A few days ago, my wife and I, alongside a steady trickle of other people, were visiting a West Dorset garden that was open under one of these splendid schemes that provide so much pleasure to so many by enabling us to wander round a patch of earth that has been lovingly tended by its owners.

I don't know whether any of the readers of this column share my fondness for maps. Since early childhood I have been fascinated by these wonderful, abstract representations of the world.

The variability of the weather in our island's is, of course, legendary. We all grow up with the knowledge that, in contrast to some other parts of the world, you can't rely on anything other than continuous change when it comes to predicting what the heavens will send us from day to day.

As this is the first column I have written since the general election, it would be remiss of me not to begin by thanking the 33,000 electors who voted for me and by assuring the 27,000 electors who voted for somebody else that, as always, I look forward to taking up cases on behalf of individual

One of my favourite Greek philosophers is a little known fellow called Eubulides of Miletus. To tell the truth, the aforesaid Eubulides would be pretty much unknown to posterity were it not for the fact that he pre-occupied himself with heaps of sand (known in ancient Greek as “sorites”).

Governing countries is a serious business - because the wellbeing of great numbers of citizens depends upon it. But there is no direct relationship between the importance of an activity and the amount of interest it can generate.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in this column about the statue that has been erected on the Embankment outside the Ministry of Defence to honour those who served their country in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There can have been few periods in our modern political history which have witnessed so concentrated a collection of significant moments for our country as we have seen during the last couple of weeks.

The windows of my offices in Westminster look out over the Embankment and the corner of the Palace of Westminster itself that serves as the Speakers House.

What is it that really keeps our rural towns going?