First of my visits to residential and sheltered housing in my constituency to talk to my older constituents over the summer. In the photo – you can see Peter White and me with just some of the glorious plants and flowers that Peter has grown. These are outside his own flat – but Peter has made the whole of the outside area of Abyssinia Court burst with colour and beauty. It is absolutely glorious – and the picture doesn’t capture but an iota of the glorious gardens.

Anyway – not that many around – but had a great conversation with those that were. Parking tickets were again the order of the day. Seem to be a hot topic in Haringey at the moment.

Peter’s wife is disabled and a wheelchair user – so he has a blue badge and he was regaling me with a whole string of tickets that had been put on the car within moments of parking. All had been written off when he wrote in – and all had been wrongly issued. Makes you want to scream – for goodness sake – train your bloody wardens properly Haringey. All the time and effort Peter has had to put into writing about each wrongly issued ticket – all the time that Haringey spends then writing them off.

Time to introduce penalties for wrongly written tickets perhaps?

Anyway – second on my list of campaigns for the day is the hard skin on feet. In terms of older people, it can be excruciating and the Government has hugely reduced the number of older people who qualify for free care. At Abyssinia they do a free nail cutting service – but it is the hard skin that is so painful it keeps older people at home and immobilised. And it costs quite a lot to have it done privately – beyond many pensioners’ pockets.

So – I am trying to gather evidence enough to present to both the local council, health care trust and Government to bring in free foot care for the elderly. It really would be not only the right thing to do as part of a national health service – but a very good investment return on the cost – as the consequences and expense of immobility outweigh the investment by a long shot.