St Neots Carnival

August was a quiet month, still the end of the summer "holiday" season. On the 25th I attended the Carnival at St Neots. The floats were very impressive and the entertainment superb with some very talented singers and performers.

I don't know how much was raised for charity in total but the collector seemed to be filling their buckets with coins quite quickly.

Summer Reception

I will use this post as a bit of a roundup over the past few days as I have been a bit quiet on here (my official site).

On Friday 17th, I was fortunate enough to take a tour of the Anglian Water Education Centre and Sewage Treatment works which involved a tour of the site where some of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade's waste water is processed before being pumped in to the sea.

It was a bit smelly on the site but you do get used to it and I would encourage schools to take groups there free of charge.

Later that day I was at the closing ceremony of the Guides camp having been there at the start almost a week before. Girl Guiding South Bedfordshire is one of my charities this year.

Saturday was my Summer Reception which was a brilliant day raising around £400 for my charities and I think everyone went away having had a great day with my unique style! We had a local band called The Synes as well as help from a few local young people with my Dad performing an unplanned magic act!

On Sunday I was launching in to public service the No. 778 train on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway after many years restoration to the 90 year old steam engine.

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Police and Girl Guides

I am not suggesting there is any link between Beds Police and the Girl Guides although the Police held a cadet passing out parade on the same day the Girl Guides opened their County Camp with The Great Escape as its theme. I was at both events - Sunday 12th August.

There were not too many faces from Leighton Buzzard at the lunch time parade but a lot of officers have put a lot of time and resources in to a great service for 16-18 year olds in Bedfordshire, a large number of cadets go on to work for the force in some way. I was present along with the cadet's parents, senior officer, specials and Mayors from the other Towns and Parishes in the County.

In the evening I was at the Girl Guides County Camp. The theme was The Great Escape and as the Senior Section's prison theme was Feltham Young Offenders, their uniform was a pink hat with ASBO across the front (I was given one too). The South Beds division had The Maze as it's theme leading to a lot of Irish links and a maze at the entrance to the sub camp.

The teddy bears are Asbob and Millie. They got "married" at the camp!

That was a pretty full Saturday.

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The 2am Surgery

It's not every day you go in to town to the late night drinking establishments and end up having a discussion with the Mayor about traffic lights, education and general council business. Tonight was clearly no ordinary night!

I am not sure if other Mayor's and councillors have done it but I have just got back from a night out, joined by Cllr Ashley Ryder (who left EARLY about 1:30am!) and found a lot more people with an interest or an opinion on what we do.

At 1am I was tucking in to a burger when a group of people aged about 18-20 (Happy birthday to the lady who is 20 today) recognised me and actually wanted to speak to me about a range of topics, including saving Brooklands School. They now have a collection of photographs of me stuffing my face on their mobile phone.

I am sure seeing "The Mayor" in that setting was the last thing they expected but I am pretty normal really so don't be too surprised.

Then at 2am, I was stood outside with more introductions or people recognising discussing special education needs which I will be following up on on Monday and congestion in the town.

I have been out in the street with Councillors before when no one even looks at us so I am hoping events like Spaghetti Wrestling and the other things I am doing are taking politics to a new crowd, and to people that want to be involved but have always been left out by the old regime.

On the other hand, it may have just been one of those odd nights.

Who knows!!

If it was you I spoke to, please feel free to comment or send me your pictures and I will put them up on the site.

Since the smoking ban, I have realised just how much alcohol stinks on your clothes, but it's not as bad as coming home smelling like an ashtray :)