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It's been a weird and wonderful week with women at its heart. 

On Tuesday I made a presentation to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills with Kresse Wesling the wonder woman who specializes in using waste materials to make lovely things.  Her current products include high-end Elvis & Kresse handbags, made from reclaimed fire brigade hoses and jute supermarket bags made from coffee sacks.

On Wednesday I received the International Business Women award from SHE magazine announced by Tara Palmer Tomkinson.  Beverley Knight was next on the platform and confessed that she to was a Divine devotee.  I'm pretty sure she said "I love Divine.... and so do my thighs!..."

On Thursday, my daughter voted for the first time and it made me think about how the opportunity for women to vote is so hard fought for around the world.  It was sad waking up on Friday morning to find we had lost some staunch supporters: Angela Smith,  Minister for the Third Sector and Social Enterprise, and Linda Gilroy Co-op MP for Plymouth, Divine’s champion in the House.

Over the weekend we were at the first London Fairtrade Festival by Tower Bridge which celebrated the 10th Birthday of Dubble, the Fairtrade chocolate bar with added Comic Relief.  Mica Paris drove down from Wales to cut the cake say how much she liked the fact that Fairtrade enabled everyone to support people around the world everyday.

The election result was frustrating and in 2010  the Men in Suits have gathered to negotiate our future – what happened to the women?  On Radio 4 Thursday night Shirley Williams, Margaret Beckett and Baroness Young were impressive with their experience and gravity but today there was no place for them.  If they really were committed to a new way of governing and to delivering the change they all spoke about,  it would have been refreshing to see Caroline Lucas invited and it might have made us believe they were serious about a future that was good for all of us.