Summer Solstice, Royal Highland Show and Composting

Scotland Outdoors

BBC

Nature, Society & Culture, Science

4.7 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2025

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mark and Helen visit Ingliston for this year’s Royal Highland Show. They meet a nurse with her prize winning Highland cow and They also explore the history of the Highland pony, and its enduring connection to Scotland’s rural heritage.

A festival devoted entirely to composting is taking place in Fife. Rachel visits Cambo Gardens to discover what it's all about, with head gardener Callum Halstead as her guide.

Mark and Rachel will be speaking to author Keli Tomlin about the significance of the summer solstice which marks the longest day and shortest night of the year.

In Perthshire, Rachel meets scientist Dr Marion Bruce to learn about an exciting new project: The Wild Scottish Flavour Wheel. From seaweed to sticky willy, it’s a guide to the diverse—and often surprising—tastes found in Scotland’s wild landscape.

Mark chats with Jim Wilson from Soil Essentials about how autonomous tractors are helping to ease the workload for farmers and transform the future of agriculture.

Whatever the weather, a group of over-50s in West Lothian meets each week to take part in a variety of activities organised by the Xcite Ageing Well programme. This week, Rachel joins the Linlithgow walking group—some of whom have been coming for years—to find out what keeps them coming back.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What is love?
0:03.0	Is it chemistry, fate or a disaster waiting to happen?
0:07.0	Sometimes you mistake other things for love.
0:10.0	Join me, Ryland, on my new podcast as I ask experts and a few familiar faces what love really means.
0:16.3	Because it turns out it's a bit more complicated than happily ever after.
0:20.7	You should think of it as the daily commitment you make to someone that you care about.
0:25.3	Ryland, how to be in love. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.7	This Scotland Outdoors podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.
0:40.0	Hello and thanks very much for choosing to listen to this.
0:42.8	As you know, we do a couple of Scotland outdoors podcasts every week,
0:46.5	one of which is built from the live programme we do for BBC Radio Scotland,
0:50.6	which is called Out of Doors.
0:52.0	And this week we're tickling your taste buds.
0:55.7	Out of Doors with Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart from BBC Radio Scotland.
1:05.3	I woke up this morning to a silent world as if the world had been wrapped in cotton wool.
1:11.3	That's odd.
1:12.3	There was no sound of a bird song or anything else of the kind.
1:14.6	Yesterday, I think it topped out at 27, 28 degrees with us.
1:19.1	This morning, heavy, heavy mist.
1:22.1	Absolutely sucked in 10-10th clag.
1:24.8	That's why the birds weren't singing.
1:26.6	Good morning.
	...

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