Melissa Kite

Remember remember the 5th of November, when Britain’s most controversial pub chain stages a massive firework display in the middle of fields full of horses. I get the feeling that if my local were any other pub owned by any other chain, the fact that dozens of horse owners have been ringing up to plead with them not to go ahead would result in us being listened to. But Greene King is not just any pub chain. Google it and you will find that the comments on both TripAdvisor and employment websites like Glassdoor — in which former workers swap stories — are quite extraordinary.

Sitting on the train to Surrey, I was halfway home and texted the builder boyfriend to say when I would be at the station. But instead of texting me back to say he would be there, the BB messaged to inform me that I had driven my car into town. ‘What are you doing on the train?’ he asked. I texted back to say I didn’t know. The car was parked in Clapham. I leapt up as the train was pulling into Surbiton. I threw myself off, and ran up the steps and over to the opposite platform where a train to Waterloo was just arriving. I sat on this train puzzling about where my mind had gone. I have been wandering around in a daze since poor Gracie left us. Since her passing, I have been at a complete loose end, my routine in tatters.

‘This is your captain speaking, welcome aboard this flight to London Gatwick. As there is a passenger on our flight today with a severe nut allergy we will not be serving any nuts or nut products for the duration of the flight.’ That was the first announcement the pilot made, ahead of anything about flying the plane. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ the builder boyfriend said. He was holding a bar of hazelnut chocolate he was very much looking forward to, not least because on our outbound flight to Greece we discovered that since we last flew (which was, to be fair, almost in the last century) the complimentary meal tray has been replaced by a range of sandwiches and biscuits to buy at special 30,000 feet prices. ‘Put it away!

Just before Tara left us, the old chestnut mare used to enjoy standing at the bottom gate watching the sun go down. So when I caught Gracie the skewbald pony doing the same thing one evening, a look of complete serenity on her face, I felt a shiver through my spine. I’m used to my cheeky pony being full of herself, shrugging me off as I attempt to pet her. ‘What have you got?’ is her refrain, accompanied by a brazen nuzzling of pockets. Standing peacefully watching the sunset, perfectly still, the breeze blowing her mane, was not like her at all. When she did it again a few evenings later, I heard myself saying out loud: ‘You’re leaving me, aren’t you?’ It made no sense. She was not ill.

Inspired by Harry and Meghan I decided to get on a plane. I hadn’t been anywhere for so long it was becoming ridiculous, and neither had my other half. No kids, no trips, no new cars… ‘If my carbon footprint gets any lower I’m going to have to eat coal,’ the builder boyfriend said, putting things into perspective. These celebs and royals are never going to stop lecturing us about taking flights we’re not taking. And they are never going to stop taking all the flights themselves. So one is inevitably going to become bitter unless one takes action. And the action I decided to take was a late deal to Lefkada in Greece. ‘If we split it between three credit cards I think we can just about manage,’ I told the BB, and he agreed.

When I was growing up, my Italian grandfather was my favourite person. He taught me to play a mean game of draughts. He told me stories about his childhood in a remote mountain village in Abruzzo. I couldn’t hear often enough about how he got the deep scar across the bridge of his nose. He was standing as a little boy behind his father who had a pair of shears slung over his back and they fell and sliced his face. He told me they had to stick the adhesive strip of an envelope over the cut. My mother told him to be quiet every time he gave me the lurid details but I loved it. The builder boyfriend and I have been thinking a lot about our heritage. Like many Brexit voters, we find the charge of ‘little Englander’ ironic.

The Union Jack is flying on the front of my house. After a long discussion with the local council, planning officials confirmed that anyone can fly the national emblem on their home, so long as they don’t use a flagpole, which requires planning permission. I was advised by an official to drape the flag from an upstairs window, so that is what the builder boyfriend has done. It looks beautiful. I do hope lots of us will out ourselves as patriots in this way — a 5ft by 3ft flag is only £4.99 on eBay, free P&P. The next four weeks is a battle for the idea of the nation state. If that idea is extinguished, we will have no voice, no choice but to become shivering denizens of the totalitarian EU regime. So fly the flag while you can.

‘If we are going to Westminster to riot,’ I told my Brexit-voting friends over dinner at the Thai restaurant at our local pub, ‘then we are going to have to work out where to park. I don’t want to get a ticket.’ We shifted our noodles around our plates and chewed our sizzling beef strips thoughtfully. Outside in the country lanes of Surrey, the dark September evening was settling down, the owls hooted, and the screaming Remoaners in their EU berets seemed very far away. ‘Maybe we won’t have to go to London,’ said one of us, a farmer. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s a good idea. We could just take part in local skirmishes.’ Everyone looked down at their plates. No one seemed very enthusiastic.

‘The reason vets are so expensive now,’ explained the vet in her snazzy green uniform, ‘is because we can do so much more.’ I was standing in the waiting room of the veterinary practice with the silly name: the corporate, expensively branded chain vet I said I would never go to, but have to when the sensible Israeli chap I prefer is booked up. I tried to say nothing but sadly this wasn’t possible. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t make doing more right, does it? I mean, putting wheels on a dog, is that right?’ She looked back at me askance. She had her RSPCA magazine on the coffee table. I suppose it won’t be long before it’s an offence under the Animal Welfare Act not to put wheels on a dog.

We are the only Brexiteers in the village. That, at least, is how it feels. Out they come, the far left bullies, on to the streets of Westminster waving their placards and calling for the referendum result to be cancelled. And that is bad enough. But inside the suburban Surrey homes of Middle England the enlightened liberals send out even more hostile vibes. Admit you’re Brexit and you’ll never eat my vegan lasagne again, is the message they transmit. Personally, I’m delighted to be persona non grata at the homes of my more vegan acquaintances, even the dirty ones who eat meat secretly at weekends. Why one should feel bullied in polite company is an anomaly in itself.

Once upon a time, in a country that didn’t run itself, a horse supplement company invented a cure for laminitis. This cure, let’s call it LamiSafe, was like the holy grail of horse-care products because when administered to ponies who previously went lame on lush summer grass, LamiSafe prevented lameness and the pony was suddenly once again able to graze safely. I bought this miracle product after my farrier recommended it and, though sceptical at first, for I have rarely found a supplement of any kind that did what it said on the tin, I was amazed to find that it worked.

When is fly-tipping not fly-tipping? I think I can explain, now the pile of rubble has finally moved from the hedgerow after a most unusual conversation with the local council. After weeks of trying to get to the bottom of why one householder in Surrey was being allowed to chuck his building refuse into the lane outside his house, I got through to a chap at the local authority who told me he had gone to have a look at the mess and could see nothing wrong with it. ‘You mean you didn’t see the pile of broken drains heaped up outside his house in the hedgerow, by the black and white warning chevron on the bend?’ He said that he had not seen anything that broke the law. ‘We must be talking about two different places,’ he said.