Nothing like a trip to the country to make sense of the world.
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Cold wet and windy, winter was upon us over the long weekend.
But amidst the gloom a bright shining lie. I mean light.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un bringing peace in our times to the Korean peninsula.
To quote Dickens, or Trump: It was the best of times it really was.
Thank goodness former NBA basketball star Denis Rodman was there to stop things getting weird.
Not sure what the trickle down effect is because while the world was absorbed thinking globally, I was acting locally.
A June long weekend wedding anniversary to be precise.
Another long-running state of undeclared war, perhaps.
Took time out on a farm stay up the Valley a ways.
And isnt Air BnB transforming derelict buildings across the country!
Lots of territorial disputes out there though, as we found.
Lock the Gate, eradicate the weeds, release the cows.
Sometimes you just have to hold firm in the face of a 100 Frisians and hope they dont poo on your car.
As it reverses off the single span bridge across the picturesque creek on that remote dirt road, horn tooting defiantly.
We had just been to town to buy steak too. Could the cows sense the horror in the back seat?
As the Singapore summit reminds us, its an Animal Farm out there, and some of us are more equal than others.
So the cows sat out in the cold and rain, wondering perhaps, why Clarabelle went away one day and never came back. (Until we arrived.)
While we perched high on the prairie in our comfy homestead, burning wood, supping on wine, waiting for lights out.
Square-up time in the country, when things go bump in the night and the mooing of the cows takes on ominous overtones.
And the scuttling. So much scuttling.
Easy to imagine things out there, with nothing but long drafty hallways and thoughts of red rum banging up and down the polished hardwood floorboards, harvested 100 years ago.
No doubt by axe-wielding murderers. I mean pioneers.
The roof cavity ran hot, and giant silhouettes of rodents beaming off fertive phone torches gave all manner of reasons to lock not only the gate, but every door in the house.
Its that kind of connection with country that generates genuine relief when the sun comes up.
We mightnt have seen dead people, but at times we swore we heard them.
We had the best of times, we really did.
And as peace possibly descends on the Korean peninsula, we piece our minds back together, reassured that country life, like modern world politics, takes some adjusting to.
