Speeding up

As dissolution gets close - only seven days now - the days get busier and busier as evinced by the fact that I left the flat at 7.25 this morning and got back at midnight.

In addition to a marathon Parliamentary session on the Land Reform Bill (during which I proposed a whole series of amendments and which passed 102-14 just after 7.30) I attended a group meeting, a farewell event for Alex Salmond who leaves Holyrood next week and eventually finished up at a dinner for members of the Rural Affairs Committee which has worked well as a unit on the Bill and which is also seeing the retiral of three of its current members including the Convenor Rob Gibson and the former Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson.

In the midst of all this there is still a deluge of email and constituency cases which I am trying to cope with along with my staff , who have also had to continue packing up the office as everything goes into storage for six weeks.

When I managed to get to my office about 8.30 this evening I found my colleague Stuart MacMillan ( a West of Scotland MSP and the Parliament's piper ) playing in a new reed for his bagpipes, preparatory to performing on the last day , which added yet another image to the pile !