A couple of unexpected opportunities have come up in the last month and so we have brought forward are plans to replace our aging campsite loo block.

Built for our grand opening for the total solar eclipse in 1999, our trusty toilet block was already second-hand when we cobbled it together from the remains of a couple of old builders sheds. While they had served us well, they are now really beginning to show their age and can’t compare with the swanky new shower block we erected a couple of seasons ago.

The first opportunity was that as a direct result of the credit crunch, Brian - an old school mate, neighbour and builder of the shower block - had his order book dry up and so was at a loose end and able to give us his undivided attention (a real bonus when it comes to building work) and secondly an email popped into my box from an unknown farmer looking to buy some “native breed, TB free herd, organic yearlings.”

To bust some of the farming jargon for you;

Native Breed: Most of the beef you buy in a supermarket will be a crossbred animal using what farmers term ‘continental’ bulls. These are bigger, leaner animals who get their names from the regions of Europe they hail from – e.g. Charolais, Simmental and Limousine. Supermarkets like big animals as they are cheaper per kilo to slaughter and butcher (a sort of economy of scale), and they like lean animals as they say consumers don’t want fat on their meat. Farm shops and smaller butchers prefer our own native breeds as they are smaller (making for more reasonably priced joints), and fatter (which is where the flavour comes from).

TB free: Tuberculosis is still the number one worry with beef and dairy farmers, and farmers are naturally very wary of buying from herds which have experienced problems in the last couple of years. Badgers and cows cross infect each other and to date the only solution the government has been willing to undertake is to removal and slaughter of infected cows from each herd identified through a program of annual testing. Interestingly this week a couple of new initiatives have been announced. Wales (where there is still a large rural vote) is to undertake a mass cull of Badgers in the worst affected areas, whilst our own urban-centric parliament (who would never consider a cull of wildlife) is going to introduce a badger vaccine – good luck!

Yearlings: a catchall phrase used by farmers to describe any bullock that is older than a calf but not fully grown.

As it happens I have built up a bunch of about 35 such beasts that had turned almost feral whilst grazing on the moors and I thought it would be a good idea to thin them out a bit so I rang up the mobile number on the email and arranged a viewing.

He came and (despite them running around the field like deranged loonies) he liked them and he wanted to take 30 off of my hands. We agreed a price per kilo and after another TB test (a new stipulation for any animal moving between farms) we loaded them in his trailers and he drove away promising to weigh the trailers on the way home.

Their weights were good, the price was fair and the unexpected lump of cash was passed straight over to Brian with instructions to start building. Result!