Falling once more for the Highlands

Half one.

I am so tired - and for an instant I consider simply calling it a day and kipping in my office chair. But no, I must get to a proper bed.

Stomp stomp stomp!

Down two flights of stairs in Norman Shaw North (12 steps each) and then across the elegant bridge to Norman Shaw South.

Past Tony Benn’s bronze bust (why does he always seem to have a bad smell under his nose?) - push the button on the door that leads to the second bridge that leads to Portcullis House, and then clatter clatter, down the fancy spiral staircase and out onto the marble floor - that they have just cleaned an polished...

My most spectacular fall ever? I would say so. My leather soles skited out from under me, and for a nano-second I would swear that I was suspended and horizontal, cartoon-like, before I fell heavily to the floor.

My iPad and papers were flung to the rafters, and as they fell to earth, I groaned and started to feel myself for any injuries. And then I looked about, hideously embarrassed, in case anyone had seen me. After a late night’s worth of voting in the Commons, and an occasional refreshment in the Smoking Room, there was always a fear that the wrong conclusion might be reached.

This week I still have the bruise on my bottom - and you know I got off lightly. That big a tumble could well have left a nasty breakage. But it didn’t - and so too the protective cover on my Westminster iPad did its job well. I am a lucky lad.

Last week - last Thursday to be exact - I once again had good cause to be grateful.

Although the road from Tain to Lairg to Durness was tricky - the journey took three hours - the views of moor, hill and sky were simply to die for. Stopping briefly on the journey I couldn’t resist using the selfsame iPad to take a snap. And although it is lovely, it doesn’t exactly do justice to the visual spectacular of the colours.

I mean, how can you get almost violet clouds in front of cream coloured ones, against a deepening blue sky?

I marvelled at it, post-clinic, coming out of Cocoa Mountain in Durness. But for the fact that is how it was, no one would believe it. A painting with clouds that colour hanging in the Royal Academy? The assumption would be that the painter had also been in the House of Commons Smoking Room.

“Across my vast and very remote constituency - the remotest on the UK mainland...”

“...how the devolved Administrations and the UK Parliament can work best together to benefit constituents, particularly constituents in my vast and far-flung part of Scotland...”

The above two quotes we’re a huge part of the introductions to my last two speeches before Christmas. The first on the 20th of December on the scandalously high delivery charges we have to pay in the Far North, the second on the following day about the problems we face with broadband.

Why do I quote myself?

Has the job gone to my head?

I hope that the answer to that is ‘no’ - but the truth is that if you wish to grab the attention of the House of Commons, then telling them just how remote this part of the world is does take rather a trick.

Just as a journalist choosing between a story involving the scenery of Ealing Broadway, or one about our Highland hills and glens, will nearly always tend towards the latter, so too, like an old showman, I always try to play the Highland pipes to best effect.

How many times I mentioned remoteness in the last six months since the general election? It has to be quite a few times - but after all that is my job.

I had a wonderful visit to Durness last week: indeed it was a joy. It is the greatest honour to represent this incredibly special part of the world down there, ‘in the big smoke’.

I wish all constituents all the very best for 2018.

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