Highland Cowes On Holiday

Sorry for the appalling play on words but it just had to be done as I was not expecting to come across these beasts on the Isle of Wight. Mind you, I shouldn't have been that surprised given the chilly wind that blew most of the day and hid the fact that the sun was blazing overhead. It reminded me of days as a boy playing in the sun and not realising that I was slowly cooking as the cold breeze off the River Clyde killed any chance of heat.

Anyway, we came across the Highland cattle at The Garlic Farm near where we are staying, having just enjoyed a fantastic coffee plus humungous slice of Victoria Sponge cake. I never did find out why they are on the farm but did discover that, although they specialise in garlic crops, they also grow others as they have a seven year crop rotation for using fields to grow garlic due to the extent to which garlic takes the goodness out of the soil. Consequently, I am not sure whether these are kept as livestock or an additional tourist attraction: there certainly weren't enough in this field to make much of a business from them.