There’s nowhere I’d rather be over hot summer than slaving away on my farm. But there is a fly in the ointment…

YOU might think that one of the (many) downsides about farming is that you can’t ever book a summer holiday. It’s impossible because you don’t know when the harvest will be. I’ve drunk beers in many beautiful locations but none of them match the beer you treat yourself to after a hard day’s harvesting Credit: TinaHillier2021 There’s nowhere I’d rather be over hot summer than slaving away on my farm. But there is a fly in the ointment… Credit: Amazon Prime This year it began in the middle of July but sometimes you don’t get cracking until the end of September. This means the farmer is forced to stay at home for the summer, looking at Instagram pictures of all his non-farming friends as they frolic on boats and in bars in the sun-drenched Mediterranean. Sounds terrible, yes? Well it isn’t. Some jobs on the farm are unpleasant. Sexing rabbits is annoyingly difficult, and disposing of dead piglets is heartbreaking. But I’ve been harvesting all week, and this job is an absolute joy. I boing out of bed before dawn, knowing the moisture in the crops will be dead right, and then, from the ­tractor’s lofty seat, I watch the sun rise through the dust cloud being left in the ­combine’s wake. It’s a stunning sight. When the combine’s hopper is full, I have to position my trailer under its spout, making sure that none of the grain coming out of it is spilled. This requires the sort of concentration that would normally only be deployed by a surgeon who’s been called upon to operate on his own daughter’s eyes. And then, when the trailer is full, I must race back to the farmyard to tip the grain into the shed, and use my JCB to push the 12-tonne pile up against the back wall before racing back to the field to get the next load. Speed and power is important here, and I like that. At lunchtime, Lisa — guided by the plume of dust that rises over whatever field we happen to be harvesting at that moment — will arrive on the scene and drop off some sandwiches. Good ones, made from stuff she picked that morning. And we eat these on the move because there’s no time to lose. The moisture levels are changing by the hour and if they go above 15 per cent, you have to stop. It’s hot and it’s dirty out there, and you work non-stop for 15 or 20 hours at a stretch. But then, finally, you turn off the engines and in the golden-hour silence that results, you crack open an ice cold bottle of beer and gulp at it as the sun goes down. I’ve drunk beers in many exotic and beautiful locations over the years, but none of them match the beer you treat yourself to after a hard day’s harvesting. And not just because, in my case, the beer in question is a Hawkstone, made from the barley I harvested last year. Having decided that beer is the best invention of all time, you trundle home and hit the sack. Because you’ll be up at 4am to go through the whole process again. And you cannot wait because you absolutely love it and there’s no job you’d rather do. And nowhere you’d rather be. The only slight fly in the ointment is that thanks to the hot summer and this Government’s strange hatred of farmers, you don’t actually get paid for the wheat and the barley you’ve harvested. In fact, I worked out this morning that it’d be cheaper to go on an expensive holiday. A LOAD OF HOG WASH... A SURVEY has found that cars are responsible for 40 per cent of hedgehog deaths in this country. Well yes, but I notice the survey was, in part, funded by something called the People’s Trust For Endangered Species. And in my experience, any organisation with the word “people’s” in its title tends to be run by woolly-headed Thunbergites who see the car as being responsible for every one of the world’s ills. It’s possibly true, of course, that 40 per cent of hedgehogs die after being run over. But that leaves 60 per cent that die of what? Is Donald Trump killing them? Or the IDF? Or the ghost of Margaret Thatcher? Nope. A huge number are killed by badgers – but we can rely on the People’s Hedgehog Party or whatever they’re called to keep that quiet. Couldn’t Hillary have thought of summit else? Edmund ­Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing after reaching the top of Everest Credit: Reuters I READ the other day that when explorer Edmund ­Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing reached the top of Mount Everest, they transmitted news of their achievement to the Times newspaper in London using the pre-arranged code, “snow conditions bad”. I think this might be the worst code ever. Because what if the snow conditions really had been bad? The reporters at the Times would have got Hillary’s message, breathed a sigh of relief that their exclusive story was safe, and then not sent help. It’d be like the captain of a submarine agreeing with his bosses before attempting to get to the bottom of the ocean’s deepest trench that the code for success would be “sub filling with water”. LOTS of pictures this week of people flooding across the English ­Channel in small boats. And, having examined them closely, I have a question. If these people really are refugees, fleeing from some awful atrocity in their own country, then where are the women? Where are the children? Where are the elderly ­people? Are we expected to believe that this atrocity, whatever it is, only affects young men? PROF'S ADVICE STINGS EXPERTS have announced – and I’ve noticed this – that we are being plagued by far fewer wasps than usual this summer. We are told they don’t like the heat, which I find unlikely because the damn things seem to manage just fine in ­places like Corfu. But whatever the ­reason, Professor Seirian Sumner, a behavioural ecologist at University College London, recommends that when we have a picnic, we cut off a morsel of meat or fruit and push it to the side of the plate so the wasps have something to eat as well. Hmmm. Ms Sumner may be excellent at understanding what goes on in an animal’s head, but I fear she isn’t quite as good at understanding humans. Because frankly, no one is going to do that unless they are completely mad. LABOUR NEVER LEARN Labour have welcomed Diane Abbott back into the fold Credit: Getty LAST year, Diane Abbott apologised for being antisemitic and was then ejected from the Labour Party for saying she didn’t regret it at all. And guess what? She’s back. I guess Diane must have apologised for retracting her previous apology but, whatever, Labour has decided it can’t manage without this intellectual powerhouse and has welcomed her back into the fold. Of course, there will be those who say that West-minster should be full of people from all walks of life and with varying levels of intelligence. But I disagree. I want to be governed by people who are ferociously bright – really properly clever with analytical minds and tremendous knowledge accrued from many years of reading and travel and work. Not someone who dresses like a daytime TV host, someone who left school pregnant and with no qualifications at 16, and someone who can’t add up. SO, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Having shared a social media post suggesting Nigel Farage should have his head cut off, the leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, says he won’t apologise because it was a mistake. Right. So according to this increasingly annoying idiot, if you knock an old lady over, there’s no need to say sorry if it was an accident.