WITH Parliament in recess, I am now based at home in Wiltshire and able to spend a few weeks doing what feels like a normal job, where I start and end the day in the same place and also get out and about in my quite large constituency.

Last week, for example, I spent a busy morning in Ludgershall where I called on people to see what was on their minds and also visited several of the fantastic local shops in the town centre to congratulate them on being nominated in my Inde- pendent Shop competition.

We have hundreds of entries already and, as a reminder, the competition will run until the end of August when a winner will be chosen for Tidworth, Devizes, Marlborough and Best Small Town and Village.

If you haven't done so, please do visit my website claireperry.org.uk/independent-shops to vote for your favourite and, if your nomination is selected as a winner, you could win £100.

For anyone without access to the internet, we are happy to cast your vote for you if you telephone my Devizes office on 01380 729358.

I also popped down to Salisbury where I opened an amazing new exhibition at the Rifles Museum, created by young people from Avon Valley College and Bishop Wordsworth's School and based on the artefacts and diaries of soldiers who fought through the First World War.

The galleries at this museum tell an incredible story and are especially worth a visit at this time of First World War Commemoration.

I then attended the ceremony marking the amalgamation of the First and Second Royal Tank Regiments in Tidworth which was a truly spectacular and poignant occasion celebrating the achievements of the two regiments, showing the strength of the combined organisation and reinforcing the presence of heavy armoury on Salisbury Plain for generations to come.