Driving Back

We drive back via Rouen, stopping on the way at Monet’s garden at Giverny, and then reaching our gite at St Martin de S. at around 7 pm. It has been a long day’s driving, and the glass of Estabel red wine tastes particularly delicious as the sun goes down. The car is packed with around 50 litres of wine, and we are miserably aware that by the end of this year, we will most likely only be able to bring back six bottles with us! It seems extraordinary that a small coterie of political fanatics can do so much harm to a country, and that more than fourty years of European identity can be done away with at the stroke of a pen. It feels that dark clouds hang over the country to which we return, and I feel the need to get away from the petty boarding school politics gets ever stronger. I might just take the advice of another Tory bigot, Norman Tebbit,  to get “on my bike” and discover the world anew.