The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
New addition has the buzz back
I write this article with a hint of smugness looking at a field riddled with round bales of “well-got” hay.
However, the main reason I have a smile on my face is because lying beside me in a basket is our newest arrival to the farm, Alice Mary Smith, who arrived into the world safe and well on July 2 at 4.07am at Ninewells Hospital.
Morag and I are both absolutely thrilled and we have settled into a routine – Morag feeds at one end and I deal with what comes out at the other.
The day Alice was born it was raining heavily and I thought, good lass, she knows to come on a day when dad can’t get on with anything else anyway. And the night before, the pea viners happened to be in harvesting on the neighbouring farm, so I thought at least if the car breaks down there’s always a lorry heading to Dundee every hour.
The birth was the most surreal moment of my life and Morag was simply amazing, as were the midwives, and I must take this opportunity to thank them and all the staff at both Perth Royal Infirmary and Ninewells who looked after us all so well during pregnancy and birth. How fortunate we are to have the NHS.
Alice had her first trip to Perth yesterday to register her birth – I wasn’t in a hurry to do this as I thought I would let her grow a bit, the same way some farmers do with cattle to make them look big for their age. I thought this would give her an advantage at school sports day, competing in the P1 running race against five-year-olds when she’s actually eight. Luckily her mother is better at paperwork than me.
On the way back some of our neighbours met Alice for the first time – one old lady was particularly excited for us, dancing around like Rafiki, the old wise baboon in The Lion King.
On a similar theme – at last night’s sunset I took her to the highest point on the farm and held her above my head in front of all the livestock and said: “Alice, everything the light touches belongs to the bank.”
It got me thinking; there are six houses up our farm track and the last time there was a newborn baby in any was 42 years ago, and that was me.
For a few years after my father’s death six years ago it was only myself and Mum on the farm and things were very quiet, but last week as I balanced haymaking and nappy changes between socially-distant visits from relatives and friends, I thought there was a buzz about the place again and that’s all down to Alice.