Today we launched our local election campaign in Crawley, with heaps of balloons, lots of candidates, and a visiting cabinet minister.

I really should have tipped off Andrew from B4L because our visitor was Ruth Kelly, and I know he has a soft spot for her…

I am still sick and off work, but I went down to the Town Centre to add to the crowd. I figured I should make the effort since I am a candidate this time round.

Just to make Andrew R a bit jealous, here is a photo of me & Ruth.

We were actually kept hanging around for ages as we had been told it all kicked off at 9:45, but what that really meant was that our Council Leader and MP took RK to look around Connexions centre at 9:45 before coming out to help us launch our campaign. Meanwhile I passed the time by taking loads of photos, the best of which are here on Flickr.

We occupied the time usefully, of course, by catching up on the gossip, speculating on the outcomes in various wards and saying “its a bit nippy isn’t it?” a lot.

Jayne was a little disappointed that it was Ruth Kelly who came to visit because she had already met her when she came to visit Broadfield Community Centre last year. She had been hoping for Gordon Brown. I was OK as I hadn’t met her before.

One last photo – a quick portrait I did of one of my ex-colleagues who retired from the council at the same time as I was forcibly retired. I have tarted it up in PhotoFiltre a bit …