Testing, testing, 1-2-3... It has been a while, again. I had to laugh when Mum showed me an old largely empty journal Dad began by writing down he didn't know why he started these things and then never kept them up.

Snap!

It has been however many years and months since my next-most-recent blog post and today I am wandering astray from my preparations for tonight's all-candidates meeting at the Community Hall. Put my name forward for election to the Port Clements Village Council as one of four Councillors earlier this month largely because Wally had asked me if I'd run.

The difficulty in a small community is that being on Council requires the ability to listen, patience, persistence and the hide of a rhino. The ability to think clearly and objectively must be balanced with the need to support your community, region and province. You have to be sensitive to needs and yet prudent with finances. You have to have the time to wade through massive amounts of paperwork, and be willing to spend hours in meetings. It is essential to retain the capacity for innovation while also respecting the familiar and routine.

In this particular village, you can be called out at any old hour to run around helping the maintenance department locate the empty properties with leaking water pipes when the big freeze bursts enough pipes to rapidly and dangerously deplete the water supply; to be on hand at the Village Office until 3 a.m. helping staff field anxious calls and people after the second biggest recorded earthquake in Canada rumbles through; and generally expected to lend a hand wherever and whenever needed for the next four years.

So it's a big undertaking.

Of course when I think about it, being a parent is a big undertaking, and how many of us leapt into that without much forethought?

Well, see how it goes tonight, and then again, just because I've put my name forward doesn't mean I'll be elected. Will find out one way or the other November 15.