What a whopper!

It’s grey but dry. Fine weather for tattie howking. But first a trip to Peebles for emergency supplies and some artisan “sausage” rolls (falafel and chickpea, bacon and cheese and chilli).

Kerry and I start on the first bed of tatties. Nick shows up almost immediately - having just collected another 10kg of ceps. Soon, all three of us are filling sacks with yellow, red, purple and mottled tubers: Sunset, Setanta, Gypsy pink, Record, Nicola, Charlotte, Alan Roman’s Athlete, Pink Fir Apple, Maris Peer. They are laid out to dry in the sauna (extra), but there’s not enough space for all of them - the remaining sack will have to wait.

I roast a tenderloin of pork, a huge slab of crackling, and some of today’s potato harvest. We make apple sauce from windfall apples and steam some sweetheart cabbage, generously donated by Helen. And then it’s movie time - the very disappointing Scottish Mussel.