Friday 24th June 2016

I wake up at half five, go to check the BBC news and I find that the sky has indeed fallen: Britain has voted to leave the EU. This is a stupid thing, for reasons I might write in a follow up post, we shall see. It makes me agngry, and I get angrier as the day goes on until I was incandescent by bedtime, so much so that I can sleep despite being shattered.

Although my flight isn't until half eleven, I am in the city centre, and Arhus has some dreadful traffic, so I decide to leave early, and find somewhere to stop for an hour on the way, before arriving at the airport at nine to check in.

After checking out and having breakfast, I load the car, set the sat nav out of the city, and engaging all the gears at once, I lurch off into the traffic. It was yet early, and what traffic there was, was coming in the opposite direction, so I drove to through the near-empty streets, turned onto the main road out south, and relaxed.

I pull onto the motorway with no troubles, and cruise down to exit 57, rain was falling gently, but not too bad, so I take my time, find a parking area and, well, park.

In front of me there is an area of grass that has been allowed to grow, and is a windlflower meadow. MY orchid senses tingle, but no matter how hard I look, I don't see any. In fact, wherever I go in Denmark, I see area of grass given over to wildflowers and haymaking in the spring, it looks so much better than tightly cut grass.

At the airport, I check in and once again mix in with the Danes heading for the sun further south at the security check. I get a table, but my new laptop doesn't have the access code for the VIP wifi like my old one does, so I read to pass the time.

We board the plane, which is painted to look like some kind of golden bird, I have seats near the front again, so sink into my window seat, already I feel my euyes close as the plane is made secure, the safety brief is given and the engines start.

Weather on the flight is lively; lots of clouds and storms about, so we lump and bump our way down the North Sea. A break in the cloud allows me to see Thanet, with a large shower falling on Ramsgate. It will do the gardens good! I get views of South London as we drop through the clouds on final approach, it looks the same as when I left.

Once safely on the ground, it turns out we had a gate near the centre of the terminal, so just a short walk to immigration, where a trick one of the officers showed me last week got me through the automatic scanners in no time. This did mean that there was a long wait for our bags to come, not sure which is worse, queuing at passport control or waiting by the carousel.

My bag arrives and I dash out through arrivals, down to the station and make it onto a soon-to-depart train to London.

During my flight over, the Prime Minister had resigned, and all in our country was set to change, probably not for the better, leaving us all worse off. But hey, that's life I suppose.

I know my way now, up the stairs, along the walkway to the Hammersmith and City Platforms, to get a Circle Line train to Kings Cross, up the steps to St Pancras, where I see I have 55 monutes to wait before a train to Folkestone, which is fine as Jools is to meet me at half three, thus saving me the rail replacement bus and the taxi ride home.

The ride back to Kent you know now, rain falls a bit, then brightens up before becoming dark once again. Welcome to the British summertime.

Jools is waiting, so we drive back to Dover, then along the cliffs to St Maggies, with view out over the sea to France.

At home I see the artichokes have grown another foot in the 5 days I was gone, and the fruit are a good size now, should we eat them or allow the flowers to form for the bees and insects? I think the latter.

Home at half four, we both are shattered again, a hard week for us both, and then there is the knowledge that our neighbours all voted to leave, and one has a bloody flag flying He's a nice bloke, but it makes me angrier still.

Insalata Caprese for dinner; Jools puts the washing on, we sit outside in the damp evening air, as moths take to the air, collecting pollen that the bees and butterflies had left behind. THere is no football on TV, nor is there any Monty, as Glastonbury is over most of the BBC. We ignore it, and the day comes to an end.....