So Long And Thanks For All The Picked Strawberries

Have salad will travel

First, an apology. In my previous blogpost there was an erratum - I stated that “60% of the British population are active followers of this blog”. This should have read “0.0006% of the British population are active followers of this blog”. Therefore the conclusion drawn in that article, that the line subsequently advocated in the post on how to vote in the EU referendum would have a substantive and conclusive impact on the vote itself, was also erroneous. I must apologise to any of you who had drawn false comfort, or in fact false fear, from the belief that Britain would choose to remain in the EU.

This, in case you have just woken from a long coma and the first thing you have done is check my blog, did not happen.

The first turnips of the season!

Instead we have lurched into the unknown. We are the first country in the EU to decide to quit and no one is quite sure how to do it. We've lost a Prime Minister. Pictures of Boris Johnson looking perturbed are everywhere. Things could get pretty weird over the next few months.

My salad bag delivery round happened to fall on the day of the results, last Friday, so I was able to glean people's reactions to the news as I went. Some were dejected, one woman said she felt as if there had been a death in the family. One chap exclaimed “well that was a shock wasn't it!” to which I retorted “Yes it's a sad day for Britain” assuming by his comment that he had hoped to Remain, but the opposite was true - he said he is a firm believer in Britain being able to stand by ourselves. The shock must have been that there were enough similar-minded people to cause it to happen.

From right to left.. Anna's car, my car, and a farmer's car

Interestingly a referendum in the UK has no legal force. Things actually get decided by Parliament. So it is technically possible for MPs to vote down the “Leave the EU” Act that Mr Johnson will put before them at some stage. I'd love to see the look on David Cameron's face if they did. But do you think those other EU nations would happily re-open the door and allow us back in as if nothing ever happened? They are

all rather cross with us right now and probably will remain so for a good long while.

All this topical gumph leaves me little room to explain how I ended up meeting a Bishop in full white bishop-regalia, mitre and crook included, in a tiny rural church. He had been leading an “ordination” service in Bangor cathedral only the day before, turning ordinary folk into priests, so it must have seemed quite a contrast then to be at this little church in Llan with a matching tiny congregation, on the very periphery of his diocese, with a long-haired and bearded English hippy playing the reed organ. But nothing seemed to faze him. All in a day's work for a bishop I suppose.