I should eat more healthily, I should exercise; he’ll even buy me running shoes. Shocking, right?

I’m kidding really, I mean he does want to buy me running shoes but he doesn’t think I’m fat… just lazy. If he really thought I was fat I would consider that he had some sort of sub group of body dysmorphic disorder as I am a size 6. See he’s very fit and very much into dressing up in lycra and staring at another man’s lycra clad behind. Yes, he somehow manages to cycle something ridiculous like 60 odd miles every Sunday (the hero). Therefore me proclaiming my job to be very physical and spending my spare time hibernating under my duvet sounds an awful lot to him like lazy. Irrespective of his views I had determined this would be the year I got fit. So I’ve looked at all the fitness options: cycling=perilous to my life, dancing=pe

rilous to anyone around me, tennis=perilous to my bank balance and decided that perhaps I should start with a little bit of light jogging. So light, in fact, that the first jog I did was no further than to the end of my road and back again, well I had a nose bleed. Since my first jog I’ve invested in a few essentials in a bid to try and extend my staying power, most notably: a couple of sports bras. Ah the sports bra, quite the creation. There’s a reason women are so keen to invest in these beauties. They are just so flattering. Oh um, actually I mean flattening. And really, what’s with the whole 1 set of clasps yank it over your head design?! I tried one on to check it fitted okay then found it a real struggle to get it off.  There was so much wriggling and struggling to get out of the blasted thing that I had to have a little rest on my bed. I very nearly ended up living out my days in a very attractive sports bra – well not quite in, more rolled up under my armpits unable to hoist it up any higher. I text the bf to tell him about it and told him it was clearly created by a man. His response?

“You can’t be serious that you think men invented bras. What man would want to cover up boobies?!”

It seems yesterday's comments hit a nerve at the council. John Staples insisted its press release was crystal clear: the webpage would "publish the full press statements it has given to the media on specific stories if they have subsequently been chopped or altered and their meaning substantially changed when broadcast or published.

"....residents will be able to compare what was reported, or broadcast, with what was issued by Medway Council on controversial topics.
It would be updated on an ad hoc basis.Which means that residents will only get to learn what the council wants them to learn.

Mr Staples also insists that I never asked about asbestos checks. I assure you I did on at least two occasions.I quote his written response as received:

"Our records show that your enquiry was about the issue around caretakers (there was an enforecment notice after two school's site managers had not undergone proper training) and that you have not asked us if the HSE was carrying out an emergency audit following Woodlands - something that did not happen."

Their records might not show it. I did ask - formally - twice.

It is clear we are not going to agree on this.

The key issue remains that staff were exposed to asbestos at Woodlands, along with contractors' personnel. In some cases personal records will have to be kept for 40 years (the period which coincidentally seems to be when asbestosis and mesothelioma develops).

It is also a fact recorded in the papers from the auditors that 106 schools in Medway were to be inspected in a three month period following the failure of Woodlands to protect those people. It was "a tough target". Following those inspections all head teachers were required to undergo specialist training (something with Mr Fiddaman apparently objected to, but subsequently undertook).

It is also a fact that there was no sealing of the work areas, no protective gear, clothing was not changed following work and before mixing with other people, that cleaners moved from dirty areas to classrooms, that children were in school while the work was going on, and that none of the workforce was CRB-checked.

Deborah Upton, the council's legal eagle, housing chief and monitoring officer, said in her covering report: "The Council holds a legal duty to effectively manage asbestos in schools, and this duty cannot be delegated to others i.e. the Council ultimately retains

responsibility. However Health and Safety training and briefings are available to

all schools to ensure that they know what their responsibilities are in respect

of asbestos, and the Council has a Health & Safety officer dedicated to

schools.

"I am not satisfied that any enquiries were made of the School, or

that proper procedures were put in place to ensure that the school

appropriately met its health and safety responsibilities for asbestos, fire of [sic] other

health and safety matters in relation to the building works."

As the auditor's report comments: "A school can opt out of using the Council [for] delivery of a capital project. Who controls the school if they opt out?"

Even the government has a responsibility for Woodlands school that appears to be lacking.

As for the issue that sparked the debate, Mr Staples' colleagues continue to ignore the fears and worries that villagersw at Grain have arising from National Grid's LNG terminal at the bottom of their gardens.

There was no sign of contrition on the part of Cllr Jane Chitty when she was told she had been rude and aggressive to a council member of staff last night.

Mrs Chitty spoke for 40 minutes justifying the 30-second outburst.

Not once did she say she was sorry, or that she regretted her outburst.

What happened left the employee, Labour political officer Laura Steward, in tears, and an education manager shocked by the behaviour.

It was an extraordinary incident that happened in an extraordinary location.

It was also extraordinary how long it took the council to investigate the allegations, dumping one lethargic investigator and briefing another who never interviewed Miss Steward or the witness.

Mrs Chitty is no shrinking violet. She is boisterous, an in your face councillor, and practices a no-holds-barred attitude to political opponents.

