update…it turns out I was mistaken, my blog was based on prejudice, as was the decision made by millions in the UK. The animal that turned up in my toilet bowl was in fact an edible door mouse….    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_dormouse

It’s been a strange few days. I’ve been party to the UK voting to leave the EU from a distance. I’m in France and I’ve witnessed a deluge of opinion from social media and the other media, yet felt removed and isolated. Apparently a large number of people voted without understanding the issues, I wonder how they made a decision, flip a coin! It was a heady and intoxicating mix of lies, propaganda, capital, ideology and fear. I’m sorry to say fear seems to have decided the issue. Yet now the UK appears to be exploding or imploding,  becoming fragmented, decisive and inexorably  insular. Both main parties, having manipulated the debate to their own ends now appear to be committing a kind of mass outbreak of mind numbing, crass stupidity. The streets appear to be bristling with aggression, blind ignorance and intolerance at levels that seem unprecedented. Fear presides and runs through the exit-eers , they have no idea what to do. Europe postures, rejected and hurt, keeping a lid on the extremist domino effect that we may yet still see.

I surprised myself last night and I surprised a rat. It’s normally very silent in the evenings, yet I heard a bit of a commotion in the bathroom, without really thinking I walked over opened the door and there it was a rat in the toilet bowl. I had an involuntary shudder, shut the door and swore a lot. I thought initially i’d flush it back down the loo, but I don’t have a flushing loo as yet. I use a bucket of water. I tried four buckets, each time the rat got pushed back a bit, fought and writhed and I swore some more. Ultimately though we were back at square one, me looking at a wet rat, pathetically scrabbling at the smooth sides of the toilet bowl. A kind of peace prevailed. I relaxed a bit as I could see that it couldn’t get out of the toilet bowl, I’d feared it running through the house. I bent down and stared at it, the rat stared back at me, its nose twitching, smelling the air. I started to talk to it, I had no idea what to do. I walked round the house in the hope of finding inspiration.

Then I looked at my pasta tongs. I plucked the rat out of the toilet and dropped him, squealing a little in protest, into a bucket. Minutes later he was free, wet, but alive. I hadn’t butchered him with a hammer, although I’d considered it.  I had a kind of inbuilt fear of the rat, but after some time in each others controlled company I could see that it meant me no harm and thus I owed it to the rat to set him free.

The EU was a bit like my meeting with the rat, yea for sure we maybe didn’t want to meet each other that evening and yes I had a reaction that was initially negative, yet peace and equilibrium were restored and no blood was shed. WE SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN.

I’d had enough, I was fed up with it all, so I drove into the mountains and found a boulder to climb.