First things first. I’m sure you are chomping at the bit to hear this update. Unfortunately, Gordon’s once-posh jumper, which I mistakenly shrunk in the wash last week, didn’t recover!
So much for the great ideas online which promised to bring it back to life.
Soaking it in fabric softener just made it worse, so I had to come clean to Gordon and I owe him a new jumper. Of course, with my newfound love of sustainability and secondhand purchases, he won’t be getting a brand new one!
Thank you to so many of you for getting in contact about how you could relate to the difficulties in getting a learning disability diagnosed in children. Carol Vorderman’s story about her son Cameron and the struggles she had with his education have obviously been similar to what many of you have gone through.
It’s so important that people in the public eye share their bad experiences as well as their good ones. It’s easy to think we are alone at times as a parent, and it helps to know that others go through similar things.
I’m going to see Cam next week so I will tell him about the lovely response.
How tragic that the MP Sir David Amess lost his life while doing his job this week. We have since heard so many tributes to him saying how supportive he was to so many people in his community in Southend on Sea, where he has campaigned for 25 years to upgrade it from a town to a city.
It’s therefore wonderful that the Queen has granted city status to Southend on Sea as a tribute to Sir David.
His family have said they are “broken”. The shock of such a brutal and sudden death must just be impossible to bear, but in time they will be so proud of this wonderful tribute from Her Majesty, which means he will be forever remembered in the community he loved so much.
It really brings to light once again how at-risk politicians are for speaking their minds.
I remember Ed Miliband once saying, for politicians, it was important that they could disagree without being disagreeable.
Personally, I totally disagree with what so many politicians say and I often dislike them because of what they seem to believe in, stand for, or how they live their lives.
However, the problem is when these opposing views are held so strongly by people who are either prone to violence, are mentally ill or just at their wits’ end.
How does an MP holding a surgery know if the person who has booked an appointment to see them has such a big grudge against them or their political party that they could potentially injure them or worse?
Surely the whole point of an MP is to represent and speak for their local people and for their needs. Without being able to talk to them face to face and be a present part of that community, they can’t really do their jobs, or know the real views of their constituents.
Somehow though, either security will have to be majorly improved or more virtual meetings will be the norm.
It’s a sad reflection on our society today that some people are less safe than ever, while just doing their jobs.
Thankfully the Queen has wonderful security wherever she goes and this week she has been out and about looking as radiant as ever in an array of brightly coloured outfits.
She has started, however, to use a stick for walking in public, and knowing how stoic she always seems to be, it must have taken some persuasion for her to agree to that.
We also heard that after her busy week she has been advised to rest by her doctors and has cancelled her scheduled trip to Northern Ireland.
How many 95-year-olds could work all week, attend functions and then pop on a plane? Very few I suspect.
Surely she deserves to cut back on engagements and put her feet up, or maybe she doesn’t want to. Some people can’t bear the thought of retiring, and maybe as her work has always been her life she doesn’t want to let go.
I remember when my mum was paralysed and bed ridden that what kept her going was that she couldn’t trust me to look after my children without her advice!
Being needed and having a purpose is something that keeps us all going.
Have a good week
Yvie x
