Man about town

Monday

Today was my day off so I took my wife Val, and my two boys, Ruben, five months and Isaac, three years, to visit their grandparents in sunny Grimsby.

Tuesday

After breakfast I drove to the office in Hull and spent the first hour dealing with the post and telephone messages. I contacted the university students who will be doing work placements with the social inclusion team later this year, and called the security department at HMP Everthorpe to check that a volunteer's clearance had come through.

A quick coffee break and I set off to attend the Gypsy and Traveller meeting at the local community centre, where we discussed the possibility of providing a minibus as a mobile play area for local sites. Afterwards, I visited a local site in Hull which is squeezed into a piece of unwanted land on an industrial estate next to a smelly tannery. Although the facilities were primitive, I was impressed by the care taken to keep the site clean and safe. The community living there are tired of waiting for improvements, and I felt frustrated that I couldn't do more.