Last days in Scotland

I left the Aberdeen area at about 9.30am in cloudy, drizzly conditions but quite soon afterwards the sky brightened, the sun came out and it turned into a wonderful day. I’d decided not to go the most direct route across Scotland on the motorways and major A roads but to drive through the Cairngorms and the Trossachs. The route I actually took was Oldmeldrum, Inverurie, Kenmay, Torphins to Kincardine O’Neill and then through the Cairngorms via Braemar and Blairgowrie, Crieff and Crianlarich before heading down the length of Loch Lomond to Tarbet and finally Loch Fyne and Loch Eck towards Dunoon. It was beautiful and the roads weren’t too busy, so I could enjoy some of the views, but it took hours! I arrived at my destination at about 4pm only having stopped once for some lunch and once to buy petrol. I hadn’t realised that Scotland was so big.

However, the weather soon returned to ‘normal’ and by the next morning the rain was sheeting down. It rained so hard and so persistently that the river threatened to break its banks and we had to move the sheep to higher ground so that they would be safe. Leszek, a young Polish guy who arrived the day before me, was responsible for sheep feeding and checking and I was responsible for the two Highland cows and their calves from last year. Every day I had to coax them into the barn and then feed the calves in a separate area to their mothers so that they could be tethered and groomed in preparation for being sold at the Highland breed sales in Oban in October. Grooming them was a bit like grooming a hairy pony and I also had to try to tease out the knots and mats in their hair. Over the time that I was there they gradually got used to this routine and even seemed to quite enjoy being brushed, although they were never certain about having their fringe (dossan) combed and would pull back on their halters while I did it. On my last day there my host and I gave them their first bath. Again, it was very similar to the preparation we used to do on the ponies prior to a show or sale – wet animal all over with large sponge, apply shampoo and massage in well, rinse off with copious amounts of water, apply conditioner and comb through, rinse again, scrub hooves.

On my second full day there, Thea gave me my first tractor driving lesson and I spent about twenty minutes driving in forward and reverse gears up and down the yard at the farmyard at the end of the glen (where I couldn’t do much damage). The tractor was relatively modern in that it had a purpose-built cab, sprung seating, radio and good brakes! The only time I attempted to drive our old MF 165 it ran away with me and I couldn’t get the iffy brakes to work – not good when heading downhill, gathering momentum at an alarming rate heading for the stable block. Barry had to run alongside like a cowboy from the Wild West and jump onto the tractor and stamp hard on the brakes to avert disaster – I never got on the tractor again!

On my third full day there, Thea had a family crisis that necessitated her going away that evening so she spent the whole day sorting out jobs for Leszek and me and left us to it. This was on the Friday and she did not come back until the following Thursday lunchtime, so we pretty much held the fort for a week and reported to her by phone every lunchtime. Luckily nothing disastrous happened while she was away, although I thought she was very trusting to leave two strangers in charge of her farm!

On the Sunday of that week, Leszek and I were just clearing up after lunch when we heard someone come in the back door. I thought it was the lady from further up the glen who was going to leave her dog with us for a few days the following week, but when I turned round there were two strangers standing there. The lady had come to see if Thea was back as she knew that she’d had to go away for a few days. It turned out that she was the lady that Thea had told me about who sometimes walked up the glen to pick her fruit. I introduced myself and Leszek and asked who she was. ‘I’m Emma’, she said, ‘and this is Tindy’. Handshakes all round. ‘Can I leave a note for Thea?’ As I handed her pen and paper I was wondering where I could have met her before as her face looked quite familiar. I said ‘Your face looks familiar, somehow’. She said, ‘Yes, I’m an actor’. It was then that the penny dropped with an almost audible clang – I was chatting to Emma Thompson! She must have wondered what planet I’d dropped from when I asked who she was. My only excuse for failing to recognise her is that you don’t expect to bump into Emma Thompson on a farm 5 miles up a glen in Scotland. I actually managed to carry on a normal conversation with her and gave no hint that I’d finally recognised her, for which I am ridiculously proud.

By the time Thea returned we had accomplished most of the tasks that she had set us and she was really pleased – we’d found and fixed the leaks in the water pipes, dug holes for planting trees on a retaining bank, filled in a steep-sided and redundant sheep dipping tank with large rocks, pulled ragwort, dug up and transplanted some small saplings, cleared up the brash from her chain sawing jobs, weeded and mulched some young trees, rolled and packed the sheep fleeces and a myriad of other small jobs.

Finally, on my penultimate working day I got to drive the tractor with a topper behind and topped an 11-acre field. Topping is where a mower-like device is trailed behind the tractor and takes off the tops of the perennial weeds without mowing the grass. This has to be done periodically to stop weeds such as docks from seeding everywhere. On Thea’s ground it was to take out the soft rushes that abounded in the poorly drained pasture in the valley bottom. It was quite complicated as there were several areas of really boggy ground that I had to avoid and it took me the best part of 5 hours to complete. I think Thea was quite pleased with the speed at which I cut it and the fact that I made a reasonable job of it too, so now I really can say that I can drive a tractor – although I need to have a lot more practice before I’m fully competent.

I left Scotland on an overcast and drizzly Tuesday morning, heading for Sheffield and my sister’s house for some much needed R and R (and a trip to Shrewsbury Folk Festival) and as I crossed the border into England just south of Gretna Green the sun came out and shone all the way!