Not quite a Lobby veteran, but 16 years at the heart of power has taken its toll as my hair is turning white and politicians are beginning to recognise me. Remain sane, but still deeply sceptical.
The message was delivered amid claims by colleagues at Westminster of an attempted stitch-up ahead of the start of the party’s annual conference in Inverness today.
Anger felt by the party in Edinburgh at the leak of its commission’s findings on the way forward for devolution was mirrored by some in London, who claimed there was an attempt by Johann Lamont to bounce them into acceptance.
The choice of Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece on Ludgate Hill, where the nation's historic heroes have all had their funerals, was nothing if not a statement that the Iron Lady was forged in the heat of battle.
While, officially, this was not a state funeral, all the pomp and ceremony meant it certainly felt like one.
Seated in the gallery of the south transept it was possible, before the service proper began, to engage in the journalist's favourite pastime – people watching.
