Nick Drainey's Extra Mile

YOU may think farm shops are more the territory of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his friends than part of the armoury of activities to keep young ones occupied during the summer holidays, but you would be wrong.

When it comes to combining shopping with the aah! factor, Pardovan Farm Shop definitely has the edge. Ian and Wilma Johnston's store in the West Lothian countryside, crammed full of local and own-farm products including meat, fruit and veg, is one of many such shops which have sprung up all over the country as more of us take an interest in where our food comes from and how it was reared or grown.

But it's not Ian and Wilma who make the difference at Pardovan - it's Morag, Peggy, Molly and Maisie.

They're not the staff, they're the animals in the grassy enclosures surrounding the farm shop. The star turn is Peggy, the large tan-coloured Tamworth pig, who will haul herself out of her sty and come and sit, like a begging dog, at the fence at the offer of a carrot. Raised and bottle-fed with a lamb, she's certainly not shy of people.

Morag, the Highland cow, is also partial to carrots, and while Molly and Maisie, Holstein calves born last month, aren't yet friendly enough to come bounding up to the gate, but they're still pretty cute at a distance. Lucy the lamb is currently at the family's farm in Glenrig, Falkirk, having had lambs of her own, but may well be back at a future date.

And if you can't wait to get home to try the farm shop's food and you can't tear yourself away from Peggy's snuffling, there are even a couple of picnic tables with a sty, as well as countryside, views.

Pardovan Farm Shop is at Comely Park, Pardovan, near Linlithgow. (Turn off the A904, just west of House of the Binns.)
Tel: [phone]. It is open Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm (closed Mondays).