The Scottish holiday cottage where you can pretend you’re a farmer

A trip to the hairdresser normally involves nothing more strenuous than leafing through a glossy magazine. However, I find myself in a scene reminiscent of a Greco-Roman wrestling bout. Luckily for me I am not the one having the short back and sides.

I have come to Kirkwood Farm, a 650-acre working farm near Lockerbie, where guests can book a range of fun farm activities from quad biking and fishing to off-roading and tractor driving. Also available, sadly for my hirsute client: sheep shearing.

“Sorry,” I mutter, as I grasp the one-year-old ewe’s head tightly between my thighs. Ignominiously upended, she has one leg daintily tucked behind my knee. I don’t know who is more terrified, me or the ewe. I inhale deeply, then make my first faltering pass.

It is as if I have been blindfolded. As my hand violently shakes from the clippers’ vibrations, and the razor-sharp blades sink into the dense candy-floss-like fleece, I have no idea what the ewe’s anatomy looks like underneath the wool. Unable to gauge where the tips of the blades are, or the correct force needed, I feel one slip away from a (literally) bloody disaster.

Otter Cottage is one of eight places to stay on the farm

With a huge sense of relief, I throw in the towel: I am no Vidal Sassoon of the sheep world, nor a contender for winning the Golden Shears at the Highland Show. I let my partner take over, expecting him to ace it, but to my surprise, he is just as useless as I am. Thankfully the professional, Luke Hutchinson, finishes the job and allows the poor bald sheep to rejoin her flock. I don’t think she will return for another haircut any time soon.

Next morning, after a night in cosy Otter Cottage, one of eight on the farm sleeping from three to ten (with home-baked cookies waiting in a jar), my partner and I are up with the lark to collect eggs at the hen house, before meeting the lambs and baby chicks. Then it’s time for day two’s treat: tractor driving.

You can feed the chickens and collect eggs …

HELEN BARRINGTON

… or drive a vintage Massey Ferguson like Cat Thomson

CAT THOMSON

We are met again by Hutchinson — he assures me the ewe has almost recovered — who patiently shows us how to drive the Landini 95 horsepower tractor. I successfully lift a tyre with the tractor’s metal jaws, transporting it carefully across a field and then popping it on the back of a trailer at a snail’s pace. I punch the air in relief and delight: sheep shearing had its moments, but tractor driving is more my speed. As a reward, Hutchinson lets me drive a bright red 1962 Massey Ferguson 35. After years of enduring mother and toddler singing groups, I can now say just how much fun bumping up and down on a big red tractor is.

• A photography course made easy by beautiful Easdale Island

After all that high-octane activity, we slow things down with a one-horsepower pony and trap ride along the tree-lined lanes back to our cottage for lunch. Taking it all in his stride is Applejack, a 13-year-old Welsh cross stallion, a handsome fellow who whinnies and ruffles his luscious shampoo advert-worthy mane as we pass a good-looking mare in a field.

Quad biking came with great views

That afternoon we mount quad bikes (great fun, once you get the hang of the thumb-operated throttle) for a tour of the estate with its fifth-generation owner, Anthony Steel. We check on the pigs, newborn cattle and grazing ewes, then head down along the picturesque River Annan and back up for views of the Annandale Valley.

Steel explains that the farm sells meat directly to customers, including a dozen of the UK’s best Michelin-starred restaurants, from Cail Bruich in Glasgow to Fhior and Condita in Edinburgh. The farm has 500 ewes, a three-way crossbreed between Suffolk, Texel and Cambridge, bred specifically for taste and texture. The grass-fed lambs mature for 14 months to intensify the flavour.

“Technically, they call it hogget,” Steel says. “But that’s such a horrible name. So I came up with Shh’annu — it’s got a bit of mystique.” Sadly Steel’s Shh’annu lamb isn’t ready to try while I’m here, but will be available for guests to pre-order by the time you read this. Steel’s next plan is “Lamb’sagna” ready meals for high-end farm shops.

It is a fascinating end to a brilliantly off-beat and enjoyable stay. Normally I dread going to the hairdresser for a trim, but I can’t wait for my next appointment — because now I have the perfect answer to the usual question, “Have you been anywhere nice on your holidays?”

Cat Thomson was a guest at Kirkwood Farm (kirkwood-lockerbie.co.uk). Three nights’ self-catering costs from £491 (sleeps three). Sheep shearing costs £30pp