Life

Been a busy day today particularly at PEP. It's that time of the year when every funder wants an end of year report; key funders want grant forms completed and submitted and in the middle of all that we have a Winter Programme to plan and deliver. This year's Winter festival has, at its core, an arts extravaganza with a fantastic pantomime, mixed media exhibition and launch of a very special recipe book prepared by the Neighbourhood Group. Take into account more Christmas parties than most people have digits, extra shopping trips and a lot more besides and you'll get the picture. November is a month of critical planning and preparation and December is just plain mad!

I've just finished pulling together the annual monitoring & evaluation report (based entirely on service users own responses) and it is excellent. Most striking is the big increase in the number of local people now receiving a service from PEP: we are recording an increase of 23% on last year's numbers and are now providing at least 1 service per annum to 750 people - and that in a year when the organisation has been under the cosh from a drip feed of anonymous, unpleasant allegations. It says a lot about the attitude of the staff and the quality of their work as well as a lot about the solid support from the Board and the vast majority of the local community.

After PEP it was on to Morrisons to get some necessary victuals - we were down to the last 2 onions, 3 tatties and a solitary pack of herb sausages in the freezer (sausage and mash for dinner tonight!). I am trying to conserve money - 44 Xmas prezzies are going to eat into the funds...not to mention an end of year holiday I booked long before I sat down to do the Xmas sums...so it was all the 'buy one get one free' offers and no booze. It's a shame we don't like pizzas...if we did we could eat for practically nothing all month long...I'm not, by nature, very good at prudence - in truth, Elizabeth and prudence is an oxymoron. I can do it when I have to but I really hate it!

And talking of prudence I caught Marilyne's story in tonight's Evening News (wasn't it an awful photo? Marilyne' is a fine looking woman and plainly they chose the very worst photo - a common trick of the EN as I know to my cost) - is it just me or is everybody getting just a wee bit fed up of the 'it wisnae me, it was them to blame' line she repeats like a mantra. If it isn't Labour mismanaging the budget, then it's the Evening News putting words in her mouth. C'mon Marilyne...you can do better than that!

And finally, I was at Royston/Wardieburn Community Centre tonight to do my regular constituents' 'surgery'. Only 3 people there tonight (fewer than usual) so I had a bit time on my hands. I noticed a poster on the wall, a photograph of Martin Luther King Jnr delivering his 'I have a dream' speech at the Lincoln Memorial. It is a startling photograph with the Washington obelisk in the distance, huge crowds between and Luther King in the foreground commanding the space. I read the speech carefully again - and was struck anew as to how many of its phrases have passed into folklore...' the summer of discontent'...'now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all God's children'...a nation where (children) are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character' ...'let freedom ring'...
I remember hearing that speech on the TV when I was a wee girl...it was as uplifting then as it is now.

If you haven't already done so, go to the Lincoln Memorial and buy a book of Lincoln's speeches and of all the famous US democrats who have used his words and example as an inspiration. I promise you, it will move you to tears, as will the Vietnam Wall. All America's magnificence and mistakes on display in a single place for everyone to ponder.