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I was in Dornoch recently when it rained in a torrential fashion, so I popped into the Grocery shop for shelter and an instant ‘eat it now’ apple pie laden with sugary additives and a reflective sparkly glaze. Not as healthy as a non-reflective apple, I know, but quite delicious all the same.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, a lady sporting a ‘Fat Face’ bag screeched "global warming!" in my ear. A bit of a shock, that, and not really the sort of behaviour you expect in Dornoch, is it? Most disconcerting.

Now on this global warming theme I must mention something unusual that happened recently just across the firth and around the bend from Dornoch in the eastern seaboard villages. It never rains in the eastern seaboard villages between 4.21 and 4.59 on a Thursday afternoon, you know, which is when I’m often to be found at Janet’s place.

In all the years that I’ve tended to her blooms and quenched my thirst with her horticultural cordials not a single drop of water has fallen from the sky between these times, then suddenly, just the other week, it rained! How extraordinary is that, eh? A meteorological stumper.

I discussed the situation with Janet over a blueberry muffin and a lightly chilled cordial next to the bushy fig tree under the rambling roses beside the tousled lavender beds during a brief respite in low flying jet activity as the RAF took a well deserved break from bombing Tain and surrounding districts (practice bombs only, of course, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with this particular Easter Ross peculiarity).

"Global warming is responsible, Janet," I said. "What do you think?" She pondered for a moment and then in true Gilbert and Sullivan fashion (for she is a bit of a Gilbert and Sullivan buff) trilled "Aye, aye, aye, have another muffin, man, muffin, man, muffin, man, oooh, aaah, have another muffin, man, muffin, man."

Of course I hesitated at this suggestion - tasty though her muffins are - as they leave a hole the size of a golf ball in the ozone layer. It’s a consequential thing, you know, I eat them and she bakes more, only it’s the way that she bakes them that causes the trouble, all that operatic Gilbert and Sullivan singing in the kitchen unsettles the cows next door which leads to an unnecessary over-production of methane gas and consequentially more ozone damage, not to mention the effects of two tasty muffins on my digestive system which further compounds the ecological situation.

Who would have thought that a tasty Highland muffin baked by an operatic Gilbert and Sullivan devotee could have such a profound effect on the planet, eh? Extraordinary.

Given all that, however, I had another one anyway, a temporary loss of self control on my part and yet another gaping hole soon to appear above the eastern seaboard villages to complement the other gaping holes caused by low flying jet activity. Of course if a muffin ‘a la Janet’ produces a hole the size of a golf ball, then how many muffin equivalents does a jet produce? Should we consider measuring ozone damage in ‘muffin units’, I wonder? It’s certainly worth thinking about.

Now back to that Dornoch Grocery shop incident. As well as a reflective apple pie I bought a  local pasty in preference to a seven hundred and forty mile well-travelled Cornish one (tasty though a Cornish one is) to reduce my ‘muffin footprint’, counter global warming and ensure less chance of it raining again on a Thursday afternoon between 4.21 and 4.59 at Janet’s place.

We should be doing more of this ‘pasty offset’ sort of thing, don’t you think, and apart from the occasional loss of self-control on my part when it comes to Janet’s muffins I’m certainly doing my bit for the environment, that’s for sure.

Copyright Patrick Vickery

(Published in the Ross-shire Journal  14/9/2007)

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