Jonathan: D and I were away from home this morning – together for once, and not just to cleaning at our holiday lets either! No, much further afield – to Lochmaddy in North Uist, in fact.  Seven hogget lambs to bring home from the abattoir.  ‘A bit on the lean side’ he said, meaning that they weren’t particular big and there was very little fat on them.  The mainstream market for lamb is leaner than it would have been in the past, but all meats are expected to show a significant proportion of fat.  Hebrideans are a niche market (along with the likes of North Ronaldsay) with a reputation for darker, fuller-flavoured meat, very lean and such fat as there is being low in cholestorol.  And that seems to be exactly what we’ve got! The seven wedders have come back with an average butchered weight of 9kg: they were 15 months old.  Last time (October 2010), five wedders were 15kg average weight at 19 months. The difference? Their last four months were spent grazing down the verdent grasses and wild flowers of later summer early autumn, not requiring much effort, so much of the additional 6kg was fat – and very obvious it was too. By contrast, this year’s wedders have ‘finished’ on coarser upland vegetation that takes some getting – and that’s where the lean-ness and flavour comes from.  Once out of the cold store and into the back of the car, the aircon was turned up to max (or is that min?) and we set off briskly for home before we caught a cold! This afternoon we’ve sorted and packed the meat as leg, leg shank, shoulder, shoulder-shank, chops, loin chops, scrag end (really a lot better than it sounds!), kidneys, … dog food … and bagged and frozen the meat, with a number of roasting joints set aside fresh – for those who have placed advance orders.