Seven SEAs.

05/14/2007

To bumpkins such as I, Academia is the name of a bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, however to the world at large the word encompasses a life devoted to study, learning and excellence. These boffs care not a jot for calf scour or sheep scab let alone the imagination required balancing budgets or the guilt ridden angst of self assessment tax returns, however I now share one thing with them, namely, a lack of sleep. Dearest Dottie and I spent Saturday in a damp Inveraray in the company of academics at the AGM of The Neil Munro Society, a worthy body if every there was one. The papers they delivered on the variety of post-romantic Scottish literature in the chill of the village hall followed by the splendour of the castle went a bit over the baronial bonce and left me a little numb around the wethers, however these coves enjoy a party, therefore long words were leavened with plenty of food and drink in the jolly atmosphere of “Brambles” culminating in music and song with even dearest Dottie being persuaded to give her lively rendition of “These Are My Mountains” at 2.00 am. The dogs had me up at a rain sodden 7.00 am, followed by a rather long winded evangelical church parade, so now that the first salty Merlot is sieved through the baronial mustachios the body’s sleep account is in debit to the tune of three or four hours.

Those of you with an agricultural bent will know, that like our gracious monarch, cattle and sheep have an official birthday, it being the 15th of May when all calves and lambs miraculously change into hoggs, gimmers, wedders, shearlings and other terms mainly designed to divide town and country. This date now also heralds the arrival of my short skirted EU advisor, hot foot from Bruxelles. The main purpose of her visit is to progress our Tobacco crop which we had to compost rather than sell last year to achieve the maximum £50K EU grant. Following this success we are seeking permission to increase our acreage from 110 to 150 acres; hopefully the lovely lady will endorse this blatantly bonkers request. The dear always sends a full written briefing in advance so that yours truly is fairly buzzing with jargon by the time Tanya’s Taxis delivers La Belle Dame in front of the Great Steps of Trollaigh, where the incumbents fawn and grovel before the laptop case that contains a quarter of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh’s annual running costs. Scanning the briefing I note with some relief that the catch word of the last two seasons “community”, a word with which I have never been entirely comfortable, has been replaced with the bright shiny 2007 word “strategic” so there are many references to SEA “Strategic Environmental Assessments” and such tosh. However, I must make every effort to gently persuade La Belle Dame to retitle her proposed “Strategic History Including Trollaigh Estates” whilst assessing the viability of the UK Tobacco crop, before putting our joint proposals before her mighty masters. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.