Sarah finds warmth on ice - and plenty of competition! - at the annual farmer's curling competition at Perth's Dewar Centre.

160 people from all over Scotland take part in the Chuck Hay Memorial Bonspiel, in teams of 4, over three days in January.

There is camaraderie and connection - which is especially important in the bleak dark month of January, when isolation can feel particularly pronounced.

In this episode:

1. event organisers and brothers Sandy and Dave Hay tell Sarah what the event is all about, and pay tribute to their father, Chuck Hay, a former curling world champion
2. sheep farmers Glen and Thomas Muirhead - brothers of Eve Muirhead - stop by to share thoughts on the competition
3. Farmstrong's own Alix Ritchie shares thoughts on why events like this are great for social connection and wellbeing

If listening to this episode has made you want to check out curling, please visit Scottish Curling's "Try Curling" website. It has info on all the ice rink venues across Scotland where there are organised taster sessions with qualified coaches. The sessions are open to anyone who wants to give it a go. You simply enter your postcode / location to get a list of times and venues. Link here:

Sandy Hay is a trustee for RSABI - whose 24-hour helpline (below) is available to anyone in Scottish agriculture, and who offer practical, emotional and financial support: https://www.rsabi.org.uk/

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Farmstrong Scotland helps farmers, crofters and their families cope with the ups and downs of rural life by sharing practical ways to look after themselves and the people around them. It’s a peer-to-peer programme, shaped by scientific insight and real-life stories, so together we can share, learn and support each other’s wellbeing.

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Hello and welcome to Blether Together from Farmstrong, Scotland.

It is a cold dreech January day and where else would I be recording this from than Duris Centre in Perth.

It's an ice rink.

We're here at the Chuck Hay Memorial Bonspiel.

Bonspiel, I hear you ask.

It's basically a curling competition.

I'm Sarah.

Stephen and joining me today are none other than Dave, Melissa and Sandy hay.

We've got 160 plus farmers in the room.

They're all here for a bit of a natter and of course for a curling competition.

We'll be speaking to some of the competitors later on.

But first here's Sandy and Dave.

You've got two rinks playing against each other.

Team of four each.

There's eight stones to play.

From each team you play two stones alternately with your opposition until all 16 stones are played.

In an end simply, it's the most number of stones closest to the centre of what we call the house or the target at the opposite end.

And end up is one way and then down is the other way.

Okay.

And Dave, just because you've done what you've done, what makes a good curler?

I think somebody who's physically fit and able to move around.

Well, curdling is a game of touch and skill.

You slide the stone down the ice, you rotate it clockwise, you let it go, it should move from left to right and then from out turn it or the anti clockwise leverage, it goes from right to left.

Today we've got curlers here of the age of 20, up over 80.

You know, that's a huge broad spectrum of age and well being in terms of their state of fitness and whatever as well.

So it accommodates everybody.

There's men's teams, ladies teams, mixed teams here.

Very diverse as well.

I mean Scotland is so associated with curling, isn't it?

I mean obviously it's like the home.

Of curling and especially here in Perth.

Perth itself was for the first world championship were ever held for curling.

We've had worlds, we had Europeans, we had world junior events here.

And we've got the world curling have their world headquarters here.

It's one of the only winter sports as Norton Lausanne in Switzerland.

There's a huge amount of history behind the sport here.

We're doing everything we can as a family and as individuals to try and keep.

There's many other people as well working to keep this sport profile high.

We have 70 kids here on a Tuesday afternoon and a Thursday afternoon.

All been taught by volunteers for One reason they all aspire to be the next Eve Muirhead or Bruce Mowatt.

And Eve Muirhead being a farmer's daughter from Perth and her profile is as high as it can possibly get.

She's the chef de mission.

But she has put so much back into the game.

She started the Yves Muirhead Curling Academy to help and promote and act as a role model for the aspiring next generation.

Coming through.

She's brilliant at it.

That's why we would like to have that based here in Perth with our own young kids that can help grow the sport and become the next Olympians.

After the Olympics, there will be a fortnight of you can't get people out of ice rinks for the next two weeks.

And Scottish Curling, the organisation that manages curling in Scotland, will try and cash in on that.

