Just another Crofter’s tale…

Today the Crofter and I were down in Forfar to give a talk on ‘A Smallholder’s Tale’ at the annual Scottish Smallholding Festival in Forfar. When we had agreed to it, it had been highly unlikely that the Crofter would have been home for it so I took the decision that as much as I don’t see myself as a public speak, it would hopefully give encouragement to particularly women or those who have no background in agriculture.

The journey down did not start off well. After the Mini Crofter having to have his weekly bath early, he promptly went head first into the filing cabinet; resulting in a table tennis ball bump on the forehead, a nose bleed and a split lip. The Crofter was trying to sort out all the damsons which I had picked the day before tackling the basket of local pears we had received that needed pickling. Damson jelly in a sieve is one thing, when our toddler decides to try and lick the bowl adding red (blood coloured) juice to hands and head in addition to his injuries, you really are thankful for the flurry of snow that you can now take him out in to try and clean him up again. But that wasn’t all that hadn’t been going swimmingly. We had been unable to send the presentation by email so we had no one of knowing that it definitely worked. The travel down involved a diversion due to an accident. And, on the way in this morning we hit ice twice. Always good to put yourself in these stress situations just to make sure you still have a bit of nerve.

However, we made it without coming off the road. Our picture presentation worked, people turned up to listen, and we finally got to buy some of Dalmore Croft’s pressed apple juice (really, if you live Edinburgh/Fife go have a look, search it on Facebook/internet).

Reward after the talk: a dish that seemed more attuned to an exotic food restaurant, not a mobile food hut parked at a mart. Here’s to the crab!