Well, a couple of surprises...for the moment. I did not expect either Alison Coffin or Ches Crosbie to be in a losing position. The latter may not even get a recount, but I fully expect Alison to do so. A 53 vote margin is not an easy one to overcome, but with the reports we have been getting of "spoiled" ballots that were not spoiled, who knows. I do know that, when the leader of NDP was expected to be everywhere, then the District Association team takes on a more important role, and for whatever reason, that team did not show up in the numbers we have had before. There may have been some personal reasons for that, but they should have been put aside when all hands were needed on deck. Now, in spite of some encouraging signs, the party has been thrown into turmoil, just as we should have getting ready for a provincial convention. We clearly need to spend more effort on organizing district associations. My effort in Harbour Main became a token attempt to give the party some...

 Today, with the help of my friend Jim, we picked up the signs that remained from my campaign. I put out 28, and today picked up 9. There are a couple that we didn't get to (short of time - I had an appointment early afternoon in the city), but the rest had disappeared. In all, I was surprised to find the ones I did, given the amount of snow we had had since the start of the campaign, and the fact that in some cases I had placed them too close to rows of mail boxes, where snow clearing to give access would have buried them. Still, it did mean that, from Hodgewater Line to Upper Gullies, my name was still present to the end. As we drove around, I reflected on what I thought I had accomplished, and on what I would have dearly loved to do had the weather been more civil. I particularly enjoyed the interaction with people on their doorstep, especially the ones who were eager to engage me in a discussion of politics, as they tried to figure out what a 78-year-old retired professor of Fr...