SPRING has sprung, The dickie birds are in the apple tree. Outside time has come again, which means my garden needs a lot of work (not a euphemism for hair removal). It’s like day of the triffids in my yard and my hay fever is already in full swing. I’ll be sneezing away weeds for weeks.

How can I moan though, about my garden coming alive, when heartless developers in Guildford have put netting round trees, believed to be to stop bird nesting, so they can be cut down? I wonder how this is allowed.

We seem to have no respect for transient homes, be they for birds or people. “Anti-homeless” spikes have been put down outside luxury buildings. A Southern Rail staff member was caught on camera pouring the contents of his mop bucket near a homeless man as he lay on the ground.

I can’t help but liken the birds and beggars to those wanting to remain in the EU. Wanting to bury their heads, sleep through it all. Pretend it’s not real. Meanwhile the leavers are felling trees and hosing down hobos to clear the exit. I am not saying either side is right or wrong. It’s the divide that hurts.

The woman who started the petition to stop Brexit has been sent death threats. Why does she deserve to die for giving a glimmer of hope to those who see it that way? Those who don’t want to leave the EU have been labelled Remoaners and those who do have been called equally childish names.

How can we find a way forward together? Personally, I’ve never had a problem holding up my hand and saying “actually, terribly sorry, but I’ve changed my mind”. It’s not always gone down well, but I’ve never seen contemplation as a weakness.

We don’t need to drive through a decision that won’t benefit us because we said we’d leave so we bloody well will. It reminds me of when dad used to say: “That food cost me a lot of money, you’ll sit and finish it.”

There are two sides. My dad’s, who’d spent all day under a lorry, covered in grease for oily customers. Who came home sore and covered in mud and bruises, only to watch me chase peas across a plate of my mum’s “moussaka”. How, to him, it showed a lack of respect and appreciation. He who had to eat suet pudding for dinner at Grandma Punchard’s house.

Then, on the other side is me. Me trying to finish a dinner my brothers had poured their orange squash over, because that is what brothers do. My vegetables floating in watery Kia-Ora. The dubious looking minced lamb turning florescent. My constant reminders to mum that I was a vegetarian.

My dad, telling me to eat it. Hand on the back of my chair. Me, throat closed with anxiety. Knowing it wasn’t the right time to throw my brothers under the bus or mention my aversion to meat because “I really love rabbits”.

Plate clearers often go on to have eating problems. Men who don’t feel appreciated often suffer from depression. Both sides have valid feelings, where’s the common ground? More than this, who is right and who is wrong and why do we have to attack people because they don’t think the same way as us?

The American singer Billy Corgan says “Who belongs, who decides who’s crazy, who rights wrongs, where others cling?”.

My dad says you can’t please all the people all the time. He also says dithering “doth butter no parsnips” which is also true.

How do we move forward, as a United Kingdom, not a playground full of adults playing British Bulldog?

Pride and pig-headedness will not solve Brexit, nor will John Lennon-like dreamers imagining the world can be as one.

But like the birds having their trees netted by developers, why are such vital decisions about our future, our children’s futures, being made by MPs with personal agendas and expenses claims that deem them not to have the country’s best interests at heart? We are having our wings clipped by their egos and being marched through the process, like a parent dragging their child past a sweet shop.

I don’t know what the answer is. I know my idealistic socialist views wouldn’t be well received, which is why I only propose them to my love bird, who adores me and struts up and down my arm in a staunch show of approval.

Our country is a fruit bowl full of bruised apples, mouldy oranges and bitter lemons. We all taste and feel different, but we are all being battered the same. While the banana makes the other fruits brown quicker, it also speeds up the reluctant pear, dragging its heels to sweeten.

Everything has two sides, pros and cons.