Thinking about thinking - can you really blog in two places at once?

For the past week or so, the legendary Auntie Helen Duffett has been doing her best Beau Geste impression, making it look as though the Lib Dem Voice team have been at full strength. Let me let you into a secret... they aren't. Whilst Mark 'Hawaii Five-0' Pack has skived off to the Canadian prairies, and Stephen 'where did you get that hat' Tall is buried under a mountain of work, the remainder of the LDV team are keeping things going.

Which one of these is Mark Pack?

My small contribution has been to write a few pieces to help fill the gaps - think of it as propping intellectual corpses against the battlements to convince casual readers that thinking is being done. And I can tell you, it's done nothing for my blogging here in Creeting St Peter. Indeed, I begin to understand why the Lib Dem Voice team have, for the most part, stopped blogging in their own right.

Which leaves me with mixed feelings. As I said to Auntie Helen the other day, perhaps the team needs some fresh blood, a few people to share the load. After all, so much of the Party's activities are dependent on a few enthusiastic people, and burnout, either mental or political, is a constant risk. Don't think for one moment that I'm volunteering my services. At the moment, I'm enjoying my freedom too much and, in truth, I'm more minded to scale down my activity within the Party rather than taking on new tasks. I enjoy being a parish councillor, I enjoy not having to 'do my duty' to my Region, or a committee.

But people come, and people go. I've seen newcomers burst like comets into the Liberal Democrat blogosphere and beyond, some slightly mad, a few dangerous, some too good to be constrained by the narrow confines of a friendly audience. A few of us remain from the relatively early days of Lib Dem Blogs - not many, I admit, but a few.

So, don't hold back from offering help if you can, but please don't be offended if they don't accept it. It is a team, and they're kind of comfortable with each other - a rather good thing, I think. But do submit the occasional piece for publication, and maybe you might get the call...