I waved Jim, Brigitte and Rana off earlier today. They’re bound for the UK and a week walking along parts of the Ridgeway in Wiltshire, an ancient route in use for thousands of years by drovers, traders and invaders.

I’ve walked parts if it myself, along high ground that gives spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, passing the remains of Iron Age hill forts and the famous Uffington White Horse, pictured below, thought to have been created over two thousand years ago. It was made by digging deep trenches then filling them with crushed chalk.

So it’s just Harissa and me for a while (that’s her at the top), and for the next couple of days some much-needed rain. It came in the night along with news of Boris Johnson’s resignation, and yet another example of his seemingly life long, self-serving drive to ensure that, no matter what the circumstances, this time his likely suspension from Parliament, he’s always the centre of attention.

His departure, as he put it, ‘for now’, was hours before the formal announcement of his honours list, an age old tradition affording outgoing prime ministers the opportunity to nominate people for honours.

The honours system has its roots in the Order of the Garter, founded by King Edward III in the mid-14th century. I referred to it in an earlier post about my visit to the Château d’Amboise and how, at the time, chivalric orders played a significant part in European society. In Global Britain, as Johnson et al like to brand our now isolated island that cut itself adrift from Europe, we still do.

One of the archaic honours bestowed by Johnson as he leaves the ship he helped sink, provides a perfect example of what he and his clueless crew have unleashed.

The no doubt proud bearer of the honour, established 298 years ago in 1725 with the quaint name of Most Honourable Order of the Bath, is Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s former principal private secretary. As the nation self-isolated, unable even to visit loved ones dying alone, Reynolds invited Downing Street staff to a “bring your own booze” party.

Johnson attended and his sudden departure came in advance of the publication of a report, presumably damning, by a committee looking into whether or not he misled parliament over lockdown parties. A reminder, the dictionary, although evidently not Johnson’s, defines an honourable person as someone honest and fair, deserving of praise and respect.

To repeat a point made as I travelled around Crete a year ago (link), when Johnson’s second ethics advisor had just thrown in the towel, you couldn’t make it up. Except that now, in the new world of alternative facts, you can, because anything goes. As we all get used to truth, rules, national and international law etc. being flouted, and now even honour redefined, we sleepwalk into a culture of acceptance, and Johnson and his ilk have us by the hand.

As I wrote then, and repeat again, others have put it better than me:

‘What is the precise moment in the life of a country when tyranny takes hold? It rarely happens in an instant; it arrives like twilight and, at first, the eyes adjust.’

Albert Camus

There’s a very good piece on Johnson by the always excellent Andrew Rawnsley in this Sunday’s Observer newspaper:

‘The man is a coward. Whenever faced with the consequences of his actions, he ducks. Whenever confronted with a choice that requires some courage, he swerves. Whenever asked to make good on a promise, he betrays. Whenever the choice is fight or flight, he flees.’

(Link to the article here)

Apart from whingeing about Johnson, when the rain eased off in the afternoon, I extended my wall-building experience to fencing, and built the enclosure below. Wonkier than the wall it should nevertheless work at protecting the young marigolds behind the fence. Harissa observed and, circling it when I’d finished, looked up at me with a face that seemed to suggest pity, relieved herself beside it and wandered off.