Life is hectic. Elections mean no spare moment and a new baby means extra domestic demands - an unsquareable circle. I shall undoubtedly meet myself coming back.
I have been busy this week composing election leaflets - it is a tiresome business collating photographs, facts and text and no matter how one tries it is difficult to make an election leaflet an eyecatching 'must read.' I am impressed by the response to the first distribution which demonstrates that more people than I imagine actually read the information. Only 1 negative comment and many people coming forward just to let me know they had received it. I am encouraged. To read the opinion polls one would be forgiven for believing the election result was a foregone conclusion. I beg to differ.
One issue really catching attention is the future of Meadowbank Stadium. I know Donald and Ewan are working hard to find a solution which is now within grasp - it remains to be seen whether it will be acceptable to the public.
On Tuesday evening I was invited to attend a farewell dinner at Telford College for the chair of the Board who is standing down after a long period in office. It was a pleasant, low key affair held in the college's restaurant. The meal was entirely prepared and served by students who took a well deserved bow at the end of the evening. Everyone there was rightly proud of the college's new home - it really is state of the art. I shared a table with one of Edinburgh's top kitchen designers whom I knew from a previous life. He is a member of the Board and recently sold his business to move on to do other things. I asked him how kitchen design had changed since we last met and he entertained us with stories of fabulous kitchens equipped to the most advanced standards that no-one ever actually cooked in. I choked on my chicken starter when he said they could cost anything between £80 - 100,000. The cost of a small flat...for a kitchen...the world is still very unevenly divided.
On Sunday I attended St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral as a guest to share celebrations of the second anniversary of Pope Benedict's election as Pope. It was an important occasion and one in which Sir Tom plainly had a big hand. He looked very well. Recently returned from holiday, tanned and fit but with a sore throat, he was called on to read two lessons. For a man with considerable and important influence in many spheres of Scottish society his ego is safely parked. His wife is similarly level headed and has a sincere charm I find disarming. I have met many people who would kill for a quarter of their combined influence and who could never achieve the Farmers' dignity or composure. I teased him that his sore throat was more to do with the Hibernian victory the previous week than the infection he held responsible.
The Ambassador to the Holy See was in attendance. Francis is a completely talented, warm man and has the enormous distinction of being the first RC from Belfast to be the top British government representative in the Holy City. We had dinner at his official residency on a previous visit to Rome where I enjoyed an uninhibitedly challenging conversation with another of his guests (whose name I cannot now recall) who, as head of the Irish College in Rome had played host to Mr Blair some months earlier. Intelligence comes in many guises and I always enjoy meeting and talking with really intelligent people. There is always the unexpected to learn. I think it was Conan Doyle who wrote that the talented always recognise genius but the mediocre only ever recognise mediocrity.
The one thing that strikes me as I read this before publishing is how lucky I am to have had the chance to speak to all these individuals - all highly talented in their own field - and that's in only one week.
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