Market day

I've not been sleeping well. Usual thing: wake at 3am with panicky feelings about something and then lie awake until dawn pointlessly worrying about anything that occurs to me. This morning it was how I'm going to file my tax return without my Government Gateway number, which somehow didn't arrive before Mr B left Scotland. It may seem curious that that could occupy 4 hours worth of thoughts, and indeed it seems odd to me now. But it did. Still no resolution, of course. The oddest thing is that I have another Government Gateway number (it's the codes you need to do Government stuff on-line) which I used to update my driving licence, but I'm not allowed to use that one. Weren't these brought in to combat fraud? Is it right that I have two Government identities?

Into town for the weekly market. I can see that the next 6 weeks are going to be full of laments for why I wish we weren't moving from this beautiful place: the mountains, the amazing garden we have, the food, the people. And yet, if the sale falls through I'll be furious. I even met folk I knew at the market, which given that we live like hermits here, doesn't happen often. I met our old estate agent, and the lady who I fought with in a shop over a map we both wanted. She didn't seem to remember that, happily. This is the view on leaving town. It's one of those old walled villages with very narrow streets, so this is the only way you can get any kind of panorama. This valley runs between the edge of the old town and one of the many new build areas. It is still filled with allotments and fruit orchards - I hope we're still here when the cherry blossom is out as it's quite a site.

With Mr B away, I've been listening to a lot of Radio 4 as a substitute for grown up company. Probably too many shows lamenting the failings of politicians or the excesses of bankers, but it's helped me come up with a solution. For those who don't know, we've had an expenses scandal with our Members of Parliament - some of whom seem to have behaved fraudulently, and some have just been darned greedy. One of the former was the first to be sent to jail the other day, prompting much gnashing of teeth over whether 'white collar criminals' should be in jail (our jails are overcrowded) or serving some kind of community sentence.

I have a solution:

Bring back stocks.

This not only provides the perfect punishment for disgraced MPs (I think a couple of weeks in the stocks in these temperatures is punishment enough) but it will also help cut down on the rubbish mountains building up in snow-struck areas as we can throw all our mouldy tomatoes, left-over lasagne and dioxin'ed quiches at the MPs, but it would also provide cheap family entertainment in these cash-constrained times. And when we run out of MPs, we can try anyone who works for a bank and gets a bonus bigger than the yearly salary of the lowest paid member of staff.

And loads of carpenters could get work building the stocks. And think of all the food stalls that could be set up to feed the spectators. It is a cunning plan that cannot fail.