I'm going into hiding

To trump (verb/slang): to pass wind. Back in the six­ties this was a term in reg­u­lar use among ju­ve­niles in the Kirby house­hold fol­low­ing thun­der­ous in­dis­cre­tions by el­derly rel­a­tives who came for Christ­mas.

Now we need to evolve the de­f­i­n­i­tion to mon­u­men­tal brain fart. Brexit - ye gods - and now.....

I know, I know. The peo­ple have had more than their fill of the deaf es­tab­lish­ment, the mem­bers-only club of the self-anointed rul­ing elite, of greed, the mega-rich, the widen­ing gulf. I get all of that.

The glossy, celebrity-ob­sessed media are cul­pa­ble too. Rad­i­cal re­ac­tion has been in the air for years. There's only so much any­one can take. But this? It is all get­ting un­bear­ably nox­ious and stag­ger­ingly bonkers.

In seek­ing to counter all of the above Britons and now Amer­i­cans have put foxes in charge of the hen house. And in the case of the Amer­i­cans, that bushy-tailed fox has made no se­cret of his tem­per, dire judg­ment, sex­ism, racism and nar­cis­sism, who thinks the in­creas­ingly alarm­ing con­se­quence of global warm­ing is just “weather”: who, in his dire need to sur­round him­self with good, worldly, mea­sured coun­sel, is turn­ing to the likes of Sarah Palin.

I can't bear to look, read or lis­ten any more.

The best place for me to hide is in the farm barn. I can dis­tract my­self for hours in there. Any­way, now that the olive har­vest is fi­nally over I need to clear space for the nets and lad­ders. Bum­bling about in the shad­ows it is amaz­ing what you can un­cover, given that for 16 years it has been a vast repos­i­tory for things we didn't know what to do with but couldn't face throw­ing away. As with the rul­ing elite, a Cathar­tic clear-out has been hugely ap­peal­ing for a long time, but I need to stop and think, to weigh the worth of every pos­ses­sion, and con­sider long and hard be­fore I lob.

I have even found a polar bear, along with as­sorted other glass and china or­na­ments that hadn't left their trans­port box since we ar­rived in 2001. And I have found the floor. It hasn't seen the light of day for years. But it has van­ished again, for good very good rea­son.

I have been clear­ing enough space to squeeze in Bella, a 1969 Seat 600D; a cherry red, Barcelona-built, iconic beauty who makes me and every­one who sees her smile. She is not an­other or­na­ment but will work for her liv­ing, being a sym­bol of our lit­tle Mother's Gar­den olive oil ex­port busi­ness (small, round, Cata­lan, time­less and beau­ti­ful). And she is also going to star in a fea­ture film set here in the time­less Pri­o­rat. Early in 2017 I will tell you more.

One thing is for sure, we will not be rush­ing any­where in Bella. Time, I think, to take things steady.

Who am I? The DNA test re­sults are in and I promised to share. To recap – I was al­ways told that I was pre­dom­i­nantly of British ori­gin, with roots stretch­ing from Scot­land to Wales and down to the south west­ern toe of the is­land, to Corn­wall and Devon. There was also the prob­a­bil­ity of an ounce of main­land Eu­rope blood, given my Viking name, and also vague tales of an Iber­ian an­ces­tor.

Well.... I am stunned and very happy to tell you that my roots are more firmly es­tab­lished on the con­ti­nent than on the is­land. I am a Eu­ro­pean through and through: 52 per cent main­land Eu­rope, span­ning most of the west­ern coun­tries in­clud­ing north­ern Iberia, 30 per cent British and 18 per cent Irish Celt. Specif­i­cally, the test re­vealed that my roots reach as far as into Scan­di­navia (yep, Viking) and also to Italy and Greece. Col­lons!

Have a good, wind-free Christ­mas .