Family: Rural ideal

With my nieces, Brogan, 11, and Stacey, 16, my wife and I had just left the main building of the National Museum of Rural Life. After feeling a touch of sadness for the vast array of tractors and farming machinery from the last 100 years locked up inside, we were ready to see some life.

Run today as it would have been in the 1950s, the farm offers a rare and fascinating glimpse into the Scottish farming methods of 60 years ago. We could have taken the short walk from the main entrance building and cafeteria, but it was much more fun in the bouncy trailer we shared with others visiting the farm (inset).

A guide welcomed us into the farmyard, and with bags of enthusiasm and lots of time for the younger children's questions, she showed us around and introduced us to all the animals.

First we visited the huge Tamworth pigs, keeping out of the sunshine in their sty. Then we moved on to coo over a couple of young lambs, which hid behind their mother's legs, wagging their tails nervously, as the girls crept closer to take a photograph.

One had a splint on its leg, which our guide assured an anxious Brogan, was on the mend.

Next door the dairy cows were arriving for milking. We hurried in for a front-row seat as the enormous Ayrshire cows were jostled into position by the farmer, Maggie.

Just then a loud banging came from outside in the farmyard. "Looks like Mairi wants her lunch," laughed Maggie, and we followed her out into the sunlight to find a hungry Clydesdale horse peering over her stable door. She soon calmed down when given her bucket of food.

With the girls' stomachs now rumbling too, we moved on to the Georgian farm house, which is as it was when the Reid family, who farmed here for 400 years, left the building to the National Museums Scotland. I particularly liked the timeline of the Royal family alongside that of the farm and the Reid family.

The girls, however, were keen to get back to the present and so had a farewell tour of the animals, including a bedside checkup on the recuperating lamb, before catching a ride back to the cafeteria for a feed of our own.

National Museum of Rural Life, Philipshill Road, East Kilbride, is a little over an hour from Edinburgh and 25 minutes from Glasgow city centre. Adults, 6.00; concessions, 5.00; under 12s free. Visit www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/museum_of_rural_life.aspx

This article was first published in The Scotsman, Saturday August 14, 2010