I am not sure why being at the House of Lords is so exhausting but it is! I had thought of making a private note of my daily tasks if only to convince myself that I was actually achieving something. It would be dead boring to recount all the innumerable events in any one day but roughly the categories include reading for, and attending, Select Committees – as Convenor of the Independent Crossbenchers I am obliged to attend eight which meet regularly – sitting in on, and contributing to, Questions and Debates, dealing with anything up to 20 queries per day from the crossbenchers, discussing forward business with the party whips and ministers, providing briefing for peers who might wish to take part in future debates, keeping the media informed about particular contributions by crossbenchers.

Remember too that the Palace of  Westminster is a huge Victorian edifice with miles of corridor and hugely high ceilings which makes stair climbing quite a feat. One is usually in a hurry, late for a meeting, and so unseemly running takes place too. I used a pedometer once and found I was clocking up something like 10,000 steps in a day!

But enough of this moaning, I am now on holiday and can’t quite believe it. I wake early with a start wondering where I am meant to be and the utter joy of realising I  don’t have to be anywhere is to be experienced to be believed.

I will allow a couple of weeks of this laid-back way of life and then go into the office to begin preparing for what will be an extremely busy time between early October when we return and early December when the Queen will open the new Parliamentary Session.

This period is often referred to as ‘spillover’ when all  the legislation that has not been through all the necessary stages can be completed. The State Opening of Parliament is late this year which reflects the amount of legislation still to be considered – including some very controversial  bills  such as Human Fertilisation and Embryology,  Counter Terrorism and Planning. However they HAVE to be completed before the end of November no matter how much disagreement there is between the Government and Opposition or between the two Houses. So there may be some late nights ahead. I had better get on with my holiday.

I will be in the US and trying to guage a lot more about Obama/McCain preferences. I will blog from there.