Civic duty completed. I've voted. A mixed choice: for my Parliamentary Vote, I went for the Liberal Democrat candidate, as an optimist and as a confessed idealist; I welcome with open arms, a party armed with the ideas of fairness, and who are progressive and innovative.

This was an against the grain selection; historically, I've nearly always been a Labour supporter, although I did side step that in 1992, bizarrely voting for John Major (maybe it was the Brit fascination for the under-dog that lulled me in to doing that.

However, I remained true (ish) to form and went for the Labour local council candidates.

I would n't say it was a festival atmosphere at the polling booth, but it was markedly busier than I've seen at previous election times. Again, the idealist in me was delighted to see that the turnout reflected the mixed race, cosmopolitan Mosaic of my part of Notting Hill; I saw a family of four virtually in their Sunday Best animatedly chatting in Spanish, the man in front of me in the queue to be given ballot papers had a soft Irish accent; I heard French elsewhere, and there were headscarfs and veils everywhere. Perfect.