Mrs Down's Diary

FIRST there were the floods affecting farmers' crops and stock, then foot and mouth outbreaks because of negligence at a Government laboratory.

Add in bluetongue from some adventurous little midges that had wafted across the Channel and then bird flu. Whatever else can go wrong?

Perhaps something that affects horses, cats and dogs. Not many other domesticated animals left to worry about.

My own very personal experience of farmers and farming is that it is, on the whole, a fairly phlegmatic industry.

Its spokespeople may rave and rant to the press but individual farmers just shake their heads and get on with it.

One thing that is puzzling me about this latest outbreak of bird flu, however, is that it is being blamed on migrating birds.

I am not a scientist/biologist, but I thought that migrating birds were coming to Britain from northerly climes at this time of year and that our birds were migrating south.

Bird flu as I understood it was in Europe, and as a fragile virus. It was not in any of the birds that are migrating to us from the north. Have I got it wrong?

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette November 28