It came on Saturday - effectively immediately - Boris Johnson resigned from his parliamentary seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip - a Greater London constituency inside of the M25 Motorway for those who need to know - It was on the front page of the Financial Times Weekend Supplement but - below the fold. Michael Heseltine, the former deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher - keep your friends close but your enemies even closer - described the move as “a brilliant coup de théâtre - and - it is … totally unprincipled and dishonest.”

On Monday evening our plane touched down in Athens Airport 59 years after we left - not knowing if we would ever see each other again. The drive to the city dips in and out of old memories. Small towns and old olive groves spread out in age, showing dreams made, broken and reset as the trees are realigned to the country’s fortunes. The scattered sage and scrub are muted in the decaying dusk before we enter the city center where there is not a refugee to be seen.

It was raining - of course it was - with the steadiness that puts up umbrellas and gives rise to the English complexion. It was not cold.

Once again the Government’s knickers are in a twist - and all of a sudden it doesn’t seem so far a stretch between rapping Gary Lineker’s knuckles, clipping Sir David’s prime-time wings, and jailing Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Mother is very angry . She has tried to hide it, burping and farting, holding her wind in as best she can until she exploded. Two weeks after this initial emesis she has vomited again. The latest death count is to 47,000 and still rising. How can one care for the fusses of politicians and small scrappy wars where the planet is so attacked by the creatures who feed off of her.

As the flurry of this last scandal broke, a government minister - whose name is not worth looking up - suggested that if anyone feels intimidated by a police officer they should ‘Wave down a bus’. It is clear that this government, like those before it, are as afraid of the police as are the general public. It is not surprising that this week a crate of 1071 rotten bad apples was left outside of New Scotland Yard in London, enough to ruin every batch of hard cider coming out of Somerset.

November rolled like storm-tossed tumbleweed into December and the nights slid earlier into darkness each evening. Now December is ending and even through the storms covering America the light is beginning to return.

November has closed in and daylight already slips away before tea-time leading into the long evenings. For amusement we watched our new prime and cabinet ministers dance a Scottish highland eight-some reel as partners were swung about, changed and reunited as fast as the fiddler could play. But a Prince who has become the King rehearsed more than dancing in his beloved Scotland

Later in the summer, the community (there is that word again) library hosts a barbeque party for the volunteers. A little wine is drunk, some sausage rolls and sweets are eaten and I ask Ben if he would talk to me about his book, The Marmalade Diaries for KWMR.org our community radio station in Point Reyes California, and he agreed.

"Dear, oh dear" muttered the new King, Charles 111, as he greeted Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace only two weeks ago. The double doors were swung open by a liveried equerry announcing "Prime Minister - Your Majesty”. Ms Truss bobbed forward to shake hands with the King, and said, ”Your Majesty, great to see you again," The King smiled as he replied "Back again?” - “Well come along then,” he may have continued - but we missed that bit as, like a patient headmaster, he led the not quite settled in new Prime Minister into another room. Last week - as I began to unpack in Rome - she was back. “Oh dear oh dear.” The King may have said - again.