The day before the election and I'm still a floater
It's the day before the election and I still haven't decided which way to vote. This has never happened to me before.
I know who I'm not voting for, which is something I suppose.
I have an argument with Mr Grigg, the big Tory, at the breakfast table as he makes arrangements to ferry around Conservatives too frail to walk to the polling station. This is not a safe Tory seat any more so Oliver Letwin needs all the votes he can get. The Liberal Democrats could get in, if Labour voters and Greens vote tactically. Disturbingly, UKIP seem to be quite popular in this rural backwater.
There are plenty of people telling me I should vote this way, I should vote that. But when it comes down to it, it's my vote. When I go into that polling booth, the choice is mine. There are several things determining my decision, some of which boil down to personal preferences and prejudices and are too boring and petty to go into here.
But, when I'm out in the field with the dog at seven o'clock this morning, the wind howling, the rain pouring down and soaking me to the skin (which, fortunately, is waterproof) it feels like it's all about me. It's as if I don't vote the right way, it could be forever winter, with the nation's collective heart chilled by ice.
Up on the ridge, through dark, dark clouds, I can see the sun shining beyond Windwhistle, its beams landing on Chard and illuminating this distant Somerset town like some silver Eldorado. It's as if there's someone up in the sky, with Indiana Jones's Staff of Ra pointing me the way to the town where I went to school.
I half expect to hear a disembodied voice booming through the air, eminating from a grotesque figure animated by Terry Gilliam, telling me it is a sign.
I think for a moment (I'm a great one for signs and their meanings, none of which really makes any sense) and then it hits me. Not the beam of light but the meaning behind why Chard is shouting out to me vote this way, vote this way.
It's the ghost of Margaret Bondfield, trades unionist, women's rights activist and the first female cabinet minister, who was born in Chard. But is she telling me to vote Labour, to vote for the woman or to follow my heart and vote for what I believe in?
That's the trouble with signs, they just point you to where you want to go or make you realise you started from the wrong spot in the first place.
I trudge home, me and the dog drowned rats the pair of us. I'm still none the wiser.
That's about it.
Love Maddie x
I know who I'm not voting for, which is something I suppose.
I have an argument with Mr Grigg, the big Tory, at the breakfast table as he makes arrangements to ferry around Conservatives too frail to walk to the polling station. This is not a safe Tory seat any more so Oliver Letwin needs all the votes he can get. The Liberal Democrats could get in, if Labour voters and Greens vote tactically. Disturbingly, UKIP seem to be quite popular in this rural backwater.
There are plenty of people telling me I should vote this way, I should vote that. But when it comes down to it, it's my vote. When I go into that polling booth, the choice is mine. There are several things determining my decision, some of which boil down to personal preferences and prejudices and are too boring and petty to go into here.
But, when I'm out in the field with the dog at seven o'clock this morning, the wind howling, the rain pouring down and soaking me to the skin (which, fortunately, is waterproof) it feels like it's all about me. It's as if I don't vote the right way, it could be forever winter, with the nation's collective heart chilled by ice.
Up on the ridge, through dark, dark clouds, I can see the sun shining beyond Windwhistle, its beams landing on Chard and illuminating this distant Somerset town like some silver Eldorado. It's as if there's someone up in the sky, with Indiana Jones's Staff of Ra pointing me the way to the town where I went to school.
I half expect to hear a disembodied voice booming through the air, eminating from a grotesque figure animated by Terry Gilliam, telling me it is a sign.
I think for a moment (I'm a great one for signs and their meanings, none of which really makes any sense) and then it hits me. Not the beam of light but the meaning behind why Chard is shouting out to me vote this way, vote this way.
It's the ghost of Margaret Bondfield, trades unionist, women's rights activist and the first female cabinet minister, who was born in Chard. But is she telling me to vote Labour, to vote for the woman or to follow my heart and vote for what I believe in?
That's the trouble with signs, they just point you to where you want to go or make you realise you started from the wrong spot in the first place.
I trudge home, me and the dog drowned rats the pair of us. I'm still none the wiser.
That's about it.
Love Maddie x
Oh how I wish our elections in the U.S. were like yours. Here we are 18 months out from the election and the politicians are coming out of the woodwork declaring their candidacy for president. By the time election finally comes around, I'm sick of all of them.
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