That’s the marvellously becalming headline screaming from today’s Evening Standard boards. But I’m going to take the advice and will, fingers crossed, jump on a plane to Eastern Europe early tomorrow morning.

I’m a bit under the weather after some seriously long nights – I was awake for 29 hours on by-election night, from early morning delivery through the daylong campaign and the count (where I spotted Tory campaign chief Grant Shapps – I couldn’t quite see his box count sheet, but I’ve a suspicion it may have included the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4), to shooting a quick video with Ed Davey and a few drinks afterwards. Needless to say, the mood at Ealing HQ was very upbeat when we welcomed Nigel back, and the news of the great swing Greg, Ruth and the team pulled off in Sedgefield just added to the cheer.

Rather than catching up on sleep, I headed to a general election summit for party agents this weekend, where I did a number of training sessions. Really good morale there, and lots of fun had at David Cameron’s Conservatives’ expense as we read the weekend papers and caught bits of TV news. I got thrashed at pool, but you can’t have everything.

With the by-elections over, it’s back to relative normality next week, but first I’m off to Croatia, plus a couple of other countries, for some much-needed R&R.

Hello from the Ealing Southall constituency. The by-elections here and in Sedgefield poll tomorrow, so I’ll be able to get back to blogging about relatively normal things (and be able to take a holiday) very soon.

In the mean time, though, a quick note that Nigel Bakhai’s Southall HQ is very busy with Liberal Democrat members and supporters today but that we can, of course, always do with more help. So if there’s any way you can get here between now and the close of poll (10pm) tomorrow, please do. We’ll be open late this evening and from very early tomorrow morning, so please get across to Southall whenever you can. Directions to the campaign nerve centre are here. And, of course, if it’s easier for you to get to Sedgefield to help Greg Stone’s excellent campaign up there, please go as soon as possible – directions are here.

Tony Lit is the Conservatives’ candidate in the Ealing Southall by-election. And yet he apparently made a donation to the Labour party pretty recently.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Lit was at a political fundraising dinner last month. Nothing unusual about that, you say, although as he’s only been a Tory member for a couple of weeks, it may come as a surprise. What may come as more of a surprise – especially, I imagine, to the Tories pounding the pavements for him – is that it was a Labour party fundraiser.

Tony Lit, a wealthy radio station boss parachuted in to fight the seat by Mr Cameron, paid for a table at a Labour fundraising dinner at which he was pictured next to a smiling Tony Blair days before his departure as prime minister.

It may be unfair to mention just now, but Nigel Bakhai was the Liberal Democrats’ candidate in the 2005 General Election, and is challenging Labour in the same seat – and for the same party – this coming Thursday.

This time last week, I noted the absence of any information about the impending parliamentary by-election on Ealing Council’s website. Since then, the council has posted a minimal news story linking to the list of candidates – although there’s still nothing on the Elections page. As I said then, the short by-election timetable that Labour have imposed puts a lot of pressure on electoral administration, which perhaps explains the lack of information online.

To Sedgefield, then, where the council had even less notice of the by-election. With a week and a half to polling day, you’d be forgiven for thinking the election for Tony Blair’s replacement as MP would be mentioned even once – but no. Time perhaps for the Government to review how long it allows for parliamentary by-elections…

Update: There really is a by-election!