They'll have a tri curling session in most ice rinks around Scotland to make sure they're cashing in on that.

It's a pretty easy sport to take part in.

We could probably take a group of people on the ice yourselves.

If you haven't played before, we could have you throwing a stone within half an hour into the other end of the house, as it's called.

And you get the buzz for it.

Pretty quickly and just, you know, listening to everyone behind us and the hollers and the shouts and the obviously all the teams, you know, taking it fairly seriously, which is a good thing.

You know, what is today in a.

Nutshell, all about social interaction of like minded people.

Basically.

They get a chance to play sport, they're here for two days, guaranteed.

Those who qualify for the semis and finals on Friday will have three days at it.

But, you know, farming is tough just now.

Things aren't that easy.

A lot of farmers working on their own and from our point of view as a sport, it's good to get people out of their farmyards, out of their houses.

An opportunity to get together.

The previous competition, the Yara, went on for over 40 years and people got used to this getting together, as I say, like minded people.

Keenan cuddling.

But there's a social side to this as well.

This is not the World championship, a very mixed standard.

We want young and old and we call it the Thornton's Chuckhave Farmers Bonspiel.

And it is the old traditional bonspiel type, but they try like hella nice.

And after the game is over, they can have a social side to it as well.

We got 40 teams here this week.

That'll be the biggest curling event in Scotland this year.

In terms of the number of people.

So 160 people are playing here over fully two days, three days if you're lucky and you happen to get to the finals.

But it is a social culling event.

Yes, you can hear the competitive nature behind them, but it stops as soon as they come off the ice.

They're upstairs, they're having a drink, they're having a chat.

We make it a shorter version of the game.

There's only six ends.

We play in it normally, eight ends.

We want to play it quite compact, quite quick, so we spend more time up there having a social chat and whatever else.

Some of the teams here will play every week in ice rinks all around Scotland.

Other teams here will play three or four times a year.

And that's the fun of it.

You get a mix of all these.

People together as two farmers surrounded by farmers, you know, in the rink.

What do you think they get out of it?

I mean, obviously you mentioned the social thing, but, you know, really, how do people really benefit from something like this?

They probably never admit it's their health and well being, but it literally is.

A lot of these people will look forward to this event every year.

It was run before as Norsk Hydro and Yara Fertilizers ran this event with the help of Alan Woody, who is our main man up there.

He ran it for probably all 40 years he had it there.

They had 80 teams in it and people, they invited these teams here.

Unfortunately, with us running, they pay a little bit to enter it.

They invited the teams here and people were just about killing each other to get an entry into the Yara Fertilizers.

When that stopped three years ago, we decided in memory of our father, who passed away a couple of years before that.

But one, we wanted to keep the thing going.

We had a cohort of people who desperately wanted to carry on curling.

Didn't matter if they had to pay a little bit to come along to it, they still wanted to come to it.

So we had a bit of an open door.

So we just thought, we'll make it in the memory of our father.

It's a continuation of something that's gone on for a long time.

They like it, we like it.

I think it's good for them.

I mean, let's focus a little bit on your dad.

What type of man was he as a curler?

He was fiercely competitive.

He was the first guy to win the world championship in Europe, to bring it back to here away from Canada.

My father's motto.

Everything he did, whether it was farming or whether it was rugby, golf, Carling, whatever he was doing was play hard, play incredibly hard to win.

But afterwards it was so important to see the social interaction.

A problem shares a problem half.

And people who are working out in the farm zone think this is the world is coming to an end.

They come here and find natural facts exactly the same from the guys in the Borders or in central Perth or up in Aberdeenshire, wherever it happens to be.

So father was always an enthusiast and always liked to encourage the young.

He never had any tolerance for, sorry, you can't play, you're too young to play in this event or you can't do this kind of.

It's open to everybody.

And that's the way he acted through life and through sport.

Are we getting better at talking about, well, being in the farming community?

I think probably we are, especially in the younger generation.

I think it's more of a.

Is it something you're conscious of your own health and well being?

Yeah, well, I was a little bit different because I coached the Olympic teams through the Vancouver Olympic Games and through Sochi.

