With Linda Mellor

by Linda Mellor

SCOTTISH COUNTRY LIFE

Hope. Did you start 2022 full of hope? I know I certainly did, and I rekindled the hope I had stored unused for the start of 2021. 2022 is currently filed under the ‘not sure’ category but close to being upgraded to ‘normal’. In early Spring, as we started to plan, got close to the no-mask deadline, and grasped normality with our fingertips, we were shocked by the attack on Ukraine and the turmoil it caused around the globe. The state of flux continued as we looked at a different way of life or, at least, an alternative way of doing things.

We have a few challenges ahead: the weather over the winter months was difficult but not in the way we were used to. Winters were always cold, snowy, and frosty, and I have many fond memories and albums of photos taken on those chilly, fresh day out on shoots. However, they have been replaced by mild, wet, and windy conditions, with more weather warnings than we’re used to. We have all seen hundreds of trees blown over by the winds in our local areas: a drive north up the A9 gave you a clear view of the tree destruction from the roadside verges. Scotland’s gamekeepers, ghillies and deer managers were kept busy with the chainsaws, as they helped to open up roads and tracks blocked by windblown trees. Often our rural workers come under attack by groups opposed to country sports for the legal, law-abiding jobs they do, but all over Scotland, these men and women worked hard to help open up areas blocked off by fallen trees. They are trained as part of their job, and their multiple skills are updated and certificated by their employer. I think we will be placing more value on these lads and lassies of the countryside in the years to come.

I think rural skillsets all over Scotland will be utilised, after all countryside workers are one of the first groups, alongside farmers, to witness first-hand the changes in our climate. Until climate change is tackled successfully it will continue to change, so will the way we use the countryside also change? I think it will. Our flora and fauna, mirror the seasons we have in Scotland. The milder weather will impact on young being born early, and flowers blooming too soon, making them all vulnerable to lambing snow and cold wet, snowy weather in May (remember what happened last year when we had a dump of snow in May).

From the BBC website: “Over the past 30 years, the average temperature in Scotland has risen by 0.5C, Scottish winters have become 5% wetter and the sea level around the Scottish coast has increased by up to 3cm each decade, the report pointed out.” The Scottish government is quoted to be ‘committed to reaching “net zero emissions” of all greenhouse gases by 2045 - five years earlier than the UK as a whole’ but how will they do this when climate change impact is unknown and unpredictable? We are not able to look into the future and see the seasons, or predict how many more trees and forests will be decimated by the high winds, or how much flood damage will be triggered by increased rain fall.

There is one thing we do need to do, and that is to carry on and adapt the best we can, these last few years have proved how adaptable we are, especially when faced with the great unknown. Buy Scottish produce, eat local meat and veg and appreciate what we have on our doorstep for it is bountiful.

I am delighted the game fairs and farm shows are going ahead (at the time of writing they are in the diary) because they give us something to look forward to and opportunities for long-awaited catch ups with family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in familiar territories like the Highland Show and the Scottish Game Fair (I will be hosting talks and interviews at the Game Fair so please come and say hello!). Pre-pandemic I was not the sort of person that subscribed to normal, but these days, I welcome normal and hope the weather is typical of what we have come to expect over the summer months.

Hope reigns supreme!