It’s lunchtime at the Royal Welsh Show, where I’ve been accompanying Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead for his meeting with Commissioner Ciolos and associated visit to the show. It’s so hot and sunny that I’ve actually sought out some shade under a tree to sit and write this.

Some impressions from the show and from various meetings and speeches:

- a Young Farmers Club representative talking about the predicted global population rise to 9 billion, not as something futuristic but, for someone her age, as a likely fact of her adult lifetime.

- the Commissioner saying, in relation to agriculture policy, that “the power of politicians, in Brussels or anywhere else, is nothing without the confidence of farmers”. And he finished his speech with a few words in Welsh.

- the Show President catching the mood of the moment by comparing winning a livestock class here to winning a medal at the Olympics.

- the Welsh First Minister praising the role of the Show in bringing urban and rural people together.

- lots of talk about supply chains, both for meat and milk. For me a lasting memory will be of a teenager with a rugby ball under his arm, swigging from a 2 pint bottle of milk.

- and just before we left, a great Spitfire fly-past.

This will be the last blog entry for a little while. Brussels is taking its summer break, as is Holyrood. I’ll be back with more blogs in August.

David