this afternoon. It meant I was late for milking the goat which had to be done in torch light this evening.

Tomorrow, we have another Christmas market, at Marley Hill Community Centre itself. We have the Deputy Mayor coming at 1pm to cut the ribbon to reopen our newly relicensed bar. Whickham Wind will be playing at 2pm. Preparations are just about ready. I'm expecting to do another torchlight milking!

Getting ready for the Whickham Christmas market

The Whickham Christmas market, organised by Lighting Up Whickham, takes place tomorrow so today I have been immersed in preparations. My main job was to collect the tables from Marley Hill Community Centre. It seems my Land Rover Defender, normally used for moving bee hives, goats and animal fodder, was the only vehicle big enough to transport 17 tables each 2 metres long. They are now in the shop in St Mary's Green which we are using for Santa's grotto. The market itself will be held in a marquee on the Green.



We held the first Christmas market in Whickham last year and it was a great success so we are hoping tomorrow will go just as well. It will be open from 10am to 2pm.

The Battle for Blaydon Day 6 - the constituency meeting

I've been Blaydon candidate now for a whopping 6 days but today I had my first constituency branch meeting. Lots of talk about the Autumn Statement and highlighting the successes of Lib Dems in government. There was also a discussion about ward campaigns. Obviously I can't go into detail though Lamesley ward cropped up a few times. The meeting was over at 9pm and I headed home to finish some self-sufficiency filming I started in the morning which had to be put on hold to milk the goat and deliver yet more Focus leaflets.

Coverage of the Autumn Statement on the news continued. I watched an interview with Labour MP John Mann in which he attacked the government for not getting the deficit down and moments later said that the government should build up more debt to avoid cuts in services. I guess I'm not the only person who thinks Labour's contradictory position is undermining what little economic credibility they have but John Mann really takes the biscuit.

The Battle for Blaydon day 5 - a policy blast from the past

Attention today was focused on Westminster for the Autumn Statement. There wasn't much left for George Osborne to announce, as most of the contents had already been announced by the PM and DPM from the edge of Stonehenge in a kind of pre-winter solstice dash to build roads and give more money to the NHS. Nevertheless, the stamp duty announcement took on the role of the rabbit being extracted from the hat. It was an interesting surprise for most people and a rather pleasant one for me. When I was working as a policy office for the Lib Dems in the last decade, I was the one who wrote the housing policy paper. That was where reforming the stamp duty system on house purchases was first proposed and today's announcement was very similar to what we proposed back then.

It's the second big policy that I wrote that has now been put into operation by Lib Dems in government. The other was the privatisation of Royal Mail. In the case of the latter, the final shape of the policy had some differences to what was carried out but the fundamentals were the same - that the liberalisation of the mail sector by the Labour government in 2006 meant that Royal Mail needed to be in the private sector to compete against the other private providers or face a slow death in the public sector, starved of investment.

What struck me about today's debate in the Commons was the unconvincing uturn performed by Labour. 4 years ago they were attacking the Coalition for trying to go "too far, too fast" in cutting the deficit. When it was clear that the initial plan to eliminate the deficit by the end of this Parliament would result in too much damage to the economy, the Coalition response was to be flexible and put the date back towards the end of the next Parliament. You would have thought therefore that Labour would have been saying well done, this is what they had called for. Instead, we now have the opposite. They are now attacking the Coalition for not cutting the deficit fast enough. It's a remarkable uturn made all the more incredible by Ed Miliband's forgetful conference speech.

Anyway, not all my attention was grabbed by the Autumn Statement. I had more focuses to deliver today, made all the more challenging by a frost that made some drives into ice rinks. I managed to avoid landing on my rear end when sliding down paths but it was a close run thing at times.

The Battle for Blaydon Day 4 - the sun comes out

In a sign that winter is approaching, tonight we are experiencing our first frost since the start of the year. I could see it forming up on my greenhouse this evening. It was cold enough to put a coat on one of my goats. I bought it from an agricultural supplier for £30, which is only £8 less than the total I have spent on new clothes for myself this year! I'm not one of these people who feels the need to buy the latest fashion or to replace clothing at the end of a "fashion" season. Indeed, one of my favourite t-shirts is one I bought in 1991. It's still in good shape so it can still be worn.

Back to the cold snap. I'm not complaining about the weather. Quite the reverse. It's a good alternative to wet weather. When it rains I can't work on my land and I can't deliver Focus leaflets. Today was sunny and cool, perfect Focus delivery weather. And it seems Focus was noticed by those who received it. I was at the Sunniside History Society buffet tonight and a number of people mentioned to me that they had read it. And with eFocus being sent out last night, a number of people at the meeting were happy to talk about the contents of that too, particularly my selection as prospective candidate for Blaydon. The consensus view was that the general election had too many uncertainties to be able to predict an outcome. Personally, I think seats could go all over the place. One person said this could mean that the personality of candidates could therefore hold more sway than usual. The question therefore is, will people vote for an eccentric, bee-keeping, goat milking, poultry farming, food-swapping, webcasting historian!?

