It’s not unusual for me to get a Kate Bush earworm, but lately, her song from the Lionheart album just keeps coming back to me. I find myself sighing the first line under my breath, a bit like a tut to a misbehaving child.
And yet it is so much more. It feels also like the sighing of letting go… like a dying breath.

In her song, Kate mentions the ravens in the Tower.
According to the myth, if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, then England will fall. As a result, ravens have been kept captive there since time immemorial, their wings clipped to insure the safety of the country.

I suspect they have flown away… along with the hopes and dreams of 48% of the people who voted recently.

I recently came back to my the country of my birth, to participate in democracy.
I have always exercised my political right, ever since being old enough to legally do so. My first vote was in 1997, quite a year… I was in art college. I was young, vivacious and happy. London in the 90s was ‘happening’ and Labour had just been elected after nearly 2 decades of tory tyranny. The sky was blue that day and the sun shone in way you could never had hoped for under the conservatives.

Then came tuition fees…

I’ll add, I didn’t vote for Blaire… and I didn’t vote for Major either. I have voted all my life and never have I won. I’m not in it for the winning, I just like playing.

My grandfather, an American, when asked if he had voted in any of the US elections, would always give the same answer: “Nooooo… of course not. It only encourages them”.
I used to think it was cynical and irresponsible of him.  I now see the wisdom.

Oh, England…
I want to write about facing the shadow, and how all this is an opportunity for us to rebuild after the crumbling of the tower, the establishment has been revealed for what it is… a bunch of liars and cheaters always self-serving at our expense…
I want to fight, defend what I believe in, be valiant. Be a Lionheart.
But my breath is shallow these days.

So instead I post some pictures of beautiful and quintessentially english scenes, I took when I was last there. The day we brexited.
These are not contrived, they are what they are. I was indeed in the heart of the country.
Lets look at them together.

Peace.