Last weekend my son Neil was over visiting me from Leicester and we had a drive around the Province (Northern Ireland) to visit some of the beautiful parts of the country that he hadn’t been to since childhood. One of these areas is the southern parts Counties Down and Armagh. We went to look at a beach on Carlingford Lough and discovered that there was a ferry service between Greencastle (Co,Down) and Gweedore In Co. Louth (Irish Republic), something I was unaware of. We decided to take it, it cost £13 for car and two passengers, because it saved us the road journey around Carlingford Lough through, Warrenpoint and Newry ....around forty miles. The beautiful town of Carlingford was our ultimate destination anyway, it is only about 5 miles from where the ferry disembarked us, and nestles on the Cooley peninsula with the Cooley Hills behind and the ruins of an 11th century castle and priory overlooking the harbour. It is one of my favourite spots in the whole of the island of Ireland, and their annual Oyster festival was taking place...so Guinness and oysters was the order of the day! It was a marvellous day out, and having my son on his own, without wife and children made it extra special for me.

Now, you may be wondering what the point of me posting all this is....and it’s this. When Neil and I were on the ferry for the ten or fifteen minutes that it took to cross over, we had the realisation that after 31st October, that little ferry which could probably carry eight or ten vehicles will become an international crossing between the UK and the EU, and that just struck us as bonkers! We just drove onto the ferry and they came round and collected our fare, it was so easy, no paperwork or passports needed, a mixture of cars and passengers from both sides of the border, an English carload of visitors, and two French bikers on our trip. Let us hope against all hope that we manage to prevent us leaving on this date, as the perfect equilibrium of this crossing last week is a great metaphor for the calm before the storm that will descend on us with a no deal Brexit.