The other day somebody accused me of keeping a bit quiet about getting the harvest finished.

But while there were no fireworks, no bonfires lit, no flags waved nor parties thrown - there was a palpable degree of relief when we finally finished cutting the last of the grain for the 2016 harvest.

For, despite the fact that the combine is back in the shed a good few weeks earlier than last year, this year’s campaign seemed to be a bit of a long and drawn-out affair. And while the yields off the lighter, early sown land werea bit disappointing, the overall harvest probably fell into the “average” bracket with some of the later crops performing a deal better.

However, there’s no denying the combine did seem to have to travel a bit further to fill the trailers than it had to do over the two bumper harvests which preceded it. The amount of straw coming off also gave the impression of being well back – although again that might just have been in comparison with the big bulk we’ve had in recent years.

By all accounts, though, performance seems to have been a bit mixed across the country, with some areas suffering pretty poor yields while others have fared reasonably well. A major on-line survey found that, across the UK, barely yields were back 18.6 per cent on the year, oilseed rape yields had dropped by 20.9 per cent and wheat was back around 14.7 per cent.

All sounds a bit drastic – and probably shows that what we hoped was a yield plateaux-busting step-change over the past couple of years might actually have been more dependent on the weather than we would have liked.

From the logistic point of view, though, there might have been some problems if the yields of 2014 and 2015 had been repeated.

The malting barley seemed to move swiftly enough, however - and I don’t know if it’s just us -but there seems to be a real reluctance amongst the distillers to take delivery of wheat, with “technical problems”, closures and delayed openings blighting the life of anyone who had wanted to get even early-booked wheat shipped off the farm.

And there does seem to be a general feeling that this reluctance is, at least in part, due to a world-wide hiccup in the recent meteoric rise in sales which the whisky trade seems to be very keen to keep quiet about.

On the political front, too, there are more than a few things being kept quiet about.

While the move to give us all what amounts to a pay-day loan until our support payments get sorted out has to be welcomed, it must be a pretty sure sign that things are not yet well with the Scottish Government’s computer system.

So I was a wee bit surprised when rural economy secretary, Fergus Ewing, stated that he felt any further investigations into the catastrophic fiasco which appears to have surrounded the commissioning and then delivery of the £178 million IT system to handle the new payments wouldn’t benefit from any further investigations.

But the UK Government, too, seems to be keen to keep things under the covers as much as they possibly can.

While the Treasury’s promise that it would stand by EU payments until 2020 also sounded good – the fact that Brexit talks haven’t started yet, and are likely to last two years, means it’s not much of an undertaking. Especially now that it’s been pretty much admitted that 2020 actually means the 2019 scheme for payment delivery in 2020.

More worryingly, though, is just how quiet they’ve kept on their plans for sharing farm support cash out post-Brexit.

Now I doubt if anyone will be surprised if the amount of cash coming to the farming sector takes a nose-dive once we’ve left the EU – but there also seems to be great uncertainty over how much of this reduced pot will come to Scotland.

At the moment we get around 16 per cent of the UK’s overall farm budget but under the more general block grant - calculated through the Barnett formula - which arrives at Scotland’s share of public spending the country gets ten per cent.

And while Fergus Ewing was accused earlier this week of throwing stones while living in glass houses after he demanded some indication of what the UK Government planned for the future farm support, I found that, on this occasion, I did have some sympathy for this plight - as it kinda helps to know what your budget is going to be before you draw up plans.

Another area where big changes have have been kept a bit quiet has been the mega-buck world of agrochemical manufacture take-overs.

Earlier in the year Dow and Du Pont amalgamated; the China National Chemical Corporation is waiting on EU clearance to push ahead with its plans to snap up Syngenta and, unless the regulators step in, Bayer looks set to buy up Monsanto.

Now, things in the crop spray sector have been difficult enough with over-regulation seeing many well-proven chemicals being taken off the market – and few new ones coming on – without handing market control over to looks pretty close to becoming a monopoly situation.

But, back at the harvest, - and lest I be accused of keeping things quiet again - I’d have to admit that the relief of getting it finished before this week’s equinoctial gales set in was added to by the fact that a trip “Down Under” beckons - to see two of the family currently living in Australia.

However, while thoughts of big hats and lots of sun-cream, washed down with lashings of cold lager were springing to mind, a phone call from my son pricked this bubble:

“Wettest September on record” he informed me - and, with the grain harvest starting to get underway and many fields lying flooded, he hinted that somebody with plenty of experience of wet harvests could easily get a job.

Maybe I’ll just keep quiet about that…