Seeing the abundance of crops in Jock Tamson’s Gairden at the moment brings back a happy childhood memory for one of our trustees:

When I was a wee boy my mother used to give us (me, sister & brother) a big basket of peas to shell and a bowl for the pods and one for the peas and we would sit  on the kitchen doorstep in the morning sun. 

My mother told us that while we were shelling peas we had to keep whistling, no matter what, because it bought good luck. 

So we would go out and think it was hilarious and we would happily shell peas and whistle and giggle and if we stopped whistling my mother would shout “ don’t stop the lovely whistling” so we whistle and giggled some more and had lots of yummy fresh peas at lunchtime. 

It was years before I realised that you can’t whistle and eat peas at the same time. 🙂

Editors note: This is also the reason why on sailing ships in days of yore the cook was the only one allowed to whistle!