Countryfile Catch up, Perth and Kinross on BBC 1

Countryfile

Perth and Kinross

There can't be many farms in Britain run by a family of sporting legends, but Matt Baker's on a sheep farm in Crieff to meet two brothers who were pretty much born to curl! The Muirhead family name is one of the most famous in the global game of curling. Their dad Gordon was a world champion and, with a string of Olympic accolades, their sister Eve is perhaps Scotland's most prestigious curler. Matt meets brothers Thomas and Glen Muirhead as they get ready for lambing on the family farm. But their minds are fixed on getting a very different type of delivery right... as part of Britain's curling team in 2018's Winter Olympics. We hear about the sporting dynasty and how Olympic training fits around farming, and we learn about the family dynamic between the brothers both on the rink and in the fields.\n\nIn another nod to traditional Scottish sports, Charlotte Smith heads into the forest of the Drummond Estate on a hunt for the perfect tree for caber tossing in the upcoming Highland Games. The programme uses some great archive from the 1930s and 40s to illustrate how so many traditional Scottish games use items from the land, such as stone, rope and wood. The caber is usually a Scottish larch, and it has to be bigger and better than the previous year's. We follow the tree's journey as it gets felled, carved and polished ready for this year's game. Finally, in the grounds of the Drummond Estate, Charlotte gets a one-on-one coaching session - albeit with a much smaller practice caber!\n\nAdam Henson is on a farm in Trewithick, Cornwall, where the mild climate has given one farm a huge helping hand. Steve and Ryan Johnson only started sheep farming a few years ago, but now they're rearing hundreds and lambing all year round. The milder climate means a longer growing season for grass, meaning a longer growing season for lambs. They've already lambed their Dorsets and their Lleyns. Adam helps out as they scan and get the maternity shed ready for their final lambers - their Highlanders.\n\nCharlotte Smith heads from the forest to the southern shores of Loch Tay. Here, behind the doors of an unassuming old schoolhouse, a 'Willy Wonka of the wilderness' creates magical tastes of the surrounding scenery. Charlotte Flowers came here 18 years ago. So inspired by her surroundings, Charlotte not only wanted to work in it - but with it. She started nibbling her way around the landscape, using it as her larder to make chocolates with natural flavours found on her doorstep. Charlotte (Smith) gets a flavour of the area while rowing out over the Loch and eating a few samples. There are flavours of the forest in the Scots pine choc, juniper from the hills that overlook the loch and wild mint from the borders. Can she taste the view with every chew?\n\nTom Heap is also in the Highlands of Scotland to find out why some people cull mountain hares and why others want the practice banned.

Source: BBC 1

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