I didn’t write at all yesterday – a few notes in my notebook over supper, that’s all. Watching people and making lists of things that describe this place. The girls are pretty seemed to come up quite a lot, but I think that has something to do with my age. Many of them, and the women, have dyed light orange hair. I did a small survey and counted one a minute. That makes a lot. During the same survey there were two with dogs tattooed on their calves.

It’s raining here. I hope it’s not raining at home. My comrades can’t afford umbrellas. I probably shouldn’t use the word comrades, here of all places. Here where they finally shook off centuries of oppression and imperialism only twenty-five years ago. The irony is I think exactly that is what we have a chance to do today at home. To shake off centuries of oppression and imperialism.

There’s a funny thing happening. I am starting to write for an audience. I feel as if I have a small audience, for the first time in my life. It’s a worry. Because this is raw me you get here.

I’m voting Labour. I’ve given my proxy to my neighbour – Labour, Peter, Labour, if you’re reading this. I’m voting Labour because I believe in beauty and truth and freedom. I’m voting for an honest man.

There.

And outside my window the gulls do little turns about the rooves, and sparrows chirp. I like it here. It’s close to the city, and I’ve been sleeping well, and it feels safe. I drove to the Estonian National Museum yesterday, I could have walked, Google said 45 minutes from here, but I thought I’ll be walking all day, and I drove. It was the right choice.

The museum is amazing. No, AMAZING. It’s new. It’s built on an old Soviet airfield just outside the city. Tartu was a closed city in Soviet times, and residents were watched and foreigners were not allowed at all. The airfield was central to the military activity.

I arrived and parked and I spent the first hour walking round the outside. I heard music. Across the newly planted parkland there is a ruined factory of some sort and the music was coming from there. A rehearsal was going on. As I got close I saw that although the building has only gaps where doors and windows once were, the wall are intact, along with an iconic chimney. A modern glass roof has been placed on steel stilts, unobtrusive, keeping out the rain. I walked past (no rain today). The rehearsal had got to a conversational stage, so I didn’t linger. The new museum building was on my right, beyond a small string of lakes. It’s long and narrow, at the end of a runway. It rises like a skateboard ramp for those who want to take a journey to the stars. I wanted to get to the thin end, where it fades into the old runway, and take a picture.

I took my picture. Far on down the runway in the distance someone was testing out their motorbike, doing wheelies, spinning round and round, revving very high. Looking back towards the museum there was a sign as you entered the park which said Ball Games allowed. Play here. That’s something I’ve noticed. Children are allowed here. In the publicity for the museum one of the pictures shows a child running on the lit floor of one of the museum corridors. In the lakes all over the country there are jetties built to swim from. Everything about the place says yes. I like that. As I write a car revs up its engine and roars down my tiny street. But no one tuts here. And in the city, and all over, pedestrians have priority. I know the revving car spoils my argument, but it’s true. Everywhere there are faded white striped crossings, like zebra crossing, and cars give way to people. It works. I feel safer on a faded crossing here, than I do at home.

I’m struggling with this. I’m doing that writing for an audience thing again. I’ve put the kettle on. Actually, it’s not that, it’s that I have something to say today. And I’m nervous today. I think we have a chance at home to give birth to a new world, and I’m worried we might miss that chance. We won’t, please people, please. Let’s learn to be proud of ourselves and our country again.

I know it’s not as simple as that, but actually today it is. Vote Labour, that’s all. Let’s regain our self-respect.