Having spent a blissful weekend in the lakes, I found it hard to let the news in the Sunday papers perturb me.

It may have been something to do with the fact that our room had a balcony, which looked straight out over Ullswater and its hills as the backdrop. A beautiful breathtaking view.

I thought about my first day in Primary school, the teacher handing every child a tin of coloured pencils. There was no possibility of any child owning their own.

On Friday, when we arrived at the Hotel and opened our balcony doors, I remembered my tin of coloured pencils. They were called Lakeland and on the lid was painted a similar view to the one from our room.

I was transported straight back to Mr Dolphin's class and the warm smell of chalk on blackboard, wooden parquet floors and the happy memories of drawing pictures in a class full of school friends.

Sprawled on the bed surrounded by Sunday news print, I only had to lift my head and avert my gaze through the open doors a few feet away, for calm to wash over me - the lake's mercurial view different from the last time I looked, a couple of minutes earlier.

That changed when I arrived home last night and saw again the picture of Sarah Palin's seven year old daughter yawning whilst her mother addressed a rally - it disgusted me. Seven year olds don't enjoy political meetings. How can they understand a word that's being said? Why would the woman who knocked me out with her ability to connect, misjudge a situation so wrongly; and make that poor, tired little girl sit through yet another political speech?

I had such high hopes for Palin. I still love her ability to reach out to people and say it as it is, but as Guido Fawkes once wisely said to me -" never put your daughter on the stage".

Take your daughter home Sarah, leave her at home. Stop using your children to accentuate your 'mom' profile. You carry on and fight for your party and your country, but for goodness sake give that little girl a tin of coloured pencils and let her do what seven year old kids do best. Let her draw and play and yawn whenever she wants without the rest of the world and people like me passing comment, because she doesn't deserve that either.