It's not time!

I posted my Postal Votes pack today, having thought some more over the weekend about how to use my votes. I'm not going to reveal for whom, if anyone, I voted - except to reveal that I did not, ultimately, choose to vote for 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' (aka 'SNP'), nor indeed for the SNP candidate, in the Scottish Parliament 'List' or 'FPTP' votes respectively, despite what I wrote here. The 'hype' about the inevitability of the SNP triumphing on Thursday continues in the media, of course, but I wonder just how many hard-line traditional Labour voters are actually going to ditch a lifetime of voting for 'their' Party in favour of the SNP; I remain somewhat sceptical about this, although I accept that something does appear to be happening. As for the Local Government elections I have done what I usually do - I have cast my preference votes for candidates that I know personally.

I should really be out this evening in Inverness at a wine tasting (the first since my return from Spain), specially as it is one I much wished to attend (the topic is the Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Nahe). However, my little dog Tara is now a very elderly lady and is, I fear, not destined to be with me for very much longer as she has failed markedly in recent weeks and has become seriously unwell since my return to Nairn. I have another appointment with the vet on Wednesday following on from two last week (on Tuesday and Saturday) and based on what I am advised then may well decide that it is time to let her go 'to sleep' - she is now on a cocktail of drugs twice a day to keep her little heart pumping strongly and to take fluid from her lungs; it is pitiful to watch her decline even if, very fortunately, she is not in any pain, but simply getting weaker by the day, now finding great difficulty in supporting herself on her legs, particularly when she has been lying in her basket for any length of time - which she now does most of the day and night. Her bladder control is now almost non-existent and this must be troubling for her since she has always until recently been such a fastidious little creature about her personal cleanliness. In this blogger's life there are some things more important than mere politics, even for a political junkie like me and even during such a 'momentous' week for Scotland, and the UK, as this may prove to be, so I felt I could not in good conscience take myself off to taste wines when this may be one of the last evenings that Tara is with me.