Anyone who is a keen gardener will understand this column. Others will shrink in horror and wrinkle their noses, members of my own family among them.

The truth is, if you are a gardener, the hint that you might acquire quantities of free well ripenened horse manure is enough to send you into a state of something like ecstasy.

One whiff, so to speak, of the possibility of lovely bags of goodness being lined up at the back of the vegetable garden and it's gloves, bag and fork at the ready and off you go.

And so it was on Sunday, as I dragooned my son-in-law into action and off we went into the bright frosty day for an entirely satisfying trip onto the moors where a kindly colleague allowed me to attack what has to be called the El Dorado of manure heaps .

We were somewhat hampered by having to take the grandchildren with us who, true to family tradition, were not best pleased to be dragged away from a Simpsons video to indulge in a dung collection run. But you can do a lot with bribery, and ice-creams all round did the trick.

We had hoped to hide the fact that little grandson had, during the course of the trip, fallen face downwards in a small lake of liquid, the contents of which were best not examined.

We were, however, shopped by the granddaughter who embroidered the tale somewhat when she told her mother. Nevertheless it was a highly satisfying expedition and one which will benefit the garden for many a month.

Both my daughters consider manure to be a dirty word. This stems from when they were younger and easily embarrassed and I occasionally used to collect bags of horse manure if we went onto the moors.

Alright, I always used to collect bags of horse manure when we went on the moors and after a time they used to flatly refuse to come out with us in case their friends saw me.

In fact I can still terrorise both of them if we go out for lunch into the country by saying casually 'look at those lovely ponies over there, why don't we stop and go for a little walk?'. Sometimes I don't have to say anything, just waving an empty carrier bag will do.

I used to explain to them that when I was little it was considered a talent to be first out with a bucket and shovel every time a horse went by, but they weren't convinced. They prefer to buy their plant food in little bottles, with no aroma to speak of.

They are not alone, of course, because there seem to be an awful lot of people living in the country who really ought to be living in nice safe suburbia where there is no likelihood of anything four legged dropping anything steamy and extremely nutritious on the roads.

There are even some people who should never be allowed to set foot into the country at all, simply because as soon as they arrive they set a about trying to change it into something just a little more tidy, manageable and above all socially acceptable.

I have over the years done many stories about people who have moved into delightful country cottages surrounded by fields and then immediately set about finding things to complain about. Mud on the roads. Cow dung in the gateways. Noisy bulls. Cockerels crowing.

However sympathetic one is about these problems it is hard not to point out that most of the countryside consists of mud, farms have animals which make a noise and animals are not necessarily as toilet trained as the complainant's toy poodle.

So why move to the country in the first place? If you don't like the sound of traffic you would hardly move to a house overlooking the M4 would you? Nor set about trying to get the motorway re-routed if you did.

Take tractors. All of us get thoroughly annoyed by being held up by some noxious dung spreader trundling along at ten miles and hour and refusing to pull over. It's part of country life which we reluctantly accept with a smile, a wave and a curse (and the hope that the driver can lip read) as we eventually get past.

I have, however, heard people seriously suggest that tractors should only be allowed on the roads at certain times. And banned on a Sunday. How daft can you get?

One day I'm going to write a small guide book for those who move here and have a penchant for complaining. I will point out that tractors, mud, farm animals and accompanying animal noises, are part of the country way.

I might add that seagulls are a part of an area where the sea meets the country and that anyone who complains too much about them should go and live in an inner city for a few weeks where the noises outside their window are going to be infinitely more scary than a few birds.

I might also mention that if you have a prize bitch it will be up to you to keep her under lock and key at certain times of the year because farm dogs have built-in radar (and the built-in equipment to act on it) which spans 30 square miles and are no respecters of pedigrees. But that's another story.