Between us we earned around £600 for a days work, plus I got paid for my day job
Multiply that by all the polling stations in the UK, then add £100 for each person doing the count the next day and you will come up with some random figure, multiply it by 12 and you may come up with an idea of how much was wasted on the election where voters decided they didn't want to change the way we vote, confirmed that the Lib Dems are a bunch of tossers. which we already knew and that the Scots are selfish, which is not news either.BM's friend is a 'stay at home mom'
. She has four small kids and is so grateful when I get her a stint on electoral duty so she can get away from them for a whole day. Her husband is a farmer, so not only does she have the kids, she also has the farm accounts to do. Never the less she hates being stuck in the house looking after kids and doing housework and we had a great old gossip about all the voters as they came and went. It helps that we both live in the same village as if she didn't know some scandle about who was doing what, I did. There was a lot of nudging as people came and went and we had a really good laugh.I didn't eat half the stuff I took! By 1pm I'd only devoured 2 2finger Kit Kats with my 100 cups of strong black coffee. Meanwhile my friend had toast for breakfast and had eaten a chicken salad with huge amounts of coleslaw for lunch. She had been most disappointed the night before when she had only lost 1lb at Weight Watchers and had gone home and had 2 sausage sanswiches with brown sauce. I said it was probably down to water retention and 'that time of the month'. Hell's bells what are friends for anyway?
Well we had 346 potential voters on our register. (I did say we were rural!) and we had 206 voters turn out in 15 hours. That was well over 50% and some sort of record! I like to think a lot of them turned up for the crack and as we made a lot of coffee, I think that's not far from the truth.
A few years ago I seemed to get landed with the polling station to the right of my village. After doing two stints where I had 6 and then 8 voters in 15 hours I put my foot down and said no way, never again. After falling asleep, head on arms, and waking up with the inprint of my watch on my forehead I realised it was someone elses turn for that station.
The local Councillor for our area actually lives in this parish so came to vote. He is away with the fairies, bless him, but BM still preferred him to the other thief that was standing. Very early on in the day I noticed that our Councillor's name had been spelt wrongly on the ballot papers. OOOPs!! I quickly text the lady that was in charge of the election in our area. I just wanted to be the one to give her a little bit more stress, she is very well paid. She quickly text me back and asked me not to point it out to the Councillor and BM being a good sort, didn't. He didn't notice either, when he voted for himself
It was a heart stopping moment, I was so hoping he would!A lady came to vote. My friend knew her well. She told us a very sad story.
She was going to the funeral, the next day, of her God son, he was just 8 years old, and 1 of triplets. The family had gone on holiday to California. The whole family had gone trecking with horses for the day when the lead horse had bolted and took off, unfortunately all the other horses had followed and everyone had come off. The 8 year old had had his foot caught in the stirrup and was dragged along with his head bouncing off the ground. They turned his life support system off a week later. The lady told me that apparantly the States aren't that big on health and safety and the hats and stirrups weren't up to standard. I wouldn't know about that but I do know that, as Beth rides, it is possible to have stirrips that spring open if you fall off.
I asked the lady how old her friend was. (I asked that, as she was obviously in her 60's). She told me her friend was 65! 65 and 3 young children!!! She had met her husband very late in life and they desperately wanted a family. There had been a surrogate mother, her husbands sperm, a donor egg, then a surrogate mother. They ended up with 3 identical triplets.
How will they ever get over that?
Well the day passed in a crack and as it approached 10pm we were nearly packed up and ready to roll. Last year i was first back to the drop off for the ballot paper boxes and wanted to see if I could do the same this year. Some prat came in at 9.55pm and was obviously lonely and wanted to stay and talk. BM politely told him to do one and locked the door at 9.59.59 precisely. I made it to the drop off at 10.14 and seeing as it is 5 miles away, thought it pretty good. Damn! someone got there at 10.12pm! I didn't feel too bad, their polling station had been in the same building as the drop off.
The results were announced the next day. There had been 526 ballot papers issued in our ward for our Councillor, of which 21 were spoilt. How the bloody hell do 21 people spoil a ballot paper, which comprises of putting a cross in a choice of two boxes? Thick heads or what??
In our polling station instructions we are instructed to make sure we leave the station as we find it. Our station was in the local village hall, but my bosses was in his local village school. Unfortunately he took it to the extreme when told to switch everything off. I don't think they meant the freezers! LOL The Council are to get a bill for the ruined food. He claimed it was the poll clerks fault. She was his wife.
