What a day this has been, would I do it again?YES ! To begin with Pa was in one of his moods, of course I had expected as much but even so I had hoped. There was much shifting of furniture until at last the kitchen resembled a sort of auditorium and I hoped that there were enough chairs. Pa could not be asked to do anything useful but when ever my back was turned he would begin doing something to make the the place untidy and it was with difficulty that I refrained from hitting him on the head with a lump hammer and leaving him in the shed for the duration.
When at last I had five minutes to dress and tidy my hair a call came from Ms McLeod telling me that she would be with me in a few minutes..................it was ten past three.
I panicked, I made a few frantic telephone calls and then I poured myself a huge G&T, a really huge G&T which I drank at gulp and as I drained the glass people began to arrive.
I need not have worried every one arrived on time and by the time our \member arrived we were all introduced and seated and ready to begin.
We represented different interests but our chief concern was the same,the amount of building in the are and the way in which the green spaces within the conservation area are being managed. Ms McLeod was attentive and interested in everything that was said, in fact quite few new facts came to light because of the meeting of so many interested parties.
By the end of the meeting Ms McLeod agreed to take up our cause and was very helpful with advice. She mentioned that another meeting would be necessary and then left with a sheaf of documents containing every thing we had discussed.
The real magic happened after she had gone when everyone in the room agreed to join forces and fight together, I could have cried with joy and relief. These people are articulate intelligent and passionate about our cause sand if I had imagined a dream team I could not have done better. With the forming of a new group will go a new name, the web site and twitter site will soon go on line and we hall be contacting the press. The contacts I made on the London Assembly will also be useful, in other words here we go again.
The meeting went better than I could have hoped and to have a group with wider interests will be so much better, we need all the clout we can get. As they left the group all thanked me for giving them the opportunity to air their views, for myself their presence meant so very much to our small band as it showed that the whole community feels as we do and supports our endeavours, they are the ones who should be thanked for giving their time and coming out on such a foul night. I cannot thank our Member of Parliament enough for helping us fight our corner.
We did a little research and discovered that she is considered to be one of the most hard working of the new members and is well respected by her fellow MPs. Today she showed that she really does care about her constituents, this is not the first time that she has helped me since she came to office and her coming to talk to our group was the culmination of some months of correspondence,
So much has happened today so much of which was unexpected I feel dizzy and excited about the future. Most of all I an relieved that we now have enough strong minded eloquent people to fight on if I should be unable to do so for a time.
All the good people who came to the meeting care every bit as much about their mall worlds as I do about mine, together we have a better chance of saving it from the rich developers and the uncaring council contractors.
So now we go forward, now we fight on and we shall not stop until our small corner of the world is safe for the wild things which make it their home too and secure for the future so that their presence may be enjoyed by those who come after us.
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