The July holiday period usually coincides with a slight easing of my farming workload.

Through the spring, from the onset of lambing, followed by routine sheep tasks and the time devoted towards contracting duties, this is now the time of year when I seem to finally have time to draw breath.

And it frees up a few hours for some of the less stressful jobs, such as topping grass, weighing cattle, and spraying a few weedy pastures for thistles and general grassland weeds.

In the past couple of weeks, I sold a few beef cattle, shifted a couple of batches and took the opportunity to run one lot over the weighbridge.

Looking back over those few days, I am acutely aware that the full range of farming emotions has been fully exposed, as the intensely stressful low point of trying to single-handedly sort and load reluctant animals for sale, gave way to the relative euphoria of strong liveweight gains since turnout.

Four steers looked heavy enough and well covered so I decided to let them go.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a distinct lack of available lorries heading my direction that week, so I decided to haul them myself.

To anyone who works with cattle and has plenty of help, this might seem like a fairly enjoyable and straightforward situation. The prospect of delivering a few good shapely animals through the factory gates is, after all, just the bread and butter of a beef finisher’s life. But I am a one-man show, and from the minute it was arranged to leave these cattle into the factory lairage (between 8pm and 10pm) my anxiety levels began to rise.

It starts about a day beforehand, when all sorts of terrible scenarios are played out in my imagination. What if the nervous bullock won’t come out of the field? What about the quiet black bullock that can’t be bothered walking onto the trailer, and just stubbornly refuses to budge? And what if a trailer wheel bursts as I’m driving up the motorway?

These dark thoughts pale into insignificance compared with the stress after arriving at an unfamiliar abattoir, where I don’t know the people, the layout, the penning system, or anything else for that matter.

The genuine feeling of relief after managing to negotiate all these hurdles is palpable.

As you bomb back down the M1 with an empty trailer, the overall sense of wellbeing is akin to winning the lottery.

I suspect it’s not just me who hates going to new and unusual places.

I mentioned this horrible level of stress to two neighbours over the following days, and both seemed delighted that they weren’t alone in harbouring those sort of feelings.

In complete contrast to the emotions of that black Monday, I got my weights and grades the next day and not only were the bullocks heavy but three of them graded U+, and the fourth was U=.

A few days after that, I weighed the remainder from that batch, and was pleasantly surprised to find they’d averaged 1.2kg per day since turnout. After letting them out of the yard after weighing, they then proceeded to follow me across three fields before wandering into a lovely field of lush after-grass.

The contrast between the peaceful, relaxed feeling of shifting quiet animals, and the nervous tension of delivering those same cattle to their slaughter destination could not be starker.

I’ll assume that non user-friendly places aren’t going to amend their routines anytime soon, so I guess I’ll go back to arranging for my cattle to go away on a lorry.

That way, someone who’s completely familiar and at ease with the delivery of livestock can absorb the pressure, and I’ll happily pay them whatever they need to get.

Anything would be cheap compared with stratospheric stress levels.