I was walking along a footpath I know well, dense woodland on one side and more open and formally planted trees plus shrubs on the other.
The wood is full of songbirds and a long-overgrown pond and is the reason I like the path.
About 100 yards ahead there was a man walking his dog – or at least he had been walking it but he had stopped and was now crouching down on the path.
The dog, at the far end of one of those gigantic extendable leashes, had turned and was staring back at him. I could hear his voice but it was speaking in tones that suggested he was not addressing the dog. He wasn’t even looking at it.
As I drew closer it became clearer what was going on, why he was crouched on the ground, why he was talking and why the dog at the far end of the leash was looking back at him with an expression that said, unambiguously: “You are such an idiot.”
It is important at this point to make it clear that the man had only the regulation number of hands, which is two. One of these held the dog leash.
With the other one he was attempting to pick up that which his dog had just deposited on the footpath, using one of those little green plastic bags which have become such an attractive feature of our everyday landscapes.
But he was still talking. He seemed to be talking to the ground.
Then I realised he was on the phone.
However, his right hand still held the dog leash, which meant the phone was in his left hand, the one which was also attempting to put dog poo into a plastic bag, which in turn explains why he was crouched down and why his head (and therefore his left ear) was so close to the ground.
I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later he would drop the phone. Or the plastic bag. Or (as it turned out) both.
I am not much of an authority on dogs, although I do love wolves. I have never had a dog but I like a good Border collie and I can identify a few other breeds, or at least I used to be able to before people started cross-breeding everything with poodles.
The dog at the far end of the leash watching its so-called master with unveiled disgust was terrier-sized, stocky and had a sooty little face, which added a kind of expressive sneer to the proceedings. It was clear to me that it was the brains of the outfit.
I imagined the expression on my own face as I contemplated this little exposition on the theme of human endeavour must be very similar to that on the dog’s face.
Then I had a vision. I suddenly realised I was looking at a living, breathing metaphor for life.
The man is the Conservative government.
The dog is we the people, the electorate, a crossbreed of remainers and brexiters, a rembrexidoodle.
The leash is the referendum, the consequences of which bind us uncomfortably and incredulously, to the Conservative government.
That which the man is trying to put into the green plastic bag is the dog’s breakfast with which the Conservative government is attempting to come to grips.
The phone is the symbolic conference call the Conservative government is trying to conduct at the same time as it tries to clean up the dog’s breakfast.
Also in on the call are Angela Merkel, Mark Carney, Nicola Sturgeon, Barack Obama, Lord Heseltine, the guy from Aberdeen with the Buddy Holly glasses and a blood-stained sgian dubh in his hand and all the members of the Cabinet he has not yet stabbed in the back.
However, the Conservative government has inadvertently dropped the phone under circumstances in which it has now become indistinguishable from the dog’s breakfast, so communication on so many fronts has suddenly become incoherent.
Meanwhile, as the Conservative government tries to extract (one-handed remember) the phone from the green plastic bag which contains some but not all of the dog’s breakfast, the rembrexidoodle at the far end of the leash is taking out its growing frustration on the Conservative government’s performance by gnawing enthusiastically on the leash.
All of which prompts two questions. Will the Conservative government get its act together, decide whether or not a referendum so mired in lies and treachery constitutes a valid reading of the rembrexidoodle’s attitude towards Europe (poodles are part-French after all) and whether or not to honour the outcome, replace it with another one, or scrap the idea of a referendum altogether and get on with living with the neighbours?
And will it succeed in that endeavour before the rembrexidoodle gnaws right through the lead and runs off into the woods, never to be seen again?