SINCE I wrote to you last I've been on a five-day break to Scotland. It followed my knee operation, and thus far I haven't had time to visit a physiotherapist, which I should have done, and I haven't had a look at the exercises I'm supposed to do, either. Good patients, farmers.

My son broke his ankle badly last year taking his children ice skating. They offered him some oxygen in the ambulance, which he declined. The ambulance man said that to turn down the offer of relief meant he was either a rugby player or a farmer. Right, on both counts.

I remember many years ago we played in a particularly dirty rugby cup final.

The star of our team was a diminutive fly half (a farmer) who was treated to some very nasty late tackles and some cruel stamping. The situation was made worse because the official referee hadn't turned up and, in the host club's words: "One of our committee men has offered to do it."

The next day our star player was passing a lot of blood in his urine and had to go to hospital for a check-up. I saw him in the pub that weekend and asked him how had got on.

"They say I'm not to go drinking for a fortnight." "So what are you doing here?" "They didn't say when the fortnight was to start."

So I went on holiday and drove nearly 1,000 miles. I wouldn't let one of the others drive – it's bad enough having a bad knee, I don't need my nerves shot away as well.

My first holiday purchase was a walking stick in a charity shop that cost me £2.60 – I think crutches are a bit over the top.

Most of us have the occasional "close one" as we drive about our lives. Some of my scary moments are on roundabouts – my daughter reckons if I had to take my test again, I would fail it on a roundabout. But roundabouts, especially at rush hour, morning and evening, are a no-man's-land of risk and bad driving.

All of my other scary moments seem to be related to looking over hedges and into fields instead of watching the road. This is most farmers' favourite occupation. The reason so many farmers have four-wheel drive vehicles is not because they drive them about fields, it's because the elevated driving position allows them to look over roadside hedges.

So what did I see on my journey? I saw ragwort, lots and lots of ragwort, fields and fields of it. It's what you call an injurious weed. Stock will disregard it unless it is cut and allowed to wilt, then they will eat it with relish, with fatal consequences. There was a time when you hardly ever saw ragwort; councils would assiduously pluck it from roadside verges, and farmers would do the same. Now it seems about to take over the world, it seems to have safe haven in pony paddocks. But it's not all bad news.

After ragwort, the plant that was next in most abundance was white clover. This is good. It is good grazing and fodder for livestock.

A friend of mine once asked an organic farmer how he managed to get so much white clover in to his grassland. "As soon as you discard the fertiliser bag, it just turns up."

Not only does clover provide good herbage, it sucks up nitrogen out of the atmosphere and fixes it in the soil for other plants. It does it greedily, like an annoying child sucks the last dregs out of a glass with a straw.

I've never spent more money on fertiliser than I have this year. In terms of tons, I've never used less. It's all about cost – the cost has not only gone through the roof, it's gone into orbit.

People pontificate about the concept of organic farming, but there is nothing that will drive that concept more than money.

So people have discarded the fertiliser bag, we won't use anymore this year, and the white clover is there for us all to see.

I RECEIVED a letter in April inviting me to speak at the Wedmore Harvest Home lunch. I wrote a letter to decline, read the invitation again and changed my mind.

It seemed like such a good to do and I'd never been to a harvest home, anyway. Good decision, I've never seen such a well-organised function and certainly never on such a scale.

It was and is all about tradition and preserving that tradition. They have had 80 years of harvest homes at Wedmore, a time when employers say thank you to farm workers for gathering in the harvest.

The event was last week, the harvest is nowhere near gathered in, I don't expect there were many farmers there and probably even fewer farm workers, but there were a great host of country people there supporting a country tradition and all credit and good luck to them.

I took a driver with me which was a smart move, so I was able to linger while in the bar area.

We set off for home at around five o'clock I reckon if we'd stayed another 10 minutes we'd have still been there the next morning. I don't know that area of Somerset very well, it's just one more area that you speed through on the motorway. The only features that really catch the eye are the camel and what I assume to be a "rush man".

When the children were small and we went to Devon and Cornwall for holidays we used to keep them interested for miles by saying "there's a camel in field just up here" – it only worked a couple of times.

There were approaches to me at the lunch about speaking at a young farmer's 75th anniversary dinner some time.

I didn't say yes, I didn't say no. It certainly isn't easy saying no to a nice young mum.