Home!!

Monday December 7th. I am writing my final blog of my New Zealand/Australia experience as we fly from Dubai to London. We have been away from home for six weeks (rain everyday in Wales from what we understand) and are eager to be reunited with family and friends. It has been an incredible journey that I have been fortunate enough to share with Sheila, which will enable us to recount our experiences in the years to come. We have enjoyed generous hospitality, openness with regard to farming practices and an appreciation of the differing challenges and opportunities that face farmers on the other side of the world.

I have approached this journey, and ‘study’, with a commitment to learning best practice in an animal welfare context, within the pastoral systems of Australasia. I now have the challenge of deciphering and trawling through the notes, recorded interviews, and literature collected along the way. Animal welfare throughout the world is a continual journey of incremental improvement, and I have come across some great navigators during the last few weeks.

I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog as much as I have enjoyed writing and reflecting on each day. I am aware that my mother has been an avid reader (as you would expect) and also Moss Jones of FAWL, who sent me a rather derogatory e mail regarding my white and spindly legs! Other than that, well who knows……

I have numerous meetings this week associated with some of my off farm commitments. I hope that the expected ‘jet lag’ will not limit my reintroduction into the interesting, but sometimes robust world of Welsh agri politics!

Diolch yn fawr.
Huw.