So you worked a lot with sports psychologists and professionals and now you can analyze.

It's about sitting down.

You know, you have this thing in your mind.

What do you call pressure, for example?

Pressure is a perception.

So I'm under so much pressure.

Are you really?

There's a whole lot of just realigning your mindset.

And we used Dr. Steve Peters during that time with the chimp model.

And now everybody has a chimp in their head.

That's how they react.

Sir Chris Hoy has the same psychologist.

So it was the model that he used is the one that we adapted.

There's a number of different sporting models you can use and it's just being able to see things differently because you have this perception, this tunnel mind of you.

Oh, this is a disaster.

This is not working.

This is not going well.

Not really.

It's just a challenge.

It's not a disaster, it's just a challenge how your mind can work differently on that.

Can I ask this, forgive me, is that something that you would think about every day?

I mean, do you carry that sort of like information, that knowledge with you?

Are you always conscious of it?

Yeah, for me personally, absolutely, because I've been forced off to be involved in that side as well as running firms.

So I have nine farming clients, we've got five or six staff working on the farm with us.

My son and I work together on that.

So I think it's a huge crossover.

And the model we used during the Olympic Games was one that's now gone to Harvard, has gone to Yale, and they use that for business now, so it is transferable.

So for most sports, the main part of the psychology is probably 80% the same, the last 20% sports Pacific and the same in business.

You can flip that in how you treat people, how you manage your business, how you react when something goes wrong.

It says a lot to your character and it passes on to your staff as well or teammates.

I think at this level though, Dave, it's very much the simple part of it is you need people to come together to talk to each other.

You mentioned sharing a problem.

If you an old Crocodile Dundee, the problem is going to don't tell your mates in the pub what's wrong with you.

And then you've just solved your problem.

Yeah, tell Wally and you've solved your problem.

Well, it is a bit like that here.

Wally gets to mention every single podcast.

He's a key man.

I think it must be a farmer's favorite movie.

Give me Sandy.

Carry on.

Wally is a psychologist, but it is.

You need people to come together to talk about things.

They won't necessarily share their problems immediately at all, but they will with long term friends and colleagues and whatever else.

And most of the problems are similar anyway because they're all in the same industry.

They're all usually facing the same issues, weather and whatever else.

So if they talk about it to each other, then it dissipates a little bit.

And obviously with the likes of the physical activity, the sporting activity, you've got a big wide range of people here.

You don't have to be between 25 and 35 to play curling.

You've got a huge range so you can bring in a whole range of people and that's people with experience, people with inexperienced, and you mix all them together.

I think that's where they're probably not thinking, I'm going to curling tonight because it'll help my well being, but it's a consequence of doing that.

Now that's whether it's curling or they play a game of golf or they go to bowls or whatever else.

But it's about getting people together even if they don't play sport, if they even just go to market once a week or whatever else.

But that's becoming more challenging now because there's less incidents of going to the market because they sell their stock direct or something like that.

Where nowadays we're kind of feeling the likes of this is important.

We could quite easily stop this, but if you stop it, you'll never start it again.

You need to keep the momentum going.

Even if the numbers dropped a little, we'll still carry on doing.

I mean, you spoke about your dad and the character that he had and I'm wondering, are you two good at sharing?

I mean, are you close brothers?

No, we're not quite.

We get closer towards Christmas time.

You know, this is about as close as we ever get.

No, I mean, we are and we are.

We sadly just lost our mother this year in May time in June time this year.

And, you know, that brings you closer together to a certain extent as well.

And that kind of embeds the reason for doing a lot of these things is, you know, our dad spent a huge amount of time volunteering and giving to other people.

He was a farmer, but he spent most of his life in the ice rink.

Not this one, the old one in Perth.

He spent most of his life as the ice rink manager pretty well voluntarily most of the time.

He ran most of the events in here, not because of any other reason.

And he just wanted to.

He just felt it was important to do that.

So I spoke.

Sorry.

Forgive me, Sandy.

A hard act to follow.

Yeah, it was not even worth trying to follow.

Dave and another brother, Mike, probably had much more act to follow in terms of curling prowess and whatever else.

I would say I was probably a better golfer than you guys.

