Love and Liberty

Does anyone have a nice big Liberal Democrat poster – Bird of Liberty, “Winning Here,” that sort of thing, but not a candidate’s name – which they could post to us? Physically, I’m not a lot of help right now, but we do have a large window, facing directly onto the Thames, which can be seen from the footpath and from all the boats that pass by. Up to about four feet across would be fine… If it’s that big, you could even see the day-glo orange diamond from the opposite bank. If you have a spare, please e-mail me (my addy’s in the sidebar).

I’ve not had an election like this one, and really rather hope not to have one again: my health, never good, has crashed so badly that… Well, I won’t go into the grisly details, but during the last fortnight I’ve lost more than a stone while hardly moving. The extent of my exercise has been occasionally to force myself out to the newsagent usually five-to-ten minutes’ walk away, depending on how brisk I’m being; at the moment, it’s taking me fifteen there, and twenty back, by which time I’m lathered in sweat and can barely stay upright. So I’m feeling just a little bit left out of things, and can’t even eat to cheer myself up. Thanks, then, to the Lib Dem candidate who rang yesterday and pummelled my brain for suitably aggressive hustings lines, as that made me feel slightly better than completely useless and as I could do it from my sickbed and say ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m going to have to stop now’ without actually falling over in front of them. Oh, and just for a laugh, I could only hold the phone to my right ear, as I’ve also lost most of the hearing in my left in the last fortnight (eardrops from doctor faring no better than the anti-nausea pills).

If you know us, please also be nice to Richard, who as well as having to cope with me is working his usual long days, then working for the Lib Dems at nights, and yet is still managing to be far less ragged than I am (while definitely ragged enough to worry me).

Anyway, if you could send us a poster, that would add to a sense that I’m somehow doing my bit. In fact, an ordinary-sized window poster for the street side would be handy, too. Staggering about our local area this afternoon I noticed that, despite ours being in theory one of England’s few thrilling four-way marginals, there is in fact just one solitary little poster on any nearby street. And even that’s in the Conservative candidate’s house, bless him! So help the Lib Dems surge to, er, parity.

Labels: General Election, Health, Liberal Democrats, Personal, Richard