WHY FARMERS SHOULD TRAVEL
There’s a simple joy in looking at landscape that is not your responsibility. A calf on the road as the bus speeds by? Alarming, but you can hardly stop the bus to put it back. Impressive-looking grass-fattened lambs on lush green pastures? To be admired (and envied just a little); inspiration maybe…. but not work. Interesting machinery, an unusual model of wind turbine, silage being made – it’s all food for thought. Scanning your own fields always means work. You notice things – fences, livestock, machinery, an uneven track. Farming is like housework – only on a massive scale. Your chores are NEVER done; and you never really stop […]
HOME FROM HOME
It’s a long time since I last stayed at the Harbour View Guest House in Oban. It used to be a regular haunt – at £15 the cheapest B&B in Oban with a friendly proprietor and easy access to the ferry for lazy 20-somethings. Mrs Mac had known Alex and his brothers for years and years…. and always showed genuine interest in their welfare. A genuinely warm welcome awaited, which really made you feel you were almost home. Archie accompanied me here once or twice when he was really little but, with small children, an old-fashioned B&B becomes tricky: shared bathrooms, disjointed sleeping arrangements, steep stairs and close proximity with […]
GUESTS AND FISH
My parents are leaving after a full week of visiting. While popular legend has it that “….guests are like fish – they go bad after three days…’ the truth is that children need time to acclimatise to long-lost relatives (like animals, they kind of sniff around and readjust, with building confidence, to the pecking order and the subtle vagaries of interaction.) A full week allows everybody to settle into a bit of a routine and, instead of dropping everything to Have Fun For A Day (in a forced and deliberate way) life continues, shared for a while. These days, living on a tiny island is not as remote as it […]
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