But then our dad was a really good golfer as well.

But he was a typical farmer in the old days.

He had men working at home on the farm.

He had ability to have time off the farm to do that, although he still was very attached to it.

But he played a lot of sport, but he organised a lot of things.

He was very much important about getting involved with things.

So he was maybe well before his time in terms of well being, but he would see that it was actually good for people's.

We never talked about mental health in those days, but mental health and wellbeing was dealt with by just speaking to people and coming together.

He was very, very sociable, you know, and I think the health and well being was always deemed to be a fitness thing.

It's nothing you do that.

It's your overall mindset and how you behave.

And he was very, very good to us as kids.

We were two of four boys, there was four in the family, so he'd already made curling team.

We played together once.

That was about.

That was the ones.

It was great because we won the event and we never Played together again because we were on the knife edge.

Edge and spirit, wasn't it?

We played against each other a lot.

Yeah, father was very, very competitive every day to me, nothing.

And you know, he said you get the biggest drug in life is winning and if you can win and win it with a bit of sportsmanship, etc.

He was very always emphasized that.

But he did a lot for world curling and on the international stage as well.

So his life was based on hard work, but sport was number one to him.

I mean, we've spoken a lot about your dad and I'd like to focus a little bit on each of you individually.

Oh no, you're both going, oh, don'.

Do that.

Don't ask me hard questions.

But I'd love to know, you know, obviously fathers, children, working alongside your son, just how, you know, what do you do?

I mean, how are you approaching well being?

I mean, do you have habits that you do on daily basis?

How do you approach it?

My wife would probably say not very well because I'm getting on an age group.

My son runs the business.

Basically we have a contract farming business.

So we have 3, 33 farms in total that we operate over.

We grow a lot of cereals, we look after potatoes, we look after carrot land, turnip land, all that sort of thing.

So it's a big farming, farming business.

But there was one thing that my father would bring back to him for a minute and it's stuck with me ever since.

The one thing that's not acceptable is the I bean mentality.

Why are you growing spring barley?

I've always grown spring barley.

Why are you fattening cattle?

Always fattening cattle.

That's not a reason to do these type of things.

So we were always brought up with slightly, I would say broader minded or nothing was set in stone.

I think that's a huge knock on from the sport to farming all the way through.

It's a lot to live up to, isn't it?

The way he was.

And do you always have that in your head?

Is it a lot to live up to?

He was inspirational for me personally.

I always had him as our main role model in life.

If you could do it and try and do it better than dad so you could prove that you could do something that he didn't do.

And for me that was a big, big relief because we won the Europeans and junior stuff before that.

But to win the Worlds meant well, dad, we're on the same platform as you now, so you can't lecture us on how it should be done.

But it was all in general and all good fun, but it was a competitive side to everything.

What about your mum?

I mean, living with a man who was very driven.

I mean, what sort of.

What sort of lady was she?

She was pretty independent.

Yeah.

She held it all together, to be honest, because he was away a lot.

Curling or organizing curling or being involved in it.

And probably her worst nightmare, being left at home with four boys.

When we got to a certain age, we probably managed to manage each other as opposed to anything else.

But, you know, she was actually the backbone behind a huge amount of it to allow him to go away.

He had the confidence to go away knowing she could run this, run the ship at home.

And she did it.

She did it very well.

So, no, she.

And she was a good curler on her own.

Right.

She curled a lot all her years, really.

Only taking up when she married my father, really.

You know, Sandy, you know, you know, sharing and caring and, you know, talk about Wally and things like that.

The next generation.

Are you good with the next generation coming through and sort of bringing out, you know, they're much more open, aren't they?

Yeah.

I suppose it's better to take a step back and talk about our own succession planning.

There's four of us and three of us are in a row, you know, February, May and May was the three years in the trot when we were.

So there's not a lot of distance between us.

My dad was at home now and again, my younger brother's four years younger than I am and obviously six beyond David.

But David's talking about succession planning before.

David's the only farmer in the family and, you know, we had a reasonable sized farm at home, but dad decided it would be in our mid-20s, that David wasn't going to be the only farmer.

But it was pretty clear by that time that David was farming.

