This is my cat.

This is my cat.
Her name is Poppy.
She is very old.
She is getting quite annoying and constantly pesters me to give her attention, but I still love her.
My cat does not have opposable thumbs, a fact that I believe she regularly regrets.
My cat is also not on the electoral roll. Partially to do with the fact that she does not have opposable thumbs, but mostly to do with the fact that she is a cat.  She is also not 18 until next year.
However, my cat thinks that her "daddy" (oh when did I start calling myself the parent of a domestic pet?) is the best thing since ... crab sticks?  I don't really know how long her memory is. She would definitely have put a cross in the box next to his name in the elections yesterday.

In fact so did about 500 other people.  I think that is pretty good. Not good enough to actually win the seat away from the Conservatives, but enough to give my husband a shock that he may accidentally get elected.  But 500 people.  About 4% of the electorate in our area.  I am pretty sure I could name most of them. I am so grateful to my husband for standing and really grateful to those who voted for him, but I think I've dealt with a further 1% of voters complaining to me about Parish Council matters in the last week.  I hope they all voted to make a difference.

So it makes me a bit sad to read on other friends' timelines today about the various reasons for not using their vote today.  Apparently we don't listen, we're only in it for ourselves.  Pretty much all of them had opposable thumbs.

One of my friends didn't vote because they're all the same and Teresa May is decisive.  If you didn't care at least vote for my husband. I can vouch for him. At least vote for the person in the village that you know has the same concerns as you might because his children are the same age as yours and he cares about education.  If you don't care, at least trust me because you know I really care.

I can assure those people and anyone else that there is nothing in it for me to sit for three hours in a meeting every couple of weeks, trying to make progress against a sea of red tape and feeling that your hands are tied.  I do it to try and make sure the view of a significant group is represented, that might otherwise be missing and when people tell me what they think I convey that to the rest of the meeting.

I try to explain what we can do stuff about - eg bins and playing fields and stuff we can't do so much about - eg crime and parking.  But often the stuff we can't do much about, everyone can do stuff about, like phoning the police, which seems to be last on people's mind after posting their cctv footage on social media and naming and shaming the teens, ensuring that the chance of a prosecution is reduced.

My cat shame-facedly takes responsibility for her own behaviour, she runs away from me pretty rapidly when she's crept through the cat flap with a baby mouse.  She tells me when there is a problem, such as her bowl being half full.  And my cat would have voted if she could have, the polls stayed open long enough to cover her committed sleeping regime.  Next time I think I'm going to be stroppier with those I encounter and insist on them trying to vote.  I'm going to pester people, they'll probably forgive me. The cat gets away with it.

Be like my cat. Vote if you can. And sleep lots.