40 years on

I chaired the first ever Strategic Forum for Adult and Lifelong Learning this morning, an innovation I suggested to take forward a coherent and I hope ambitious agreed policy in a sector that needs renewed attention.

It was held at St Leonard's Hall , which is the oldest building on the Pollok Halls site of Edinburgh University. From the window of the room in which we met I could see Grant House, the hall of residence where I spent my first and last years at Edinburgh and which brings back lots of memories of 1970/1 and 1973/4.

Forty years on I had to blip the view even if most of my thoughts and actions today have been connected with something more immediate - the closure of the A83 into my constituency by a couple of landslips after almost 11 months without such an incident and after the expenditure of almost £4 million on the issue .

Fortunately and after a lot of hard work by crews on the ground the road is now open again and I am on my way home after a dinner in Edinburgh Castle for a high level French Trade Delegation which included the signing by the First Minister & the French Ambassador of a memorandum of understanding on educational co-operation.