She forgot that she is an elected representative of the community. For half a minute - possibly less - she had blown her lid. The diminutive officer had to stand there and take it.

Yet throughout her defence, Mrs Chitty blamed a string of incidents that surrounded the debate on school closures - an emotive issue that did more to split the council than any other plan in Medway's 14-year history.

After the hearing, she continued to protest justification for her actions.

This was the second of three investigations into her behaviour that the standards committee is undertaking. It's One - All at the moment.

As a once humble student I claimed EMA, whilst studying at Canterbury college. My working class background enabled me to be entitled for financial assistance to make education more accessible to me. But, majority of the money was not required for my education – truthfully, I did not really need it after all. I'm not afraid to confess (and I am not the only one) whose EMA went towards social activities. Only educational related item was transportation – only because my then girlfriend lived in Thanet. And this is not made clear at the start because you felt almost encouraged to apply for EMA when enrolling.

After a year, I decided a part time job was much more adequate for my requirements because the government grant was not beneficial to my circumstances. I was better off working. And this is the problem with EMA: the money is never truly needed in most cases. And I find it very hard to feel sympathy towards “#savema” tweets on twitter – being sent from Blackberry's and iPhones. If you can afford a luxury item of expenditure – you are not poor.

It would be much more productive to provide a voucher system – for stationary and travelling, instead of indiscriminately allocating assistance to anyone. Especially to individuals who did not really need it. If we isolate the waste and unnecessary cases then the poorer students can be financed more generously. Instead of £30 a week.

The current system is grossly expensive and ineffective. There is nothing wrong with those aged between 16-18 being encouraged to take part-time jobs because, after all, this country has high youth unemployment. We, as a society, should not be fuelling dependency.

Again the cold, winter freeze has made its way across the county causing more chaos but I have still managed to track down one of you lovely Kentish folk for an interview.

This is Katie Smith, 31 from Maidstone.

Katie is currently on a career break from teaching so that she can look after her 2 children.

In the previous 10 weeks I have noticed a pattern developing amoungst Kentish residence.  A pattern that is similar to the amount of times I lose to my nan at cards when she's dealing!

Like most before her, Katie enjoys the quaint villages of our county, how we have an open countryside around the different parts of Kent and the links we have to our beloved capital city, London.

The appeal to most of us who live here is that we have the luxury of public transport that can get you into the capital in just over an hour so if you want to work, shop or just visit, it is not an inconvenience.  Additionally the countryside we do have available to us is ideal for hiking or just a stroll.

So despite the similar response I receive from interviewees, I understand where they are coming from.

As always though, we have tasty food and drinks and we all like to indulge ourselves once in a while.  Katie is no different.

"I like The White Horse on Bearsted Green. It has good food and a good atmosphere and is a brilliant place to sit outside in the summer."

We all like to sit indoors though, on the cold winter nights and watch a good film or a bit of t.v.

"I like to watch Miranda, Desperate Housewives and Coronation Street.  My favourite movies have to be The Thomas Crown Affair and Dirty Dancing."

I always like to get to this part of the interview because I enjoy to find out funny stories about people to see the real them.  Katie's is just superb and kind of makes you wish you were around when it happened.

"When I was at Primary School I thought I would see what would happen if I pulled the pin out of a fire extinguisher and squeezed the handle."

Wait!!!! It gets better.

"Needless to say water started spraying everywhere, I panicked as I was in the school library and I didn't want the books to get wet so I aimed it at myself."

I can't stop grinning because I think that everyone at some point has wanted to try and spray the water or foam from a fire extinguisher around without any repercussions.  I'm sure there was on this occasion but I always wanted to try it!

After this incident though, I'll think I will steer clear.

Back on a serious matter, I asked Katie how she would make Kent a better place and in my opinion the first part is spot on!

"I would reduce the number of demolitions to old buildings that are replaced by 'cardboard' flats and offices."

I 100% agree that tearing down historical buildings in certain spots to be replaced with housing flats is just crazy.  Building complexes on any spare piece of land or by knocking down other buildings instead of properly planning out a good location is ludicrous."

It seems all sensibility is going out the window.

And finally I have, as always, my random question of the week:  What is the scariest thing, in your own opinion, you have ever faced and successfully overcome?

"Learning to drive was pretty scary as I was rubbish.  It did not help that I booked my test for 5 days after my 17th birthday. I failed!"

Although Katie failed, she eventually overcame the fear and can now drive.

A huge thanks to Mrs Smith for her time and best of luck on the career break with her family.

It still remains to be seen who is my interviewee from week to week, but who knows, it could be you next!

If you live in Kent, let's talk!

If you would like to appear on my blog, all I ask is that you live in Kent and that you are willing to talk to me for 10 - 15 minutes about yourself.

If you think you'd like to give it a try, drop me an email on millendauthor@gmail.com and we will see what we can do!

As you are all aware, the last two weeks in Kent have been somewhat horrendous. Unless you are between the ages of 5-17 of course! What with school closures, sledding, snowball fights, it’s far from a hard life for the youths.

