This must be one of the slowest blogs ever. This is only the seventh post in over four and a half years. Must do better.

Recent events:

On May 3rd this year I was elected to the Epsom & Ewell Borough Council, along with 10 of my Lib Dem colleagues. This is my firsat time as a councillor. After the initial excitement of winning I had to get to grips with what a councillor does. Firstly, a councillor receives seemingly endless piles of documents of every sort. The first task is identifying which ones to read immediately and which can wait till later, or never. I'm advised that every Friday evening a courier will deliler that week's package to my door. I'm filled with thoughts of my house being buried in paper in less than a year.

In the first pack we receive a calendar of Council meetings along with a list of committees we can volunteer for. You don't necessarily get accepted for all you want. If you are part of a political group then you agree with your group how the allocation of committee places is divvied up. I end up on Planning and Scutiny. In addition, to Council meetings and briefings for new councillors, we must be inducted, which includes measuring for robes.

The first full Council meeting is the Mayor making. At this meeting the old Mayor stands down and a new Mayor is formally elected, having been selected previously. In Epsom & Ewell the Mayor making is followed by a supper for councillors and their guests. Being a Lib Dem, and not wishing to use taxpayers money in this way, I elect to join my group in a local restaurant for a meal paid for by ourselves.

It is now just over 4 weeks since I was elected and the pace has slowed a little. The first two weeks seemed to be nothing but meetings and trying to read all the paper I'd received. My first committee meeting was Planning. Much more enjoyable than I had expected. This is not a political meeting as the Planning Committee is a quasi-judicial committee. This means that on votes the split is not along party lines. My fellow Lib Dems on Planning, Anna and Alison, both made excellent first speeches.

Outside the Council chamber I've had my first experiences of casework. This is where a constituent asks you to help them with solving a problem, for example: kids kicking footballs into their gardens; grafitti; waste land being misused etc.

More, hopefully, in a few days.