JOHN Parker chugged to a halt and pulled on the handbrake. His modern-day tractor just wouldn't fit under the small arch that led into the picturesque yard of the 800-year-old Fife farm he had just bought.

It was a frustrating moment for the new owner. . . but also a seminal one.

For as he trundled away, contemplating the construction of a new set of buildings, a small seed had been sown in the Scottish soil behind him.

Today, 17 years on, it has grown into a blossoming green holiday business, with the old yard’s stone buildings converted into comfortable homes around the setting of a beautiful garden planted where once horses clopped and ancient ploughs rumbled.

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Now it’s a place of tranquillity where everyone sits out chatting, reading their papers or just simply soaking up the sunshine.

Did I really mention sunshine and Scotland within a paragraph of each other? Yes I can't believe it either, having spent many late summer holidays on the west coast of the country huddled in a kagool peering up despairingly at leaden skies.

But this is the Kingdom of Fife on the east coast - a region saddled between the wide waters of the Firths of Forth and Tay which, according to John, have the meteorological habit of pulling apart incoming western cloud formations, leaving a window of mild and very often sunny weather throughout the summer. Right over John's 150-acre farm.

If the old yard is the centre of his flowering holiday business - called Morton of Pitmilly after the farm's old local name - then its petals are the environmental projects taking place around it.

They involve the planting of 27 acres of woodland complete with walks and plans for a group of new geo-thermally heated holiday homes expanding the green feel to the place.

John, 58, knows he is onto a winner. Like many crop farmers, he was pushed to the brink of extinction in the Nineties. “Things were very difficult. But when we took over here we thought about what could we do with these farm buildings – and the holidays idea really appealed.

We also wanted the business to be green and to use the natural resources that existed here. In the past four or five years we’ve also planted 10,000 new trees which have the effect of making us carbon neutral.”

Global warming and the carbon footprint debate has only served to eco-fuel the success of Morton.

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