That can’t be said for the full timers of the county, I certainly haven’t enjoyed the snow ... in fact, I’m pretty sick of it now. As a commuter into the city, last week was definitely not all-white!

Tuesday 30^th November: Plan of action - Save the company from being snowed under!

   It’s 6am and I switch on the telly to see the Weather News.

  ‘We urge you not to travel unless it’s completely necessary’

   I ignore that whilst sipping a hot cup of tea and loading myself up with Beechams.

   I take a quick glance out of the window to see 15cm of snow covering gardens and rooftops.  I must say it looks gorgeous when you’re behind double glazing. Anyway, I ignore the snow whilst opening the front door to head towards the coach stop in my utterly-unsuitable-for-snow kitten heels. I managed to plod halfway up the garden path before slipping onto my backside, hooking myself onto the brown bin on my way down (Massive bruise under the armpit... check!)

I thought I would be the Hero at work that would show all the 15-minute commuters up... living the furthest away I hoped for a big applause as I ploughed my way into the 4^th floor office.

Turns out, turning up 20 minutes late is anything but applaud-able especially when everyone else manages to make it in early despite the weather! I was quite confused as to how we had so much snow in Kent, yet London didn’t even have an icicle in sight? If anyone knows why the snow doesn't settle in London, I’d be very interested to know...?

Anyway, my lovely boss decided he’d let me leave 30 minutes early to avoid any ‘bad weather traffic’... However, all he really done was contributed 30 minutes to my 6 hour journey home. You’ll know from my previous posts that I’m not the biggest fan of commuting and that my coach doesn’t cater for us ‘might need a wee at some point’ passengers. Ultimate result was 3 ladies (including me) clambering off the coach to the hard shoulder and baring all to the standstill traffic and relieving ourselves into the snow. Not my finest moment, although we did receive a few car horns. *beep beep!*

Feeling like my heroic effort was completely wasted on Tuesday; I decided not to attempt the commute for the rest of the week. I hoped my managers would be understanding as I had sent them numerous photos of my traffic troubles the night before. I thought we’d put it down to ‘A Bloody Nightmare Week’ and they’d let me play in the snow instead. Unfortunately, I had to chomp away at my 3 remaining holidays I had left for the rest of the year.

In case you are wondering... the photos I sent them were of jack-knifed Lorries and abandoned cars, not of me squatting on the M25!

I suppose I shouldn’t moan too much as it could’ve been a lot worse. Those poor passengers stuck on a train at Orpington for 2 days! Including one disabled man, who was luckily moved to some sort of ‘safe house’ while they arranged engineers etc. You’d think that the trains nowadays could withstand against temperatures lower than -3 degrees!

I would love to hear other’s stories of Snow-vember & how it affected them.

Happy Sledding!!

Children from the Foundation and Year 1 classes at Minster Primary School, Minster, performing their Nativity play in front of parents, by ANDY PAYTON

There were some surprised looks on faces - not least among cabinet members - at the full Medway Council meeting.

Protestors were out in strength to protest about the toilets - or lack of them - in Chatham.

At the centre of their campaigning was the 20p to have a pee revelation from the Pentagon Shopping Centre management.

They have taken over the council's toilets, accepted a regeneration dowry of £200,000 to rebuild and run the toilets, and now plan to charge.

The fee is being introduced by the management in a bid to stop needle-pushing and other anti-social behaviour (including the occasional druggie death).

Meanwhile there could be hope for the desperate, the elderly and nursing mums: Cllr Alan Jarrett told me the toilets in the new bus station should be free.

At least, they were going to be free until the scale of the economic crisis called that into question.

***

Cllr Les Wicks did a startlingly good impression of General de Gaulle last night.

The councillor was facing a call - some would say a suggestion - that he should resign over the way the Schools Adjudicator recently ruled against some of his primary school closure and merger plans.

There was a very firm, if anglicised, "Non!" to the call.

Nor was there an apology.

Meanwhile the handful of mums from St John's certainly knew how to make their views known.

Cllr Wicks lives to fight another day.

So do the schools.

***

One would think that if you were in power for the first time for 80 years politicians would be queuing up to make a name for themselves.

But Andy Stamp - one-time deputy leader of Medway's Liberal Democrat councillors, defeated general election candidate and popular character in the community - suddenly announced he was no longer recognising his party whip.

He has, instead, joined the Independent councillors.

It's not so much a walk across the chamber, more, a slide across from one table to the adjacent one.

But it is significant, and comes hard on the heels of grouses that he wasn't getting the support he expected during the election campaign.

***

It costs £140 to buy a first class ticket from Rainham to Birmingham by train - and a similar sum to come back.

But if you chose an offpeak train it can cost almost the same just to go to London.

Comparing trains on June 28, a check of the website, Raileasy, shows a return ticket on the HS-1 service to St Pancras at 10.15am costs £17.80. It costs just £1.20 more to carry on by the tube and Virgin Trains to make the return trip Birmingham.... using the same trains.

Something is radically wrong with our rail system.