Mud, glorious mud

This morning started with a very rushed update meeting on how the annual canvass for the electoral roll is going - well but not complete yet. Just under 92% of forms have been returned which means that up to 8% of people in the Borough wouldn't have a vote if an election were called next year. If you're one of them, or if you want to check and make sure that you are on the register contact the Electoral Registration team at Stockton.
Then it was time to brief and be interviewed by the reporter from our regional newspaper about the Cemeteries review. The report goes to Cabinet on Thursday so there should be some coverage in the papers. We're hoping for positive reports, showing the benefits of what is being proposed but of course can't tell with the press until it's actually in print. The next session was with BBC Tees, including an interview in the rain at one of the cemeteries - getting wet and cold on this subject is becoming a habit!
The Fairtrade steering group met at lunchtime to plan some future events - watch out for a wine-tasting evening in late January or early February once we've got the venue finalised. There's a great range of Fairtrade wines out there and we're going to sample some of them. I had to race away at the end of the meeting to get to a site visit in preparation for tomorrow's planning committee. Unfortunately, it really was a building site so my shoes ended up caked in mud and needed serious work on the grass verge in the rain before I could get into the car and go back into the town to clean my shoes a bit more thoroughly and prepare for tomorrow's meetings before going to a briefing session about the Stockton-Darlington Partnership.
Then it was back to Eaglescliffe for a ward surgery, with a very difficult problem to try to start and resolve. The last meeting of the day was the finance committee of the Parish Council, and then home by 10pm to have a belated evening meal. The joys of being a councillor!