Chris Galley

On a number of fronts it has been a strange few days. Yesterday I was in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (BRS) constituency, which is just over the border from me in Scotland. Currently held by the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative candidate John Lamont is hoping to win the seat, and there’s certainly a lot going [...]

Today I’ve been campaigning for Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who is standing as the Conservative candidate against Sir Alan Beith in Berwick upon Tweed. This is (like Hexham) a massive constituency, it takes multiple hours to get from one corner to the other. My canvasss and leaflet round was based on the left hand side of the [...]

Here’s is today gratuitous shadow minister shot, Jim Paice, shadow Minister of Agriculture.  This came at Darlington Station at the end of a long, long day of driving, from Berwick down to the North Riding of Yorkshire, and quite a few points in between. There were 4 farms involved, all very different from each other. The [...]

By popular request (well one person has asked me), here is a sheep picture. Knowing about the general election likely timings, I sent the tups (rams) in a few weeks early, to get the lambing out of the way. This is my main Zwartbles tup, Poseidon. Quite a hefty character. One down side of early lambing [...]

The phrase “politics of the gutter” is a popular one, it was most recently deployed over the Damian McBride affair (though I personally thought it was closer to the sewer). Here’s my spin on it. This photo is of my next door neighbour (4 miles away!), Dougie, at my farm:
His father used to be one [...]

Today I’ve been to Lanercost, Brampton, Warwick Bridge, Shap, Penrith, Newby and Great Salkeld - all in one day. And also Great Strickland, where a herd of 100 dairy cows gets walked through the middle of the village twice daily for milking. The farmer considered himself lucky that he also had sheep - they are currently keeping him [...]

A trip out to the hills, and here are the photos. This one with Rupert is from Kirkstone Pass. I don’t think it is possible to exaggerate the beauty of Lake District, and this is one of the many amazing views.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And this is me in Patterdale with a friendly pony:

The day after the night before.
Today I had to do some “real” work for a change, so I lugged my laptop from Kelso, Langholm and then on to Longtown, meeting suppliers and their agents. This gave me the chance to go down the A7, a really beautiful stretch of road through the Scottish and then [...]

This is the time to top the fields.
A lot of my land is subject to infestation by rushes, and yes that’s the correct term for it. Rushes, reeds and tussocks can be bad news since over time they will take over a field and reduce grazing options for the sheep. And if there were no [...]

A fantastic day for the Westmorland County Agricultural Show. This is the 21oth show, the society dates back to 1799, and even though the county exists no more, the County Show goes on in rude health.
I like this show since it can be seen as either a big small show, or a small big show. [...]

This was the day the falcons came to visit the farm, bringing with them Nick Fox and his merry troop of riders. Here I am with Rainbow, an 8 year old falcon (i.e. a female, males are called tercels since they are a third smaller than females).
There wasn’t much of a haul – the crows obviously found somewhere else [...]

Last day of August. Yikes! This is a bonus day, I was supposed to be playing rugby today, but other things got in the way. Instead I got even more exhausted dealing with my rams.
Somehow I’ve got 11 rams at the moment. That’s an outrageous number, 2 is generally considered greedy. OK some of them [...]

The last few days have been hectic. On the downside, Border Park has unfortunately had to cancel its Tens competition, scheduled for Monday. Try as hard as we might it was impossible to get enough teams to enter. The overwhelming reason given (to me at least) was that with most clubs having their first game [...]