MADAM, I've tried all the ways to make farming pay, diversification it's called; Breakfast (with bed), and tried roadside veg, it's nearly making me bald.

Pick-your-own made me groan, the fruit went to waste, the girls in their shorts were a wow! But that didn't work, they were chased and not chaste, and a baby farm? No - not just now.

I opened a farm park with animals rare, most of them stuck in big cages; no wonder they're rare - a chap I employed took all the takings for wages.

The owls were big nerds - magnificent birds, blended quite well with the bark, they'd sit on their perches asleep all the day, and only wake up after dark.

The vampires would tweet, they weren't very sweet, and we ended up feeling like wrecks; although they're nocturnal, if visitors stayed, the bats had a feast off their necks.

Miniature goats were loved by the kids, really sweet they were quite heaven-sent, but the pythons and boas took some feeding for sure, I think that's where most the kids went.

Ostriches, lions, tigers with rigors, buffaloes, stick insects, apes; some were so small they were no good at all, they came in all different shapes.

High fences and feeding and meeting strange folk, saying my piece like an actor, it's no way to live for a man of the land; I'm a farmer - I'll stay with my tractor.

TERENCE HUTCHINS

Thruxton,

Hereford.