Scales - beginning and end

Put It Down To Experience
What a model of epistolary restraint! To be greeted at Scales by creepy older men, leeches, horseflies and a bedroom resembling Oxford St on a December Saturday would for most of us mere mortals call forth a heartfelt outpouring of wrath upon the architects of such misery! Instead, you seem to have taken it all in your stride. You were saying earlier on that being away has given you time and space to reflect on life, experience and your own personal journey to date. These are profound days for you. Toronto (Tararno in the local dialect) sounds incredible and I'm not surprised that Canada has taken you all by storm. By common consent it seems to be a highly favoured place to live with a lot going for it. I'm afraid we can't say the same at present about Cameron's Britain after his unexpected and (to 63% of the population) unwelcome victory. Riven by the rise of Scottish and English nationalism which are fissile forces and the possibility of exit from the EU in 2 years time, the UK is a barren and bleak place for all of us on the centre-left who believe in progressive, humanist and inclusive politics. The collapse of the Lib Dems and the poor showing of Labour leave a lot of thinking to be done - should there be further moves to merge the parties of the centre-left to present a united front to the Tories next time? The tribal nature of British politics makes such an outcome unlikely, sadly. Looking forward to your next blog - your usual excellent levels of description allowed me to almost visualise and hear the flies buzzing in for attack across the stagnant waters of the turtle lake.