Mike had gone away to do other things.

I joined the bank.

So I ended up being an agricultural banker for all my life.

And my youngest brother was involved in computing and computer software.

And he just said at that time, right, we're all going in, we're all going to discuss this.

And we all sat down and it was basically all divvied up at that point of how it was going to be in his own mind.

Now that could have been quite tough for the other three of us because somebody else is.

Was it?

I think it probably was at the time, but he was Quite.

I wouldn't say a forceful man, but he was quite a clear man.

Actually, very quickly after that, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to us because Mike ended up.

Well, he ended up leading the British Olympic team for 14, 15 years, had a fantastic career and did really well.

I did okay in the bank and had a great, enjoyable time in there.

We're both now retired.

Dave's still working and he's the eldest and my youngest brother's actually retired as well.

So it's incredible how the three of us have all found our own way and through succession planning was what you would probably alluding to earlier on, but getting that clear clarity about what you're doing.

And he didn't just say, we're doing this, he said, I'm doing this now because it's important that you know where things will go in the future.

So anything you get now, you can steer in that right direction in the future.

It wasn't a case of, no, you can't farm, it's just this was the best thing for all of us to do.

We're actually our own defined patterns by that time anyway.

But it was clear they wanted to make it absolutely clear at the time that this is what was going to happen.

He's obsessed by the fact he won this done when we were young and before any of us were married.

So I think it was probably the very, very early 20s, late teens, that it was all planned out and there was agreement made there'd be a sum of money available to the boys to build a house or educate their kids or set up in business.

He wanted.

He saw no point at all in MD getting an inheritance with their 50s and 60s, said, you're trending back down again by that stage, I think even alive today.

And you can see a lot of these farming issues around the country.

It would have helped hugely.

I've spoken at a few farming meetings and dinners over the years.

I think that was one of our greatest assets in the family.

He had this vision to do this.

I mean, I went through 35 years of banking career only lending.

I've seen a lot of situations lending money to farmers.

I've seen it done really well, not that often.

I've seen it done really badly and I've seen it not done at all.

And he was maybe, you could maybe say a man before his time in terms of what he did.

He probably wasn't.

He'd probably seen it himself just by other people.

That was a disaster.

He should never have left his two sons to never write a cheque before they were 65.

That would have been hopeless.

Dave was farming when he was 21.

It's nuts to hold the younger generation back.

Their best years of their mid-20s to mid-40s.

Let them have a go, let them do the business.

If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.

There's no point waiting till it's too late.

So go early is what I would say in everything that we do and is, you know, go by your gut instinct as well.

You're never that far on.

It's like playing a sport.

Your first thought is usually the best thought.

After that, you confuse yourself.

Business is exactly the same.

I've made a lot of mistakes over the years in business, but hopefully we made enough decisions.

We've got more right than wrong.

And I think that's the whole point of being positive and being driven and going forward all the time.

Okay, so finally, just because you're both here and I have to ask it.

Who'S the better curler now or in the past?

David would definitely be the better curler in the past and he's got all the records to show for it.

But I wouldn't give up that title too quickly.

I think Sandy was a rugby player.

He was the best rugby player and the best golfer in the family.

But Mike and I maybe had the edge on curling.

My body now is starting to show a bit of creaks and groans and arthritis in the knees and lingering stuff.

Dale calls I'm hearing here.

But I'll still take any of them on for a one off game.

You've spoken so highly about your dad and the legacy that he's left and what he achieved and the formidable man that he obviously was.

But I have no doubt, speaking to you both today, that he would be very proud of what you have both achieved independently and your approach and attitude to life.

So well done and thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.

It's been a noisy one.

The only thing we're missing rinkside is the glue vine and the sheepskin rugs.

But it's getting a bit cold.

We're going upstairs for that.

Thank you both very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name's Glenn Muirhead and I'm a.

Competitive curler and sheep farmer from Krief.

I'm Thomas Muirhead.

I've run a sheep enterprise at Crieff.

We both farm together.

Basically.

I think it's important that folk in the agricultural industry stay connected with each other and take part in These events, you know, it's great to have these weekends where you can take some time away from your job and meet up with friends and have a good time.

