Day 15: The family luncheon

The big news here at present seems to be whether the UK should leave the European Union. There is to be a referendum in June. Boris Johnson has just come out saying he thinks the UK should leave. Prime Minister Cameron has apparently negotiated some special deal under which we would stay in. I am told the polls suggest a 2:1 vote in favour though since Boris came out against there is speculation about whether than will change.

I remember the referendum that took us into the EU in the 19070s. I think I voted “yesy” but I cannot in all honesty recall. Perhaps it is the fact of having been in the UK at that time that makes me care about this matter. I have to keep telling myself that it doesn’t really matter a lot to me.

The Scottish referendum was on when we were last in the UK. We should have had no opinion in that matter but my heart said “yes” for independence. Now, oddly, my heart tells me say “no” to leaving the EU. I think I dropped a logic strand somewhere. But, as I say, it doesn’t matter and I worry more now about the general level of idiotic incompetency displayed by both sides of Australian politics (I might even say all sides).

Anyway all that washed over me as today we were due to do The Family Lunch. This involved my parents, sister, my brother and his wife, and The G and me. We went to The Rose and Crown at Yardley Hastings which is near where we are staying. You can see details of this establishment in our blog of our 2014 trip as we ate there in my 64^th birthday.

I will not bore you with the family entertainments but we made it through the meal without blows being exchanged.

My Father had a splendid meal.

My brother and my sister.

Mother and daughter locked in conversation.

Who are these people?

On an historical note I see some interesting facts about Yardley Hastings in that unassailable and indubitable source of all knowledge, Wikipedia. I see that:

• Thomas Dudley was born in Yardley Hastings in 1576. He sailed to New England on the Arbella in 1630 and became Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony. He signed the charter of Harvard College in 1650: I suppose this is moderately interesting
• Bouttoll Downing was born in Yardley Hastings in 1510. Ten generations later in 1820 "his descendant Sarah Downing" married John Abbey in Yardley Hastings where further generations continued to live: even Wikipedia doesn’t have an entry for Bouttoll Downing. And with a name like Bouttoll who can blame them (but Google found him) 
• Yardley Hastings is the village in which Marianne Faithfull's character Maggie lives in the 2007 film Irina Palm: oh, really? Let me whoop and shriek for joy.

All other things being said Yardley Hastings is quite an attractive village

It has a fine rectory whose asymmetrical architecture would have greatly offended the fine sensibilities of the Mughal kings.