Anyway, I had a rather pleasant buffet at the History Society but I was thoroughly beaten in the name-the-historic-building quiz. Sadly, some of the buildings I got wrong had previously been photographed by me! Back home and I made a start on replying to the rather large number of replies to yesterday's eFocus. This may take some time.

eFocus on Whickham - number 91

The latest edition of eFocus for the Whickham area of Blaydon constituency has just been finished and published by me. Only 9 more editions to go to get to 100. You can read eFocus on this link.

The Battle for Blaydon Day 3 - ipadded and refocused

I got my super new ipad from the Council last Thursday. On Friday it all went horribly wrong. No sign of emails or access to council documents. I had to be in the council this morning for scrutiny committee so I took my new gizmo in to the ICT officers who were a whiz at sorting out the mess I had caused (by using the wrong password). It waits to be seen how long it will be before I mess up the ipad again but I'm connected again to Gateshead MBC.

Back home and time to start delivering those Focus leaflets and using what persuasive techniques I can to get others to deliver as well. This is the first leaflet announcing my selection for Blaydon, under the heading "From the Good Life in Sunniside to Parliament." The first messages from residents arrived before I got home!

I bumped into a Labour member whilst delivering. He made a comment about my shoe leather being worn out. Very perceptive!

The Battle for Blaydon Day 2 - the Focuses arrive

If my feet thought they were going to have a quiet week, they were rudely awakened to the reality of a large tonnage of Focus newsletters arriving at lunchtime. 2000 copies of my Sunniside Focuses just waiting to be delivered, sitting expectantly in my living room. It is the first leaflet to announce my selection for the constituency. Labour are missing so much by not bothering to produce newsletters here when we are outside the official election period. They must miss the exercise, the bracing autumn air, the worn out shoes and fingers chewed up by letter boxes! That's their loss!

This afternoon I met up with some of our councillors in Dunston and Whickham. Labour are proposing to make £1 million of cuts to leisure services in Gateshead but a third of these cuts will be in Dunston. This hardly seems fair. Having proposed these cuts, some in Labour are claiming to be opposed to them. This rather reminds me of the anti-cuts protest before the budget meeting earlier this year in Gateshead. Labour councillors were tripping over themselves to appear in photos of the protest to oppose the cuts and then rushed upstairs to the Council chamber to vote for them. Labour councillors in Gateshead regularly inform us in council meetings that Labour oppose cuts, in marked contrast to their leadership in London who say that if Labour were to win the election, the cuts would continue. Quite who to believe is a challenge. The rich, private school educated New Labour snobs of London, or the "socialist" brothers and sisters of Gateshead? Not a pretty choice!

Christmas markets next weekend

There will be two Christmas markets in the Whickham area next weekend which I am helping to run. The first is being hosted by Lighting Up Whickham on Saturday 6th December and will be in a marquee on St Mary's Green. Opening times will be 10am to 2pm. We will be using a shop on St Mary's Green as well for extra stalls and for Santa's grotto.

The 2nd is at Marley Hill Community Centre on Sunday 7th December from 12pm to 3.30pm. We have just got a new license at the Community Centre so the Deputy Mayor will be officially re-opening the bar at 1pm. Whickham Wind will be playing at 2pm. Sadly, Santa will be too knackered after the Whickham event to attend. The cafe will also be open.

I will be selling self-sufficiency produce at both markets. Alas, I have none of our honey left to sell but we've got lots of preserves, eggs and bacon, sausages and joints from our Tamworth pig.

Both markets were held for the first time last year. Both were a success and we are hoping they will again go down well with residents. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The Battle for Blaydon Day 1: Mud

My first day as candidate in Blaydon constituency got off to a flying start - I was dive bombed by one of my hens who thought it would be great fun to fly in my direction from the top of the goat fence early this morning at feeding time. Mud, however, was the real story of the day. Our land is under lots of mud and the livestock churn it up in an attempt to recreate something more akin to the Battle of the Somme without the blood.



My new wellies are therefore proving their value. I got them on Monday. They were a birthday present. Practical presents make sense. My old wellies are in the bin. They weren't a good purchase. They lasted only a few months before they started disintegrating.

Ducks, goats, hens and quail were fed and I returned home to breakfast and a morning of writing Focus leaflets. This had not been the original plan but I got a message from Cllr John McClurey, our printing supremo, that he was on his way to the office at midday, which was now the deadline to complete the Sunniside Focus. I beat the deadline by 10 minutes!



Back to the goats this afternoon. Milking time at 3pm. More mud. I milk by hand so it means sitting on the milking bench next to Pinkie, our milking goat, who occasionally leaves muddly hoof prints on my favourite gardening trousers. If she doesn't do that, she leaves lots of mud on the stand for me to sit in. So terribly kind of her!



Then back home for some cheese making. We are still learning how to make cheese having had our milking goat for only 3 months.

It's now 8pm on a Saturday evening and I'm back on the laptop. It's the turn of eFocus to be written. I have too many photos to go into it. Time to do some deletes. There will be room for 2 videos I shot recently of local events. EFocus should be ready soon.

Selected to fight Blaydon

I now have the ideal excuse for not tidying the house for the next six months. Tonight I was selected as prospective Parliamentary candidate for Blaydon. And with the election clock ticking, the battle will be getting underway immediately.