You know, it's taking part in a sport and it's competitive at the same time.

So like us on the farm, you know, you go long spells a time when you're.

When you don't really see anybody.

You know, I might only have my brother to communicate with on a regular basis, so it's good to go and meet other folk and yeah, I think it's.

An event like this is going to play a large part in the future.

I think just trying to get folk together and becoming a wee bit more social.

Social life in rural communities has probably slipped massively in the recent years.

And I think it's events like this that might actually bring folk back together.

Well, by the state of the bar, it's obviously thirsty work.

So I'm holding you back from a cup of tea.

Is that right, boys?

Exactly.

That's exactly.

Well, you go and get.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to you.

I've not been allowed to warm up yet because I'm still rinkside and I'm alongside Alex Ritchie from Farm Strong Scotland.

Thank you very much for joining us.

How are you today?

I'm very well, thank you.

Also rinkside, so a bit chilly.

But I know there's lots of.

Lots of, you know, chatter behind us, a few yelps and a few hollers and stuff like that, but it seems everyone's having a good time.

Yeah, it's just amazing to see this many farmers and crofters off the farm in January together, having a laugh, getting a bit competitive, as you're probably hear, and just connecting with each other and having a good time.

I mean, we talk a lot on Farm Strong Scotland and the Blether Together podcast about people getting off the farm.

And you mentioned it there at this time of year, it's that sort of like long month of January as we head into a new year.

Is it more important even at this time of year for people to get together?

Yeah, I think lots of farmers and crofters have spoken to us about the difficulty this time of year.

Darker nights, shorter days, trying to get a lot of work done, and I think just this opportunity to get out and do something a bit different.

Yeah, you can see for the people here that they're having a good laugh.

Have you curled before?

Yes, I learned to curl here in Perth.

We went through a development program over six weeks with a group of friends.

Once we Finish our farmers so I can curl, but I don't regularly.

But being back here I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe.

I've been offered to join three clubs already today.

I thought you were about to tell me you sort of got down to the Scotland squad or something like that.

Development, that sounds very.

No, no, development as in learn to curl.

Very basic level.

It is a great sport and I know, you know, a team sport when people get together.

Sometimes getting together in a team's, you know, a nice way to do it, isn't it?

Because you're not alone and that's a sort of, you know, getting away from that solitary element of farming sometimes.

Yeah, I think that social well being aspect so important.

I think it's often the one that's neglected.

We often talk about physical well being and mental well being, but that social well being is so important and the surveys that we do, they highlight that people are lonely and they feel isolated on farms.

So an opportunity to get together in particular a team sport where often some of these teams will be playing all year.

So all through the winter season they'll be curling together.

So they're building that bond and yeah, they can check in on how they're doing and yeah, just have a laugh.

I think that's really important just to get off farm and have a bit crack anecdotally.

What do people tell you about the benefits of Farmstrong Scotland?

Yeah, so our research that we did last year, we've just gone through the data at the moment and what we've found is that people who've engaged with Armstrong, it's improved their well being generally, but particularly in things like taking notice of the small things, catching up with friends, prioritizing their own well being, it's just that pausing and thinking.

So we often think about the well being of our animals and we think about the tractors and the soil.

But the one thing as farmers and croftians that we often neglect is our own well being.

Someone's getting very excited about it.

They're quite heated over there, aren't they?

I hope, I hope they're winning.

Are there a few bad losers out there?

There could be.

We might see that side of things in a wee while.

But yeah, I think it's just that getting together, getting off farm and thinking about the five ways to well being.

And that's kind of the foundations of what we do at Farmstrong.

So be active, connect, give, learn and take notice these five things and you can adapt that to whatever suits you best.

But I think if you can integrate that into your daily life.

Once a week, once a month, whatever it is.

Just making these small changes can have a big difference.

Traveling around the country as we do with the Farmstrom Roadshow, you know, it does apply to every age and stage, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

And it can change.

Like, the way I connect might be different to someone of a different generation, but I think it's about finding what works for you and really prioritising that and locking it in.

I've decided to warm up and come where the real action is happening.

The bar.

Let's see who we can find to chat to.

