Making hay while the sun shines in Bohemia

THE scent of mown hay, kicked up after we emerge from the dappled woods and cross the baking fields to reach my son’s workshop in a huge and ancient barn deep in the Czech Republic countryside, brings back memories, as if the nose can remember the sweet smells of long ago.

Not that haymaking is entirely a thing of the past in Ireland, but here, in South Bohemia, thousands of hectares are given over to meadows and the scent is in the air on these days of burning sun.

As we walk, big birds of prey glide in the sky above us. The scene ahead might be medieval Europe. The barns are the same. Beneath a huge tree with red and yellow cherries shining in the foliage, six or eight pure white goats wander free, the kids on the move, the two nannies, udders milk-full, chewing the cud in the shade.