Blaydon has no Conservative presence at all. They lost their last council seat here (to us) in 1988. UKIP have no active campaigning presence other than in one ward. The Greens have no active presence but field some local election candidates. Labour have held the constituency since 1935 and since 1997, the Lib Dems have been in second place. The current Labour MP is Dave Anderson, first elected in 2005. I quite like him as a person though his politics don't quite coincide with mine. He is on the left of the Labour Party but in the last Parliament, he never rebelled against his government, despite protestations of opposition made by him to some of the policies of Blair and Brown.

My council ward of Whickham South and Sunniside is in the constituency. I've held my ward for nearly 28 years. I was first elected in 1987 when the Conservatives were on a high, but not high enough to stop me winning my seat from them. I've held the seat ever since, each time with over half the votes cast.

So, with my background in self-sufficiency and webcasting, are the voters ready to adopt me as the food growing, goat keeping, bee buzzing, video making MP for Blaydon who will fight their corner? They will decide whether I'm heading to Westminster or heading home to do the tidying up!

What you can do with Black Friday

Have you seen the scenes of chaos and near riots in department stores today as crowds battle for special offers? Awful! This is not a good advert for consumerism. Thank goodness I abandoned commercial consumerism 5 years ago when I gave up paid work in favour of becoming self-sufficient. So, today, instead of fighting my way with debit card to the tills and elbowing my way back to the shopping centre car park, I'm off to the allotment to milk Pinkie, one of my goats, and to collect the eggs from my hens. And later I'll be doing some cooking in the kitchen - making goat cheese flans and then some goats milk and sprout soup.(We have something of a glut of goats milk at the moment!)

And then tonight I'm off to a Blaydon Constituency Lib Dem meeting which may result in an extra role for me. But more about that later.

Meanwhile, I have some thoughts as to what should be done with Black Friday.........

Whickham Christmas lights - the video

You've seen the photos of yesterday's Christmas lights switch on in Whickham. Now see the video!

Christmas Lights switch on on Whickham

Tuesday 25th November was the day we chose for the Christmas lights switch on in Whickham. Cut backs means Gateshead Council no longer pays for the Christmas lights and tree in the village. Instead, Lighting Up Whickham, a voluntary group set up to raise funds for the lights, now pays for the lights and arranges the switch on. I am a member of the group but my job today was to be the photographer of the event (and wearer of a daft hat - see above, left to right, me, Cllr Peter Craig and Cllr Chris Ord.

The photos of the event can be seen on this link.

Swalwell Remembrance Sunday wreath laying

I attended the Swalwell Remembrance Sunday wreath laying to film the event for Councillors Chris Ord, Sonya Hawkins and Peter Craig. This is the video.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day and as usual, I attended the parade in Whickham. I also laid the wreath on behalf of residents of my ward, Whickham South and Sunniside. This year I was also able to get to Swalwell for the wreath laying service.

I have a full set of photos on this link.

Feeding the dog on action days

We held the next of our Blaydon constituency action days in Whickham North today. As is almost always the case when out delivering, my ward colleague, Cllr John McClurey, was accompanied by his labrador Coco. The dog's main job is to drool next to each person attending the action day when the lunch is being served long enough to be offered some food. Sandwiches, sausages, chocolate biscuits or crisps - they all get consumed so fast that they never have time to touch the sides. Today was no different, as Cllr Chris Ord discovered - see photo above.

The action day saw Swalwell delivered with the latest Focus and surveys delivered in Whickham. And back in HQ, a tonne of administrative jobs was sorted. I had to leave at 3pm to milk the goat and feed my hens.

Planting up Swalwell

Austerity cuts have meant the end for many flower beds in public locations throughout Gateshead. (Labour overlooks the fact that the cuts to flower beds started well before the 2010 general election.) Anyway, Swalwell residents and their three Lib Dem Councillors have not taken this lying down. Instead, they have taken on the job of planting up and maintaining the flower beds themselves. Most of the work has been done on the beds next to Holy Trinity Church.

Alas, I was persuaded recently to lend a helping hand by Cllr Sonya Hawkins who negotiated a load of plants from the neighbouring B&Q store. My job was to help plant them. Fortunately it took three of us only an hour to do. We were reasonably satisfied with the results.

My vote in the Presidential election goes to....

I got back from a trip to London yesterday afternoon just in time to milk the goat, collect the eggs from our poultry and get to Gateshead group meeting before going to the Lib Dem Presidential hustings in Newcastle. All three candidates were there: Sal Brinton, Liz Lynne and Daisy Cooper. I have met Sal and Liz in my previous days as a policy officer in HQ. I have met Daisy once before when I did some filming for her before the 2010 general election outside Parliament. Sal mentioned to me her interest in my self-sufficiency activities.

I had gone to the meeting with a vague idea in which I would put the candidates. By the end of the meeting I had changed that order. My 3rd placed candidate moved provisionally to first. I have not yet made a final decision and I think all are capable of doing the job.

So, I shall be voting for all the candidates! As to what order I will place them, that's for you to guess and me to guard.