Hi, I'm Beth Farmer, I'm a shepherdess and I'm here competing in the Chukay curling competition in pair.

How competitive are you?

Very competitive, to be fair.

It seems that there's competition on the rink, but, you know, a great sort of sense of community and a lot of chatter off the rink.

Yeah, I think that makes curling what it is.

I think you've got to appreciate that on ice is totally separate to upstairs when you're having a drink and having a crack with the rest of them.

And that's why we come in curl, you know, so you can get a bit crack at the end.

Well, thinking about your profession, you know, how often do you get to step away from that job and get to do things like this?

I'm quite lucky, to be fair.

My boss is very flexible and we try and work it together that he knows when I started the job that I was a curler and they've been really good to me throughout my years there.

And we just take it in turn and make sure somebody gets away when they need.

What do you get out of events like this?

I mean, we're focusing on the curling, but I suppose it's just a good social gathering, isn't it?

And for people to get off farm.

What do you get out of it?

It's a good thing to look forward to, especially in January.

Like it can be quite a long month for people and to know that you get into the new year and, you know, keep going, keep going.

It's a bit of a bleak month.

The weather's not great and to be tucked away in an ice rink is not a bad thing, eh?

Are you fairly on it when it comes to things like your well being?

Yeah, I think I was curling full time for a wee while, so I think that can teach you resilience in ways that you don't really know.

You need to be doing things for my mental health, like Going to the gym, running.

I think being outside all the time with my job definitely helps.

And I'm not always alone because I work alongside my boss, so I think that helps.

I think a lot of farmers struggle with isolation, so something like this is really, really good for people like that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

No problem.

I'm Ross Mitchell.

I farm at Castleton Farm, Lorne Skirk.

I've culled here at the point was the Yarra, now the Chuck Hay for the last 20 years.

And I probably wouldn't miss it for the world.

It's one of the social highlights in the calendar.

It's such a social event.

We meet people from all over the country.

We stay down for the full duration.

I'm thinking of the time of year, you know, January, January Blues.

Last week it was Blue Monday or whatever they want to call it.

I mean, you know, this time of year, it's a tough month to get through.

Do you think something like this really helps people?

Yeah, I think, as I said, very still short days and all the work is still to be done, you know, what's ahead of us as far as that's concerned.

But it's a month that, as I said, most farms are generally quieter and if you can't just take that time out this time of year, then as I said, I think it can be a long, long slog.

So that's why, as I said, it's just, it's in the diary every year that we just take the week and we're here.

I find a lot of importance on, as you said, my own well being and taking time either away with the family or social events like this is critical.

We all, every farmer up and down the country works so hard and puts in the hours when they need to.

So if they can't take a little bit of time for themselves or for the family, then there's something far wrong.

Okay, so any little tips for non curlers listening?

Try it, get out in the ice and try it.

As I said, it is a social, social sport.

So I would say for anybody, just get out and try curling.

And there's lots of try curling sessions up and down the country on ice rinks, you know, everywhere.

So.

Really, have you ever tried it?

I have done curling and I quite.

Actually, it's quite cool.

I quite like it.

It's just nice, good fun.

Apart from the cold.

Yeah, two hours have been the cold, but you can cope with that, Cope with that.

So dress appropriately.

Thank you very much.

No problem.

Super.

I am Alan Wood and how I got in involved and this was I ran the Yarra for 40 years and I was kindly asked by David and Sandy and Stuart to get involved in that because my involvement with the farmers was second to none.

So you were basically the party planner.

Cross the I's and dot the T's.

The Yara competitions.

It was 64 teams, then it went to 80 team and then when we started this there was only one person's name it could be and that was Chuck Hay because he was the instrumental of the of the Yara all these years ago as well.

So that's how the name Chuck Hay.

Well, that's been a nice change.

We've been out and about on the road for Blether Together.

Thank you very much for joining us.

A huge thank you of course to Dave and Sandy Hay and to everyone who's spoken to us on and around the ice today.

I really hope this episode of Blether Together from Farmstrong Scotland has entertained and maybe provided some inspiration for supporting your own well being.

Find Farm Strong Scotland online, farmstrongscotland.org UK or find us and connect on social media.

See you next time.