2nd Dec 2005

AN MP's week is full of contrasts. Last Thursday I was asking questions in Parliament about why national funding for adult education courses at FE colleges is being cut, before coming home to a governors meeting at Weston College to approve a multi-million pound investment in the sixth form centre at Loxton Road.

Then on Friday I built sandcastles on Weston beach. Not a bad way to spend a morning, you might say, even though it was freezing cold. Except that each of the 104 sandcastles represented a woman who had suffered serious domestic violence in the last year. The event was organised by the North Somerset Domestic Abuse Forum, which runs shelters for women and, occasionally, men fleeing from violence in their homes. It's a problem that's often under-reported, so people don't realise how serious it is. Let's hope we don't have to build so many sandcastles next year.

Then on Saturday I visited a success story. A few years ago, the Grange Office Park in Hewish was a collection of old metal cowsheds. Now it's a space age set of offices which have won a national design award for environmentally friendly building. The plumbing uses rainwater rather than the mains. The walls are built from thermally efficient straw bales. The heating works like a fridge in reverse, taking heat from the surrounding air and fields and using it to warm the building. We tend to forget that a lot of our greenhouse gases come from the buildings we live and work in, as well as from cars or industry, so it's great we've got a leading design on the outskirts of Weston.

A fairly typical week, dealing with the best and the worst of Weston in quick succession. Sometimes it's uplifting. Occasionally it's frustrating. But it's always worthwhile, and it's never dull.