Thick and cold fog in the morning made for a difficult choice: car or motorbike. With a promise of sun from the forecasters, I chose the latter and headed out on to the road in thick fog for our Association office in Wool. Once there, I met John Woodward, the project director of a new museum in Kimmeridge, or should I say soon-to-be-built museum. Another member of his team Stephen Earwicker, who's a volunteer coastguard as well, was also there. Both men briefed me on the exciting news that their bid for more than £2 million of lottery money had come off. This innovative bid will allow John to build a new museum in Kimmeridge where fossil collector Steve Etches will exhibit his collection which has been gathered over 30 years. Many of Steve's exciting finds are new to science and are of huge significance. Steve himself is a remarkable man and completely self-taught. His knowledge is awesome and surpasses that of many experts in the field. He is recognised as one of the greatest collectors in the country and this museum will house his finds. If I can recall correctly, the building should be up in 2016. Then, with the sun at last poking through, I went to Stoborough Primary School, where I had an immensely entertaining two hours or so. After meeting the charming head, Deborah Corbin, I was shown around the school by Blake Rulton, who heads up the school council. He showed me the new build, allowing a 100 more children to be educated there. Afterwards, I was grilled by about 30 ten and 11 year olds, followed by a similar-sized group of 9 and 8 year olds. Their questions, as always, were spot on. I detected a little teacher influence in some of the questions, dare I say! I answered them all as honestly as I could. I handed two small boxes of fudge to Deborah as a present, and remounted by motorbike to head to Dorchester for a catch-up meeting with our outstanding Chief Fire Officer Darran Gunter. Darran is one of those men who really does lead and is highly respected by everyone. He is dealing with tough decisions, not least on his budget and coping magnificently. He is thinking out of the box and we had a most interesting chat about future ideas and plans. Savings are forcing all public services to rethink the way they do things and Darran sees this as a challenge rather than the end of the world as we know it. He has a can-do attitude and is not afraid to be way ahead of the game with radical ideas that make a lot of sense. We had a good hour together before I had to remount and head back to the other side of the constituency to meet up with Dr Alison Cronin at Monkey World. I am trying to help her change the law in regard to keeping wild animals as pets, especially monkeys. Even if the owner is benign and really cares for the pet, monkeys are not born to be kept in small cages. Alison showed me the skeleton of one tiny monkey which was horribly deformed and all because it had been kept in a small cage. She has already been to the Commons to give evidence to our Efra select committee and we wait to see whether the government will move on current legislation which is not tough enough to safeguard these animals. Alison is an impressive lady, who, along with her husband, Jim, who sadly died due to ill health, has taken Monkey World from a bare field to what it is today. It's a remarkable achievement. Afterwards, I headed home and caught up with the overflowing in-tray until I went home for supper. My wife did recognise me!