On making my mark

I voted yesterday, for the first time in my life! Oh wondrous elation! I got home from work, went for a run (to stretch the legs prior to a 10k race around Richmond Park tomorrow) and then, when David arrived home, we took a stroll over to our local polling station and did our civic duty in the local council and European parliamentary elections. It was so simple, and civilised. The only elections I have to compare the experience to are the South African kind, which I viewed with the dispassionate interest of the uninvolved. As a permanent resident, I wasn't invited to the polling party, so I drove past long queues of would-be voters burning in the sun and wondered idly what it was that compelled people to endure such inconvenience. Now I know. As I walked back out into the pretty evening, past the well-suited Conservative member sporting his standard issue blue rosette and enquiring of us what our address was for their records, I felt like I had finally become British. And that is a very good feeling indeed.