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I TOOK a short break with the family recently and we headed westwards to Devon. Having been raised in a semi-rural part of Ayrshire, I feel entirely comfortable living in the countryside. Carolyn? Not so much, to be honest. She’s a city girl through and through and the country air does frizz-related things to her hair. Also she has a hate-hate relationship with things that scuttle.

The boys loved it, of course. We were never far from a field of cows and we spent many a night watching the bats dive and twirl outside the lodge during twilight.

But I was a bit worried, I confess, when we visited a farm and Ronnie (aged six) asked the farmer to confirm that pigs were the source of his favourite food, namely sausages. Would he get all sentimental about the animals and start refusing to eat them after he saw the handsome creatures snuffling in their sty and had given them a good scratch on their bellies?

The next question seemed to confirm my fears: “Do you have to kill the pig to make sausages?” The farmer gave an honest answer. Ronnie seemed to mull this over as we watched the pigs stretch out on the grass.

Turns out I needn’t have worried. “Thank you for giving us sausages, pigs!” shouted Ronnie cheerfully as we walked into the farmhouse cafe. What would you like for lunch, his mum asked him. “A roll on sausage, please,” he answered casually.

I was actually very proud of him: a very healthy and mature attitude for a six-year-old to have. Go on, son, have another sausage – freshly slaughtered this morning…