New babies, nights out and Trident

It's been a week since I last wrote and a lot has happened. A new boy is born and I learn from 3 friends they have each lost a loved one - the cycle of life and death is remorseless. The one is not balanced by the other...each is a unique circumstance as individual as the life to be celebrated either recently gone or just arrived.

Today I should have traveled to Paris to participate in a series of events surrounding the rugby international. My husband was to carry the national flag on to the pitch at Stade de France and he looked forward to the event enormously - however the delayed birth of his second grandson intervened to spoil our plans. He will enjoy the boy with no name (my daughter and her husband are notoriously dilatory at such decisions) equally.

I have enjoyed my four days looking after Hollie and Santino who are aged two and three but it has been the hardest labour. I love the story telling though. Between them they have the equivalent of a small persons library: Dinosaurus Rumpus: Room on the Broom: Spot's Day Out - they didn't write them like that in my day. I had also forgotten how obsessed very little people are with bodily functions - endless trips to the toilet and always amazement and mirth at the results.

Last night was the farewell dinner for Paddy Tomkins. I found myself seated beside Malcolm Dickson now number 2 to Paddy at HM Constabulary. I have known Malcolm for several years and we once famously spent a Saturday evening in the back of a police vehicle touring the streets of Edinburgh to permit board members a police view of Saturday night city chaos...not a person to be seen: more police than public: not a drunk, a fight, a brawl - NOTHING. It wasn't raining so they couldn't blame the weather; it was a Saturday during the Festival and we ended up at the castle watching the Tattoo with the on duty officers. Malcolm was despondent...and I was amused. Last night was amusing too. Apart from being responsible for one of the dullest Saturdays I ever spent, Malcolm also has the distinction of being the only man who ever stood me up for dinner. I had made special arrangements for him to sit next to Ian Rankin for whom he had expressed admiration - we waited and waited and waited but Malcolm did not appear. The next day I received a very apologetic phone call explaining 'I forgot'. I imagine it was the law officer in him that forbade even the social lie - again it made me laugh. I lost no time poking fun last night which he took with good grace.

Yesterday I passed many demonstrations against Trident...outside the parliament: at the Mound: in the High Street. The Capital felt like a centre for political agitation even if each demo seemed a muted affair. I sympathise with the sentiment. Nobody could demonstrate in favour of nuclear weapons. I admire Nigel's decision to vote against the Government but I cannot agree with it. It is not sensible to seem vulnerable before an enemy - politics proves to me beyond any doubt that the appearance of weakness is the moment the wolves pounce. Instinctively, all reasonable people want peace. But wanting it and keeping it require two very different responses.