The Glen Crofter

This was the maximum/minimum thermometer when it was read at around nine this morning. While nineteen for yesterday's maximum is a little unlikely - the machine isn't sited in an ideal position - the true maximum must have been around fifteen/sixteen, impressive enough for a pre-equinox day in Scotland's far north, and certainly warm enough....

....to bring out both the first bumblebee of the year and a few other, smaller, flying insects.

With the weather set fair for another, if slightly cooler and breezier day today, we walked up the road to Backies and then, instead of turning back through the Dunrobin woodlands as we usually do, we kept going, which took us out on the Farlary road, up through sadly neglected croft land.

Not all of it is unused, however. I asked the crofter who works the land which includes the ancient clachan settlement of Glen - seen at bottom left in the picture - if I could visit the ruins without disturbing his animals, and spent some time with him listening to a tale which must be so common to crofters, of a landlord who is anxious to clear the land further of its human occupants, just as his ancestor did at the beginning of the 19th century. Today's purpose is not to put vacated land down to sheep but to the modern equivalent, forestry, for which there are big grants and, therefore, far more money to be made than from tenants.

The man was justifiably bitter about his circumstances but he also mourned the potential loss, because young people are dissuaded from looking to crofting for a lifetime career, of a whole way of life.

I felt deeply for him. We have seen first-hand the mess that crofting is in, not helped by the ineffectiveness of the body that is supposed to nurture crofting, the Crofting Commission.