A year ago I travelled through Europe to remind myself what being part of that continent has given us as a people and as a culture. This year I am driving through Belgium, Holland and Germany to visit Denmark and Sweden for the first time, en route to visit my family in Norway. I shall thus, ominously, be leaving the EU on the very day that the UK referendum is held. Last year, it seemed unlikely that we should leave; now it looks very likely. This depresses me greatly, and the June weather has amply reflected my dark, dank thoughts.

Driving down to Dover early this morning, I passed through two banks of fog and driving rain. I arrived in Dunkirk to be met with thunder and lightening, with the rain ever more torrential as I approached Brussels. So we know which fiends to blame for that, don’t we? Vote Leave and reclaim control of our weather! OK, that’s a slogan which has yet to be adopted, but is no less intelligent and rational than the rest of their campaign claims.

Yet rationality doesn’t seem to enter into it. What this dreadful episode has revealed is how greatly Britain has failed to educate people adequately, or to engage them in the political process where this fateful decision could be made intelligently. Instead, it has revealed the deep vein of cynicism and disaffection a great number of people have for the arrogant complacency of those in power, and the Ashleys and Greens of this world, who continue to enrich themselves at direct cost to those who do their work. With some justice, they seem to think that everyone is corrupt – with their tax avoidance and off-shore holdings – and the only failure is being found out. They think this revolt will give these people a bloody nose, unaware that it is them that will bleed instead.

And, of course, it has revealed a bottomless pit of xenophobia, where once again immigrants are blamed for the paucity of public resources, even when ‘austerity’ has been the actual admitted cause for the last six years. In wealthy Norway, only two generations away from a largely subsistence economy, it is still assumed that men do their own house repairs and refits. That is the only way in which Britain will come to reflect Norway after Brexit: we will all have to get good at DIY since all the Polish and Romanian builders will have been sent home. Oh, and beer will probably cost £8 a pint, as it does in Norway. In any case, we will not be able to afford much, with the collapse of the pound and contraction of the economy. I reckon the buying power of my fixed income will drop by at least a third.

So foreign holidays will be a lot more expensive, and entry to EU countries made a lot more painful, as I found on the Serbian border last year. In fact, the current French public sector action against the change in labour laws, has already hit us. Whereas at Dover one used  virtually to drive straight onto the ferry, I discovered the French border controls are deliberately inspecting everyone and holding them up in a six-lane, half-mile queue for over an hour (see above), causing many to miss their ferry bookings. Earlier this week, my daughter’s return flight from a family holiday in Portugal was severely delayed thanks to the French air traffic controllers. Break up the EU and these difficulties and slammed doors will return as the norm. I am sure those who foolishly believe that leaving the EU can magically turn the clock back will happily send the French border guards back to France, but that will only ensure that landing there will be as attractive as D-Day. Do these people want to re-commission the south coast’s Napoleonic fortifications too?

Most improved environmental conditions and labour standards have been imposed upon reluctant British governments by the EU, and these are among the promised bonfire of regulations should the cynical opportunists get in. Not every EU country obeys the rules to the letter, and cheerfully ignore regulations they cannot be bothered with, just as the little Brits want. I have always liked the ‘aires’ on the French autoroutes, offering airy lay-bys with WCs as well as the machine commerce of motorway service stations, which are our only choice. However, at the Aire de Teteghem on the E25 north of Dunkirk the heads were no gem – the toilets were locked, abandoned and vandalised, so needy folk had taken to pissing and shitting all over the place, a scene more reminiscent of southern Asia.

And the road into Antwerp was a ten-mile traffic jam, which took an hour to navigate, an insane confluence of motorways causing among the worst traffic conditions I have encountered in Europe. Now ensconced in my Hotel O in the cathedral square, I can begin to appreciate Rubens’ home town, where he must have developed his appreciation of big girls. This is the view from my bedroom window. I can hear the busker (bottom left).

Antwerp: