I’m currently away in Spain, where I’m teaching on a writing retreat in the mountains.

That’s not a sentence to elicit much sympathy, I know, but while you’ve been enjoying sunshine and warm Spring weather, it has been cold and wet here.

To add insult to injury, the region has been hit by several of those Saharan desert storms.

For two days the sky was a weird orange glow, while depositing bucket after bucket of sand.

Where I’m staying in the Alpujarras is normally known as the pueblos blancos or white villages.

They may need to change their name as everything is now caked in a sludgy brown mud.

Speaking of things not appearing quite as advertised (Calzador is the Spanish for shoehorn if you’re interested), let’s turn our attention to Brexit.

Older readers may remember those simpler times before global pandemics and Ukrainian wars, when the nation was instead convulsed about becoming free from the shackles of Brussels and having an extra £350 million a week to spend on the NHS.

Given the ongoing shocks to the economy, working out what effects Brexit is responsible for is pretty difficult to discern.

But on landing in Malaga from Heathrow, I started to get a feel of how that post Brexit landscape was beginning to look. That began with the line for passport control.

Here there were two queues: one for countries who were members of the EU, and one for everyone else.

Those on the EU side were walking straight up and through: the rest of us, several hundred deep, had the best part of a thirty minute wait to be checked.

Ahead of me was a young family.

Their son, a five-year-old boy, asked his parents why they couldn’t join the other queue.

‘Because of Brexit,’ his father replied.

There was a pause, then the boy said, ‘Daddy, what’s Brexit?’ His father, to sniggers all around, did his best to explain the vote in language a child could understand.

The boy looked nonplussed.

Behind me, someone’s phone bleeped. I heard a groan.

‘Oh great,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve now got to pay roaming charges of £2 a day.’

Later, when I got to where I am staying, I tried to watch the football I’d missed while travelling.

All I got was a blank iPad screen saying that now the UK had left the EU, I could no longer watch abroad.

Boris Johnson has been comparing people voting for Brexit with those brave souls currently defending Ukraine.

Somewhat less brave were those souls in the passport queue who had voted leave: as the groans and mutters about ‘Bloody Boris’ echoed along the line, they were noticeably keeping their heads down.

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