Recess

We are now on two weeks of recess, and since Parliament isn't in session, we get to use the time to chill out, travel, catch up on our research, and so on.

That doesn't mean we stop political activity though. Before I head off to Wales later this week, I've volunteered to help with campaigning down in Edinburgh South. I got my first taste of leafleting, which basically means taking leaflets and putting them through people's letterboxes.

I will admit, I was pretty nervous at first. I know this doesn't happen very often anywhere, but I've never just walked up the driveway to someone's house before without being invited, and thus I was almost expecting someone to pop out their door at some point with a shotgun or have a bunch of dogs bark at me like I was the milkman or something. I got lucky though, since most people were out at work, and any animal activity was limited to a single cat sitting under a tree glaring at me. I was successful with delivering leaflets to houses; however, getting into blocks of flats is much more difficult than in Hong Kong, where the security guard usually just lets you in anyway or the mailboxes are placed outside the gate. So that part of the delivery was pretty fruitless. Edinburgh South does look like a pretty place though, and I hope I get to walk around it a bit more soon.

Also: the office down south has a FOLDING MACHINE! You have no idea how happy I was to see this thing. It doesn't look brand spanking new at all, but I honestly have not seen one before, and after spending previous campaigns folding hundreds of leaflets individually by hand and risking dozens of paper cuts, it was such a relief to stack up sheets, pull a lever, press a button, and voila! 100 nicely folded leaflets ready for delivery.