The ghastly failure of Brexit was the main factor in preventing the Northern Ireland executive from carrying out its duties and, indeed, threatening the Good Friday agreement which has restored a modicum of peace to the area.

Happily, thanks to that agreement Northern Ireland has not found itself in the situation we encountered when, as holiday makers sight-seeing in the Falls Road area in 1993 and wishing to visit Belfast’s Roman Catholic cathedral we had machine guns pointed at us by squaddies. ‘Why are you here?’ the commander asked us. My wife replied ‘we are not answering that until you stop pointing your guns at us’. They desisted thanks to Sandra’s admirable sang-froid.

In retrospect I think they might have thought that the wooden case I had built for our camping equipment on the roof rack of our car contained materiel!

How could a part of the United Kingdom have a customs border separating it from the rest of the nation? The Irish Channel not only divides Eire from the UK but divides Northern Ireland as well. For this reason the protestant Democratic Unionist Party refused to take part in the government of Northern Ireland at Stormont. This was in spite of two major facts. First, the DUP voted for Brexit. Second, the DUP is not the majority party of Northern Ireland. Instead it’s Sinn Féin (Gaelic for ‘ourselves’), the Pan-Irish party, under the leadership of Michelle O’Neill.

Brexit has hit English food exports to the EU badly (and will do even more so now that new import-export controls have been imposed particularly affecting smaller enterprises which just can’t cope with the extra red-tape and charges involved). Cheeses have been particularly affected  since so many smaller enterprises are concerned. If anyone can locate Blue Stilton, Double Gloucester, Wensleydale or Crumbly Cheshire in any Lucchesia store do let me know pronto!

We sometimes shop in one of Lucca’s two Lidl supermarkets. One can get good Greek Feta cheese there. Most importantly, Lidls are the nearest place I can find cheddar, so brilliant for cheese toasts.

Looking at the label on my Lidl-bought cheddar cheese I note that it is imported from Northern Ireland .

Most of Dale Farm products are made in Northern Ireland but they also have production sites in England and Scotland. Dale Farm milk, cheese, cream and custard for example come from local grass-fed cows and its produce is prepared by their dairy plant in Ballymena, Co. Antrim.

A dairy success story for over sixty years, Dale Farm is a cooperative, owned by 1,300 dairy executive farmers across Northern Ireland, England and Scotland. This means every farmer that supplies it with milk also owns the company, so the business is able to support this generation of dairy farmers, and the next.

It’s no surprise that Italy’s Lidl-store cheddar cheese comes from Northern Ireland which is still placed in an enviable position, thanks to its border being, paradoxically, both inside and outside the EU. Indeed, Northern Ireland is having a topping time thanks to this situation.

I do find it difficult to believe that in my comune of Bagni di Lucca there are British part or full-time immigrants who voted for Brexit and still believe they were right to do so. The current tractor-led demos blocking roads in countries like Germany and France show that there are many dissatisfied farmers in Europe. However, suffering under the hardship of Brexit, the UK is particularly hard-hit and it’s a wonder that its farm vehicles have not yet blocked Downing Street and requested a better deal and a request for a customs union and a single market.

I’m now going to make a scrumptious Northern Ireland cheddar cheese toast on my Greek pita bread topped with our home -grown capers lovingly pickled by Alexandra and wish all the best for Northern Ireland”s restored executive which begins this month.