I cried today

I cried today on the way home from work. I had BBC Radio 4 on as I usually do and Evan Davis, whose abilities to head up this news show I regularly whinge about to my friend Ryan Morrison, bumbled even more than usual through a piece in which his total lack of grasp of the state of Scottish current affairs was laid bare for all to hear but thankfully not see.

I came in and thought I'd write a blog and I've done a few of those in my time - but the subject of the last blog 3 years ago hadn't turned out well, and I cried again (it's the one under this!)

I had dinner and tried to write it again but the words wouldn't come and I cried again so I went out for a walk along the Clyde to the bridge before the Squinty bridge and back again and that cleared my head a little.

5 years ago today Scotland went to the polls and a few days before that I had perhaps rashly said to David Linden and Alison Thewliss (now both MPs): "I could help with that" and found my self standing beside a hastily drawn up plan of polling places in Shettleston constituency sending strangers all over the east end of Glasgow to stand outside Primary and Secondary Schools whose names I had only just learnt and whose locations were a little bit vague to say the least. I don't think I lost anyone although I'm pretty sure some people were away for a little longer than they and I had intended! 10pm and I was in the Emirates and the excitement was electric. I was so ecstatic at having been asked to go to the count (yes I cried at that time too - I do it a lot as my friends know). The the first result came in - I think it was Clackmannanshire - and it was a no and the game was a bogey from then on in.

But fast forward to the present and where stand we now? My good friend Maggie Lennon and I have both agreed that there's a lot of anecdotal evidence of people moving, often surprisingly, from No to Yes, and when Sarah Smith alluded to this in an excellent piece on Radio 4 the other week (Evan Davis take note - listen to it) and I thought of my own friends and acquaintances who have changed their minds on the subject recently, often in a dramatic manner but sometimes quietly but confidently, I felt much happier.

It's not been shown up in the opinion polls to any large extent, although I read earlier in the week the good BBC favourite Professor Curtice (yes him with the British Empire gong) point out a definite move to Yes in Remain voters and Yes is averaging 49% now, but having read a bit about the flux the polls are in I'm not as worried about that as I thought I might be.

So I've stopped crying now, though I'm pretty sure I may well shed a tear tomorrow morning when I stumble across a certain Facebook memory posted by my daughter 5 years ago.

So many people have come on this journey that although I can't imagine we'll match the 99% vote in Norway for their independence (and how badly did that end....not!) I am very confident that once the starting pistol is fired, and we're closer than ever to that, the end result will be a resounding Yes vote and not for the first time I'll quote the words of someone who inspired me many years ago, Winnie Ewing: "Stop the world - Scotland wants to get on!"