Thursday 12 December 2019

Britain goes to the polls!

The weather today has been horrible, with almost constant rain and wind. Not really the sort of day to go out and cast a vote, but at least it wasn't raining!

I stayed at home in the morning and managed to get the rest of my 2010 blog into a word document. I had written almost 99,000 words! Over the ten years this means I've written approximately one million words!

Mike called us late morning to ask us to pick him up from town and bring him home so he could vote in the General Election. We duly drove into town through muddy and rain-lashed roads and picked him up. I voted with him but Keith said he'd wait until this evening to vote when Sophie returned from work.

To be honest, I was dreading today. I think all of us in Britain are totally fed up with the way things have been since 2016, and I was just hoping that we would finally get a party with a majority in Government so we could get things moving and stop being the laughing stock of Europe. I don't often mention politics in this blog (and apologies for any readers who have strong views on the subject and are fans of the opposition) but I was dreading Labour getting more seats than the Tories, but having to form a coalition with the SNP. In the afternoon, I even researched living abroad somewhere like Malta or Cyprus! And I'm not joking!

After Keith and I had dropped Mike back in town we popped to Riverside and I bought some more bird food in Wilco's. The weather was too horrible to hang about for long so we headed home and waited for Sophie to finish work. As soon as she arrived we drove to the village and her and Keith cast their votes. Sophie is feeling very disillusioned with all the parties at the moment and didn't want to vote for any of them so she spoiled her ballot paper. As a family we have had some extremely heated discussions about politics just lately (Mike is an avid Labour supporter) so I'm just hoping that now the election is here we can get over it!

It seemed silly to go out just to vote so we popped into the pub for a couple of drinks. It was busy with early evening drinkers and no doubt people who'd had the same idea as us! Back home Keith and I set about making dinner and by 7.45pm we were sitting down to sausages, crispy onions, mash and a load of veggies!

We all stayed up later than usual - Sophie is off work tomorrow as well - and I have to say we were all speechless when the results of the exit poll were announced at 10pm. It was unbelievable! I had understood that predictions said it was very close but the results were extraordinary! And of course the amazing news carried on through the night! I left Keith to it after midnight and woke up at 2am to check the news, but Keith stayed up until 4am. When he learnt that the old Tony Blair stronghold of Sedgefield had turned blue, then it really was an historic night for all of us!


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