I'm a bit behind. The Ukip conference already feels like old news.
Nevertheless …
I spent Friday and Saturday in Doncaster. It was my first Ukip conference and I was curious to see what it was like.
The first person I met was Brian Monteith, former chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students.
Brian edits Forest's Free Society website but on this occasion he was wearing his Global Britain hat.
Like me he wasn't there as a party member. He was speaking at a fringe meeting.
And he wasn't the only ex-FCS member in Doncaster. Another old friend, Gary Ling, was working for Steven Woolfe MEP.
Gary helped write Woolfe's speech and the inclusion of his joke about "Mr Ed", the TV talking horse, generated a big laugh in the conference hall.
Jonathan Bullock, a familiar face at Tory conference, revealed he is now a Ukip councillor after defecting from Kettering Conservatives.
And so it went on, an extraordinary gathering of people, many of them former Conservative activists.
Don't be fooled into thinking they're all libertarians, though. Far from it. I had several very heated exchanges with delegates.
One asked me if was true that a tobacco company was taking the Australian government to court over plain packaging. He then began ranting that companies had no right to take legal action against governments that had a "mandate" to act as the Aussie government has done.
He visibly shook with rage. I thought he was going to (a) hit me or (b) self combust.
Another approached our stand and said, in time-honoured fashion, "I'm a libertarian but …"
In this instance the line was, "I'm a libertarian but I'd ban smoking in the street."
When I suggested he was not, in fact, a libertarian I got The Look That Could Kill.
And there was more. If someone dares smoke in the open air within five yards of him he has to cross the road!
Anyway, the conference took place at Doncaster Racecourse which boasts a large modern grandstand with a fantastic view of the racecourse.
Unfortunately, with 2000 people in the Exhibition (or Main Betting) Hall, it was monumentally hot and stuffy.
A good excuse, then, to spend most of our time on the Hands Off Our Packs stand along from the windowless hall or, occasionally, with the smokers outside overlooking the winning line.
The stand consisted of a table and two pop-up banners promoting our new Last Chance Saloon initiative.
Special thanks to that old warhorse Roger Helmer for visiting the stand and having his photo taken.
What we really wanted of course was a picture of Nigel Farage – but, boy, did he make us wait.
Messages pinged from his people to our people yet Friday came and went with Nige nowhere to be seen – apart from the main stage, of course. (Perhaps he had other things on his mind, who knows?)
Eventually, on Friday evening, in response to a plaintive email from me, his press officer replied, "Yes, tomorrow, certainly."
And so it came to pass that on Saturday morning the great man did indeed visit our stand and, surrounded by cameras and microphones, he did what Nigel Farage does best – he extemporised on the subject of plain packaging in a manner that, at the very least, should give David Cameron cause for thought.
One tiny problem. Within hours any hope of Nigel appearing on the evening news with our Last Chance Saloon banners either side of him had evaporated into the hot Exhibition Hall air as Mark Reckless announced his defection.
C'est la vie.
Oh well, at least we have some evidence of his visit. Next stop: Birmingham.
Simon Clark