"Comrade, leave me here awhile...

.....as yet tis early morn"

The quote from Tennyson came quickly to mind when I left the flat at around  6.30 am bound for a day which included a Radio Scotland interview live at 8.10, an appearance before the Parliament's Standards Procedures and Public Appointments Committee at 9.30 (to talk about the new franchise bill)  a meeting about SNP Conference next week and then chairing the JMC (EN) in St Andrews House this afternoon.   

The latter was the first time a non UK Government Minister has chaired any JMC meeting since the start of devolution twenty years ago  , though I can't say that the outcomes were as unique or as  positive, given the continued  insistence of the UK that everything is  under control and they know what they were doing (which it isn't and  they don't).

Then across to Argyll in the rain and the start of the October recess, though there is precious little recess time in the diary for the fortnight ahead.